No More Learning

The diction, being the vehicle of the thoughts, first presents itself to
the intellectual eye; and, if the first appearance offends, a further
knowledge is not often sought. Whatever professes to benefit by
pleasing, must please at once. The pleasures of the mind imply something
sudden and unexpected; that which elevates must always surprise. What
is perceived by slow degrees may gratify us with the consciousness of
improvement, but will never strike with the sense of pleasure.

Of all this, Cowley appears to have been without knowledge, or without
care. He makes no selection of words, nor seeks any neatness of phrase:
he has no elegancies, either lucky or elaborate: as his endeavours were
rather to impress sentences upon the understanding than images on
the fancy, he has few epithets, and those scattered without peculiar
propriety or nice adaptation. It seems to follow from the necessity of
the subject, rather than the care of the writer, that the diction of his
heroick poem is less familiar than that of his slightest writings. He
has given not the same numbers, but the same diction, to the gentle
Anacreon and the tempestuous Pindar.

His versification seems to have had very little of his care; and, if
what he thinks be true, that his numbers are unmusical only when they
are ill read, the art of reading them is at present lost; for they are
commonly harsh to modern ears. He has, indeed, many noble lines, such as
the feeble care of Waller never could produce. The bulk of his thoughts
sometimes swelled his verse to unexpected and inevitable grandeur; but
his excellence of this kind is merely fortuitous: he sinks willingly
down to his general carelessness, and avoids, with very little care,
either meanness or asperity.

His contractions are often rugged and harsh:

One flings a mountain, and its rivers too
Torn up with 't.

His rhymes are very often made by pronouns, or particles, or the like
unimportant words, which disappoint the ear, and destroy the energy of
the line.

His combination of different measures is, sometimes, dissonant and
unpleasing; he joins verses together, of which the former does not slide
easily into the latter.

The words _do_ and _did_, which so much degrade, in present estimation,
the line that admits them, were, in the time of Cowley, little censured
or avoided; how often he used them, and with how bad an effect, at least
to our ears, will appear by a passage, in which every reader will lament
to see just and noble thoughts defrauded of their praise by inelegance
of language:

Where honour or where conscience _does_ not bind,
No other law shall shackle me;
Slave to myself I ne'er will be;
Nor shall my future actions be confin'd
By my own present mind.

Who by resolves and vows engag'd _does_ stand
For days, that yet belong to fate,
_Does_, like an unthrift, mortgage his estate,
Before it falls into his hand;
The bondman of the cloister so,
All that he _does_ receive _does_ always owe:
And still, as time comes in, it goes away,
Not to enjoy, but debts to pay!
Unhappy slave, and pupil to a bell,
Which his hour's work, as well as hours, _does_ tell!
Unhappy till the last, the kind releasing knell.

His heroick lines are often formed of monosyllables; but yet they are
sometimes sweet and sonorous.

He says of the Messiah:

Round the whole earth his dreaded name shall sound,
_And reach to worlds that must not yet be found_.

In another place, of David:

Yet bid him go securely, when he sends;
_'Tis Saul that is his foe, and we his friends.
The man who has his God, no aid can lack;
And we who bid him go, will bring him back. _

Yet, amidst his negligence, he sometimes attempted an improved and
scientifick versification; of which it will be best to give his own
account subjoined to this line:

Nor can the glory contain itself in th' endless space.

"I am sorry that it is necessary to admonish the most part of readers,
that it is not by negligence that this verse is so loose, long, and,
as it were, vast; it is to paint in the number the nature of the thing
which it describes, which I would have observed in divers other places
of this poem, that else will pass for very careless verses: as before,

And overruns the neighb'ring fields with violent course.

"In the second book,

Down a precipice deep, down he casts them all.

"And,

And fell a-down his shoulders with loose care

"In the third,

Brass was his helmet, his boots brass, and o'er
His breast a thick plate of strong brass he wore.

"In the fourth,

Like some fair pine o'erlooking all th' ignobler wood.

"And,

Some from the rocks cast themselves down headlong.

"And many more: but it is enough to instance in a few. The thing is,
that the disposition of words and numbers should be such, as that,
out of the order and sound of them, the things themselves may be
represented. This the Greeks were not so accurate as to bind themselves
to; neither have our English poets observed it, for aught I can find.
The Latins (qui musas colunt severiores) sometimes did it; and their
prince, Virgil, always, in whom the examples are innumerable, and taken
notice of by all judicious men, so that it is superfluous to collect
them. "

I know not whether he has, in many of these instances, attained the
representation or resemblance that he purposes. Verse can imitate only
sound and motion. A _boundless_ verse, a _headlong_ verse, and a verse
of _brass_, or of _strong brass_, seem to comprise very incongruous
and unsociable ideas. What there is peculiar in the sound of the line
expressing _loose care_, I cannot discover; nor why the _pine_ is
_taller_ in an alexandrine than in ten syllables.

But, not to defraud him of his due praise, he has given one example of
representative versification, which, perhaps, no other English line can
equal:

Begin, be bold, and venture to be wise:
He, who defers this work from day to day,
Does on a river's bank expecting stay
Till the whole stream that stopp'd him shall be gone,
_Which runs, and, as it runs, for ever shall run on_.

Cowley was, I believe, the first poet that mingled alexandrines, at
pleasure, with the common heroick of ten syllables; and from him Dryden
borrowed the practice, whether ornamental or licentious. He considered
the verse of twelve syllables as elevated and majestick, and has,
therefore, deviated into that measure, when he supposes the voice heard
of the supreme being.

The author of the Davideis is commended by Dryden for having written it
in couplets, because he discovered that any staff was too lyrical for
an heroick poem; but this seems to have been known before by May and
Sandys, the translators of the Pharsalia and the Metamorphoses.

In the Davideis are some hemistichs, or verses left imperfect by the
author, in imitation of Virgil, whom he supposes not to have intended
to complete them: that this opinion is erroneous, may be probably
concluded, because this truncation is imitated by no subsequent Roman
poet; because Virgil himself filled up one broken line in the heat of
recitation; because in one the sense is now unfinished; and because all
that can be done by a broken verse, a line intersected by a _caesura_
and a full stop, will equally effect.

Of triplets, in his Davideis, he makes no use, and, perhaps, did not, at
first, think them allowable; but he appears afterwards to have changed
his mind, for, in the verses on the government of Cromwell, he inserts
them liberally with great happiness.

After so much criticism on his poems, the essays which accompany them
must not be forgotten. What is said by Sprat of his conversation, that
no man could draw from it any suspicion of his excellence in poetry, may
be applied to these compositions. No author ever kept his verse and his
prose at a greater distance from each other. His thoughts are natural,
and his style has a smooth and placid equability, which has never yet
obtained its due commendation. Nothing is far-sought, or hard-laboured;
but all is easy without feebleness, and familiar without grossness.

It has been observed by Felton, in his essay on the Classicks, that
Cowley was beloved by every muse that he courted; and that he has
rivalled the ancients in every kind of poetry but tragedy.

It may be affirmed, without any encomiastick fervour, that he brought to
his poetick labours a mind replete with learning, and that his pages are
embellished with all the ornaments which books could supply; that he was
the first who imparted to English numbers the enthusiasm of the greater
ode, and the gaiety of the less; that he was equally qualified for
sprightly sallies, and for lofty flights; that he was among those who
freed translation from servility, and, instead of following his author
at a distance, walked by his side; and that if he left versification
yet improvable, he left likewise, from time to time, such specimens of
excellence as enabled succeeding poets to improve it.

* * * * *

The insertion of Cowley's epitaph may be interesting to our readers.

Epitaphium
Autoris
In Ecclesia D. Petri apud Westmonasterienses
Sepulti.
Abrahamus Cowleius,
Anglorum Pindarus, Flaccus, Maro,
Deliciae, Decus, Desiderium, Aevi sui,
Hic juxta situs est.

Aurea dum volitant late tua scripta per orbem,
Et fama aeternum vivis, divine poeta,
Hic placida jaceas requie: custodiat urnam
Cana fides, vigilentque perenni lampade musae
Sit sacer iste locus; nee quis temerarius ausit
Sacrilega turbare manu venerabile bustum.
Intacti maneant; maneant per saecula dulces
Cowleii cineres, serventque immobile saxum.

Sic vovatque
Votumque suum apud posteros sacratum esse voluit
Qui viro incomparabili posult sepulchrale marmor,
Georgius Dux Buckinghamiae.
Excessit e vita Anno Aetatis suae 49? et honorifica pompa elatus
ex Aedibus
Buckinghamianis, viris illustribus omnium ordinum exequias
celebrantibus,
sepultus est die 3? M. Augusti, Anno Domini 1667.

[Footnote 6: This volume was not published before 1633, when Cowley was
fifteeyears old. Dr. Johnson, as well as former biographers, seems to
have been misled by the portrait of Cowley being, by mistake, marked with
the age of thirteen years. R. ]

[Footnote 7: He was a candidate this year at Westminster school for
election to Trinity college, but proved unsuccessful. ]

[Footnote 8: In the first edition of this life, Dr. Johnson wrote, "which
was never inserted in any collection of his works;" but he altered the
expression when the Lives were collected into volumes. The satire was
added to Cowley's works by the particular direction of Dr. Johnson. N. ]

[Footnote 9: Consulting the Virgilian lots, Sortes Virgilianae, is a
method of divination by the opening of Virgil, and applying to the
circumstances of the peruser the first passage in either of the two pages
that he accidentally fixes his eye on. It is said, that king Charles
the first, and lord Falkland, being in the Bodleian library, made this
experiment of their future fortunes, and met with passages equally
ominous to each.

That of the king was the following:

At bello audacis populi vexatus et armis,
Finibus extorris, complexu avulsus luli,
Auxilium imploret, videatque indigna suorum
Funera, nec, cum se sub leges pacis iniquae
Tradiderit, regno aut optata luce fruatur:
Sed cadat ante diem, mediaque inhumatus arena. Aeneid. iv. 615.

Yet let a race untam'd, and haughty foes,
His peaceful entrance with dire arms oppose,
Oppress'd with numbers in th' unequal field,
His men discourag'd and himself expell'd:
Let him for succour sue from place to place,
Torn from his subjects and his son's embrace.
First let him see his friends in battle slain,
And their untimely fate lament in vain:
And when, at length, the cruel war shall cease,
On hard conditions may he buy his peace;
Nor let him then enjoy supreme command.
But fall untimely by some hostile hand,
And lie unburied on the barren sand. DRYDEN.

Lord Falkland's:

Non haec, O Palla, dederas promissa parenti,
Cautius ut saevo velles te credere Marti.
Haud ignarus eram, quantum nova gloria in armis,
Et praedulce decus primo certamine posset.
Primitiae juvenis miserae, bellique propinqui
Dura rudimenta, et nulli exaudita deorum,
Vota precesque meae! Aeneid. xi. 152.

O Pallas, thou hast fail'd thy plighted word,
To fight with caution, not to tempt the sword;
I warn'd thee, but in vain, for well I knew
What perils youthful ardour would pursue,
That boiling blood would carry thee too far,
Young as thou wert to dangers, raw to war.
O curst essay of arms, disastrous doom,
Prelude of bloody fields and fights to come!
Hard elements of unauspicious war,
Vain vows to heaven, and unavailing care! DRYDEN

Hoffman, in his Lexicon, gives a very satisfactory account of this
practice of seeking fates in books: and says, that it was used by the
pagans, the jewish rabbins, and even the early Christians; the latter
taking the New Testament for their oracle. ]

[Footnote 10: Johnson has exhibited here us little feeling for the
neglected servant of the thankless house of Stewart, as he displayed in
the cold contempt of his sixth Rambler. An unmeaning compliment from a
worthless king was Cowley's only recompense for years of faithful and
painful services. A heart loyal and affectionate, like his, may well be
excused the utterance of its pains, when wounded by those for whom it
would so cheerfully have poured forth its blood. We repeat, that Cowley's
misfortune was his devotion to a family, who invariably forgot, in their
prosperity, those who had defended them in the day of adversity. ED. ]

[Footnote 11: See Campbell's Poets, iv. 75. ]

[Footnote 12: By May's poem, we are here to understand a continuation
of Lucan's Pharsalia, to the death of Julius Caesar, by Thomas May, an
eminent poet and historian, who flourished in the reigns of James
and Charles the first, and of whom a life is given in the Biographia
Britannica. The merit of Cowley's Latin poems is well examined in Censura
Literatia, vol. viii. See also Warton's Preface to Milton's Juvenile
Poems. ED. ]

[Footnote 13: 1663. ]

[Footnote 14: Here is an error in the designation of this comedy, which
our author copied from the title page of the latter editions of Cowley's
works: the title of the play itself is without the article, "Cutter of
Coleman street," and that, because a merry sharking fellow about the
town, named Cutter, is a principal character in it. ]

[Footnote 15: L'Allegro of Milton. Dr. J. ]

[Footnote 16: About three hundred pounds per annum. See Campbell's Poets,
iv. ]

[Footnote 17: Now in the possession of Mr. Clark, alderman of London.
Dr. J. --Mr. Clark was, in 1798, elected to the important office of
chamberlain of London; and has every year since been unanimously
reelected. N. ]

[Footnote 18: For metaphysical poets, see Brydges' Restituta, vol. iv. ]

[Footnote 19: It is but justice to the memory of Cowley, to quote here an
exquisite stanza which Johnson has inserted in the Idler, No. 77, where
he says; "Cowley seems to have possessed the power of writing easily
beyond any other of our poets; yet his pursuit of remote thought led him
often into harshness of expression. " The stanza is to a lady elaborately
dressed:

Th' adorning thee with so much art
Is but a barb'rous skill,
'Tis like the pois'ning of a dart
Too apt before to kill. ED. ]

[Footnote 20: Dodsley's Collection of Poems, vol. v. R. ]

[Footnote 21: First published in quarto, 1669, under the title of Carmen
Pindaricum in Theatrum Sheldonianum in solennibus magnifici operis
encaeniis. Recitatum Julii die 9, anno 1669, a Corbetto Owen, A. B. Aed.
Chr. Alumno, authore. R. ]




DENHAM

Of sir John Denham very little is known but what is related of him by
Wood, or by himself.

He was born at Dublin, 1615[22]; the only son of sir John Denham, of
Little Horsley, in Essex, then chief baron of the exchequer in Ireland,
and of Eleanor, daughter of sir Garret More, baron of Mellefont.

Two years afterwards, his father, being made one of the barons of the
exchequer in England, brought him away from his native country, and
educated him in London.

In 1631 he was sent to Oxford, where he was considered "as a dreaming
young man, given more to dice and cards than study:" and, therefore,
gave no prognosticks of his future eminence; nor was suspected to
conceal, under sluggishness and laxity, a genius born to improve the
literature of his country.

When he was, three years afterwards, removed to Lincoln's inn, he
prosecuted the common law with sufficient appearance of application;
yet did not lose his propensity to cards and dice; but was very often
plundered by gamesters.

Being severely reproved for this folly, he professed, and, perhaps,
believed, himself reclaimed; and, to testify the sincerity of his
repentance, wrote and published an Essay upon Gaming.

He seems to have divided his studies between law and poetry; for, in
1636, he translated the second book of the Aeneid. Two years after, his
father died; and then, notwithstanding his resolutions and professions,
he returned again to the vice of gaming, and lost several thousand
pounds that had been left him.

In 1641, he published the Sophy. This seems to have given him his first
hold of the publick attention; for Waller remarked, "that he broke out
like the Irish rebellion, three score thousand strong, when nobody was
aware, or in the least suspected it;" an observation which could have
had no propriety had his poetical abilities been known before.

He was after that pricked for sheriff of Surrey, and made governour
of Farnham castle for the king; but he soon resigned that charge, and
retreated to Oxford, where, in 1643, he published Cooper's Hill.

This poem had such reputation as to excite the common artifice by which
envy degrades excellence. A report was spread, that the performance was
not his own, but that he had bought it of a vicar for forty pounds. The
same attempt was made to rob Addison of his Cato, and Pope of his Essay
on Criticism.

In 1647, the distresses of the royal family required him to engage in
more dangerous employments. He was intrusted, by the queen, with a
message to the king; and, by whatever means, so far softened the
ferocity of Hugh Peters, that, by his intercession, admission was
procured. Of the king's condescension he has given an account in the
dedication of his works.

He was, afterwards, employed in carrying on the king's correspondence;
and, as he says, discharged this office with great safety to the
royalists: and, being accidentally discovered by the adverse party's
knowledge of Mr. Cowley's hand, he escaped happily both for himself and
his friends.

He was yet engaged in a greater undertaking. In April, 1648, he conveyed
James, the duke of York, from London into France, and delivered him
there to the queen and prince of Wales. This year he published his
translation of Cato Major. He now resided in France, as one of the
followers of the exiled king; and, to divert the melancholy of their
condition, was sometimes enjoined by his master to write occasional
verses; one of which amusements was probably his ode, or song, upon the
Embassy to Poland, by which he and lord Crofts procured a contribution
of ten thousand pounds from the Scotch, that wandered over the kingdom.
Poland was, at that time, very much frequented by itinerant traders,
who, in a country of very little commerce and of great extent, where
every man resided on his own estate, contributed very much to the
accommodation of life, by bringing to every man's house those little
necessaries which it was very inconvenient to want, and very troublesome
to fetch. I have formerly read, without much reflection, of the
multitude of Scotchmen that travelled with their wares in Poland; and
that their numbers were not small, the success of this negotiation gives
sufficient evidence.

About this time, what estate the war and the gamesters had left him was
sold, by order of the parliament; and when, in 1652, he returned to
England, he was entertained by the earl of Pembroke.

Of the next years of his life there is no account. At the restoration he
obtained that which many missed, the reward of his loyalty; being made
surveyor of the king's buildings, and dignified with the order of the
Bath. He seems now to have learned some attention to money; for Wood
says, that he got by this place seven thousand pounds.

After the restoration, he wrote the poem on Prudence and Justice, and,
perhaps, some of his other pieces; and as he appears, whenever any
serious question comes before him, to have been a man of piety, he
consecrated his poetical powers to religion, and made a metrical version
of the psalms of David. In this attempt he has failed; but in sacred
poetry who has succeeded?

It might be hoped that the favour of his master, and esteem of the
publick, would now make him happy. But human felicity is short and
uncertain; a second marriage brought upon him so much disquiet, as, for
a time, disordered his understanding; and Butler lampooned him for his
lunacy. I know not whether the malignant lines were then made publick,
nor what provocation incited Butler to do that which no provocation can
excuse.

His phrensy lasted not long[23]; and he seems to have regained his full
force of mind; for he wrote afterwards his excellent poem upon the death
of Cowley, whom he was not long to survive; for, on the 19th of March,
1668, he was buried by his side.

Denham is deservedly considered as one of the fathers of English poetry.
"Denham and Waller," says Prior, "improved our versification, and
Dryden perfected it. " He has given specimens of various compositions,
descriptive, ludicrous, didactick, and sublime.

He appears to have had, in common with almost all mankind, the ambition
of being, upon proper occasions, _a merry fellow_, and, in common with
most of them, to have been by nature, or by early habits, debarred from
it. Nothing is less exhilarating than the ludicrousness of Denham; he
does not fail for want of efforts; he is familiar, he is gross; but he
is never merry, unless the Speech against Peace in the close Committee
be excepted. For grave burlesque, however, his imitation of Davenant
shows him to have been well qualified.

Of his more elevated occasional poems, there is, perhaps, none that does
not deserve commendation. In the verses to Fletcher, we have an image
that has since been often adopted[24]:

But whither am I stray'd? I need not raise
Trophies to thee from other men's dispraise;
Nor is thy fame on lesser ruins built,
Nor need thy juster title the foul guilt

Of eastern kings, who, to secure their reign,
Must have their brothers, sons, and kindred, slain.

After Denham, Orrery, in one of his prologues,

Poets are sultans, if they had their will;
For ev'ry author would his brother kill.

And Pope,

Should such a man, too fond to rule alone,
Bear like the Turk no brother near the throne.

But this is not the best of his little pieces: it is excelled by his
poem to Fanshaw, and his elegy on Cowley.

His praise of Fanshaw's version of Guarini contains a very sprightly and
judicious character of a good translator:

That servile path thou nobly dost decline,
Of tracing word by word and line by line.
Those are the labour'd births of slavish brains,
Not the effect of poetry but pains;
Cheap vulgar arts, whose narrowness affords
No flight for thoughts, but poorly stick at words,
A new and nobler way thou dost pursue,
To make translations and translators too,
They but preserve the ashes; thou the flame,
True to his sense, but truer to his fame.

The excellence of these lines is greater, as the truth which they
contain was not, at that time, generally known.

His poem on the death of Cowley was his last, and, among his shorter
works, his best performance: the numbers are musical, and the thoughts
are just.

Cooper's Hill is the work that confers upon him the rank and dignity of
an original author. He seems to have been, at least among us, the author
of a species of composition that may be denominated _local poetry_,
of which the fundamental subject is some particular landscape, to be
poetically described with the addition of such embellishments as may be
supplied by historical retrospection, or incidental meditation.

To trace a new scheme of poetry, has, in itself, a very high claim to
praise, and its praise is yet more, when it is apparently copied by
Garth and Pope[25]; after whose names little will be gained by an
enumeration of smaller poets, that have left scarcely a corner of the
island not dignified either by rhyme or blank verse.

Cooper's Hill, if it be maliciously inspected, will not be found without
its faults. The digressions are too long, the morality too frequent, and
the sentiments, sometimes, such as will not bear a rigorous inquiry.

The four verses, which, since Dryden has commended them, almost every
writer for a century past has imitated, are generally known:

O could I flow like thee, and make thy stream
My great example, as it is my theme!
Though deep, yet clear; though gentle, yet not dull;
Strong without rage, without o'erflowing full.

The lines, are, in themselves, not perfect; for most of the words,
thus artfully opposed, are to be understood simply on one side of the
comparison, and metaphorically on the other; and, if there be any
language which does not express intellectual operations by material
images, into that language they cannot be translated. But so much
meaning is comprised in so few words; the particulars of resemblance are
so perspicaciously collected, and every mode of excellence separated
from its adjacent fault by so nice a line of limitation; the different
parts of the sentence are so accurately adjusted; and the flow of
the last couplet is so smooth and sweet; that the passage, however
celebrated, has not been praised above its merit. It has beauty peculiar
to itself, and must be numbered among those felicities which cannot be
produced at will by wit and labour, but must rise unexpectedly in some
hour propitious to poetry.

He appears to have been one of the first that understood the necessity
of emancipating translation from the drudgery of counting lines, and
interpreting single words. How much this servile practice obscured the
clearest, and deformed the most beautiful parts of the ancient authors,
may be discovered by a perusal of our earlier versions; some of them
are the works of men well qualified, not only by critical knowledge,
but by poetical genius, who yet, by a mistaken ambition of exactness,
degraded, at once, their originals and themselves.

Denham saw the better way, but has not pursued it with great success.
His versions of Virgil are not pleasing; but they taught Dryden to
please better. His poetical imitation of Tully on Old Age has neither
the clearness of prose, nor the sprightliness of poetry.

The "strength of Denham," which Pope so emphatically mentions, is to
be found in many lines and couplets, which convey much meaning in few
words, and exhibit the sentiment with more weight than bulk.


On the Thames.
Though with those streams he no resemblance hold,
Whose foam is amber, and their gravel gold;
His genuine and less guilty wealth t' explore,
Search not his bottom, but survey his shore.


On Strafford.

His wisdom such, at once, it did appear
Three kingdoms' wonder, and three kingdoms' fear.
While single he stood forth, and seem'd, although
Each had an army, as an equal foe;
Such was his force of eloquence to make
The hearers more concern'd than he that spake:
Each seem'd to act that part he came to see,
And none was more a looker-on than he;
So did he move our passions, some were known
To wish, for the defence, the crime their own.
Now private pity strove with public hate,
Reason with rage, and eloquence with fate.

On Cowley.

To him no author was unknown,
Yet what he wrote was all his own;
Horace's wit, and Virgil's state,
He did not steal, but emulate!
And, when he would like them appear,
Their garb, but not their clothes, did wear.

As one of Denham's principal claims to the regard of posterity arises
from his improvement of our numbers, his versification ought to
be considered. It will afford that pleasure which arises from the
observation of a man of judgment naturally right, forsaking bad copies
by degrees, and advancing towards a better practice, as he gains more
confidence in himself.

In his translation of Virgil, written when he was about twenty-one
years old, may be still found the old manner of continuing the sense
ungracefully from verse to verse:

Then all those
Who in the dark our fury did escape,
Returning, know our borrow'd arms, and shape,
And differing dialect; then their numbers swell
And grow upon us; first Choroebus fell
Before Minerva's altar; next did bleed
Just Ripheus, whom no Trojan did exceed
In virtue, yet the gods his fate decreed.
Then Hypanis and Dymas, wounded by
Their friends; nor thee, Pantheus, thy piety,
Nor consecrated mitre, from the same
Ill fate could save; my country's funeral flame
And Troy's cold ashes I attest, and call
To witness for myself, that in their fall
No foes, no death, nor danger, I declin'd,
Did, and deserv'd no less, my fate to find.

From this kind of concatenated metre he afterwards refrained, and taught
his followers the art of concluding their sense in couplets; which has,
perhaps, been with rather too much constancy pursued.

This passage exhibits one of those triplets which are not unfrequent in
this first essay, but which it is to be supposed his maturer judgment
disapproved, since, in his latter works, he has totally forborne them.

His rhymes are such as seem found without difficulty, by following the
sense; and are, for the most part, as exact, at least, as those of other
poets, though now and then the reader is shifted off with what he can
get:

O how _transform'd! _
How much unlike that Hector, who _return'd_
Clad in Achilles' spoils!

And again:

From thence a thousand lesser poets _sprung_
Like petty princes from the fall of _Rome_.

Sometimes the weight of rhyme is laid upon a word too feeble to sustain
it:

Troy confounded falls
From all her glories: if it might have stood
By any power, by this right hand it _shou'd_.

--And though my outward state misfortune _hath_
Deprest thus low, it cannot reach my faith.

--Thus, by his fraud and our own faith o'ercome,
A feigned tear destroys us, against _whom_
Tydides nor Achilles could prevail,
Nor ten years' conflict, nor a thousand sail.

He is not very careful to vary the ends of his verses; in one passage
the word _die_ rhymes three couplets in six.

Most of these petty faults are in his first productions, when he was
less skilful, or, at least, less dexterous in the use of words; and
though they had been more frequent, they could only have lessened the
grace, not the strength of his composition. He is one of the writers
that improved our taste, and advanced our language, and whom we ought,
therefore, to read with gratitude, though, having done much, he left
much to do.

[Footnote 22: In Hamilton's memoirs of count Grammont, sir John Denham
is said to have been seventy-nine, when he married Miss Brook, about the
year 1664; according to which statement he was born in 1585. But Dr.
Johnson, who has followed Wood, is right. He entered Trinity college,
Oxford, at the age of sixteen, in 1631, as appears by the following
entry, which I copied from the matriculation book.

Trin. Coll.

"1631. Nov. 18. Johannes Denham, Essex. filius J. Denham de Horsley-parva
in com. praedict. militis, annos natus 16. MALONE". ]

[Footnote 23: In the ninth and tenth chapters of the Memoires de
Grammont, in Andrew Marvell's works, and in Aubrey's letters, ii. 319,
many scandalous anecdotes respecting Denham, are reported. ED. ]

[Footnote 24: It is remarkable that Johnson should not have recollected,
that this image is to be found in Bacon. Aristoteles, more otthomannorum,
regnare se haud tuto posse putabat, nisi fratres suos omnes
contrucidasset. De Augment. Scient. lib. 3. ]

[Footnote 25: By Garth, in his poem on Claremont: and by Pope, in his
Windsor Forest. ]




MILTON.

The life of Milton has been already written in so many forms, and with
such minute inquiry, that I might, perhaps, more properly have contented
myself with the addition of a few notes on Mr. Fenton's elegant
Abridgment, but that a new narrative was thought necessary to the
uniformity of this edition.

John Milton was, by birth, a gentleman, descended from the proprietors
of Milton, near Thame, in Oxfordshire, one of whom forfeited his estate
in the times of York and Lancaster. Which side he took I know not; his
descendant inherited no veneration for the _white rose. _

His grandfather, John, was keeper of the forest of Shotover, a zealous
papist, who disinherited his son, because he had forsaken the religion
of his ancestors.

His father, John, who was the son disinherited, had recourse, for his
support, to the profession of a scrivener. He was a man eminent for his
skill in musick, many of his compositions being still to be found;
and his reputation in his profession was such, that he grew rich, and
retired to an estate. He had, probably, more than common literature,
as his son addresses him in one of his most elaborate Latin poems. He
married a gentlewoman of the name of Caston, a Welsh family, by whom he
had two sons, John, the poet, and Christopher, who studied the law, and
adhered, as the law taught him, to the king's party, for which he was
awhile persecuted, but having, by his brother's interest, obtained
permission to live in quiet, he supported himself so honourably by
chamber practice, that, soon after the accession of king James, he was
knighted, and made a judge; but, his constitution being too weak
for business, he retired before any disreputable compliances became
necessary.

He had, likewise, a daughter, Anne, whom he married with a considerable
fortune, to Edward Philips, who came from Shrewsbury, and rose in the
crown office to be secondary: by him she had two sons, John and Edward,
who were educated by the poet, and from whom is derived the only
authentick account of his domestick manners.

John, the poet, was born in his father's house, at the Spread-eagle, in
Bread street, Dec. 9, 1608, between six and seven in the morning. His
father appears to have been very solicitous about his education; for he
was instructed, at first, by private tuition, under the care of Thomas
Young, who was afterwards chaplain to the English merchants at Hamburgh,
and of whom we have reason to think well, since his scholar considered
him as worthy of an epistolary elegy.

He was then sent to St. Paul's school, under the care of Mr. Gill; and
removed, in the beginning of his sixteenth year, to Christ's college in
Cambridge, where he entered a sizar[26], Feb. 12,1624.

He was, at this time, eminently skilled in the Latin tongue; and he
himself, by annexing the dates to his first compositions, a boast of
which the learned Politian had given him an example, seems to commend
the earliness of his own proficiency to the notice of posterity. But
the products of his vernal fertility have been surpassed by many, and
particularly by his contemporary Cowley. Of the powers of the mind it is
difficult to form an estimate: many have excelled Milton in their first
essays, who never rose to works like Paradise Lost.

At fifteen, a date which he uses till he is sixteen, he translated
or versified two psalms, 114 and 136, which he thought worthy of the
publick eye; but they raise no great expectations: they would, in any
numerous school, have obtained praise, but not excited wonder.

Many of his elegies appear to have been written in his eighteenth year,
by which it appears that he had then read the Roman authors with very
nice discernment. I once heard Mr. Hampton, the translator of Polybius,
remark, what I think is true, that Milton was the first Englishman who,
after the revival of letters, wrote Latin verses with classick elegance.
If any exceptions can be made, they are very few: Haddon and Ascham, the
pride of Elizabeth's reign, however they have succeeded in prose, no
sooner attempt verse than they provoke derision. If we produced any
thing worthy of notice before the elegies of Milton, it was, perhaps,
Alabaster's Roxana[27].

Of the exercises which the rules of the university required, some
were published by him in his maturer years. They had been undoubtedly
applauded; for they were such as few can perform; yet there is reason to
suspect that he was regarded in his college with no great fondness. That
he obtained no fellowship is certain; but the unkindness with which he
was treated, was not merely negative. I am ashamed to relate what I fear
is true, that Milton was one of the last students in either university,
that suffered the publick indignity of corporal correction[28].

It was, in the violence of controversial hostility, objected to him,
that he was expelled: this he steadily denies, and it was apparently not
true; but it seems plain, from his own verses to Diodati, that he had
incurred rustication, a temporary dismission into the country, with,
perhaps, the loss of a term:

Me tenet urbs, reflua quam Thamesis alluit unda,
Meque nec invitum patria dulcis habet.
Jam nec arundiferum mihi cura revisere Camum,
Nec dudum _vetiti_ me _laris_ angit amor.
Nec duri libet usque minas perferre magistri,
Caeteraque ingenio non subeunda meo.
Si sit hoc _exilium_ patrios adiise penates,
Et vacuum curis otia grata sequi,

Non ego vel _profugi_ nomen sortemve recuso,
Laetus et _exilii_ conditione fruor.

I cannot find any meaning but this, which even kindness and reverence
can give to the term "vetiti laris," a habitation from which he is
excluded; or how _exile_ can be otherwise interpreted. He declares yet
more, that he is weary of enduring "the threats of a rigorous master,
and something else, which a temper like his cannot undergo. " What was
more than threat was probably punishment. This poem, which mentions his
exile, proves, likewise, that it was not perpetual; for it concludes
with a resolution of returning some time to Cambridge. And it may be
conjectured, from the willingness with which he has perpetuated the
memory of his exile, that its cause was such as gave him no shame.

He took both the usual degrees; that of Bachelor in 1628, and that of
master in 1632; but he left the university with no kindness for its
institution, alienated either by the injudicious severity of his
governours, or his own captious perverseness. The cause cannot now be
known, but the effect appears in his writings. His scheme of education,
inscribed to Hartlib, supersedes all academical instruction, being
intended to comprise the whole time which men usually spend in
literature, from their entrance upon grammar, "till they proceed, as it
is called, masters of arts. " And in his discourse on the likeliest way
to remove Hirelings out of the Church, he ingeniously proposes, that
"the profits of the lands forfeited by the act for superstitious uses
should be applied to such academies all over the land, where languages
and arts may be taught together; so that youth may be, at once, brought
up to a competency of learning and an honest trade, by which means such
of them as had the gift, being enabled to support themselves, without
tithes, by the latter, may, by the help of the former, become worthy
preachers. "

One of his objections to academical education, as it was then conducted,
is, that men designed for orders in the church were permitted to act
plays, "writhing and unboning their clergy limbs to all the antick and
dishonest gestures of Trincalos[29], buffoons, and bawds, prostituting
the shame of that ministry which they had, or were near having, to the
eyes of courtiers and court ladies, their grooms and mademoiselles. "

This is sufficiently peevish in a man, who, when he mentions his exile
from the college, relates, with great luxuriance, the compensation which
the pleasures of the theatre afford him. Plays were, therefore, only
criminal when they were acted by academicks.

He went to the university with a design of entering into the church,
but in time altered his mind; for he declared, that whoever became a
clergyman must "subscribe slave, and take an oath withal, which, unless
he took with a conscience that could retch, he must straight perjure
himself. He thought it better to prefer a blameless silence, before the
office of speaking, bought and begun with servitude and forswearing. "

These expressions are, I find, applied to the subscription of the
articles; but it seems more probable that they relate to canonical
obedience. I know not any of the articles which seem to thwart his
opinions; but the thoughts of obedience, whether canonical or civil,
raised his indignation.

His unwillingness to engage in the ministry, perhaps not yet advanced to
a settled resolution of declining it, appears in a letter to one of his
friends, who had reproved his suspended and dilatory life, which he
seems to have imputed to an insatiable curiosity, and fantastick luxury
of various knowledge. To this he writes a cool and plausible answer, in
which he endeavours to persuade him, that the delay proceeds not from
the delights of desultory study, but from the desire of obtaining more
fitness for his task; and that he goes on, "not taking thought of being
late, so it gives advantage to be more fit. "

When he left the university he returned to his father, then residing at
Horton, in Buckinghamshire, with whom he lived five years; in which
time he is said to have read all the Greek and Latin writers. With what
limitations this universality is to be understood, who shall inform us?

It might be supposed, that he who read so much should have done nothing
else; but Milton found time to write the Masque of Comus, which was
presented at Ludlow, then the residence of the lord president of Wales,
in 1634; and had the honour of being acted by the earl of Bridgewater's
sons and daughter. The fiction is derived from Homer's Circe[30]; but we
never can refuse to any modern the liberty of borrowing from Homer:

--"a quo ceu fonte perenni
Vatum Pieriis ora rigantur aquis. "

His next production was Lycidas, an elegy, written in 1637, on the death
of Mr. King, the son of sir John King, secretary for Ireland in the
time of Elizabeth, James, and Charles. King was much a favourite at
Cambridge, and many of the wits joined to do honour to his memory.
Milton's acquaintance with the Italian writers may be discovered by a
mixture of longer and shorter verses, according to the rules of Tuscan
poetry, and his malignity to the church by some lines which are
interpreted as threatening its extermination.

He is supposed about this time to have written his Arcades; for, while
he lived at Horton, he used sometimes to steal from his studies a few
days, which he spent at Harefield, the house of the countess dowager of
Derby, where the Arcades made part of a dramatick entertainment.

He began now to grow weary of the country, and had some purpose of
taking chambers in the inns of court, when the death of his mother set
him at liberty to travel, for which he obtained his father's consent,
and sir Henry Wotton's directions; with the celebrated precept of
prudence, "i pensieri stretti, ed il viso sciolto;" thoughts close, and
looks loose.

In 1638 he left England, and went first to Paris; where, by the favour
of lord Scudamore, he had the opportunity of visiting Grotius, then
residing at the French court, as ambassadour from Christina of Sweden.
From Paris he hasted into Italy, of which he had, with particular
diligence, studied the language and literature; and, though he seems
to have intended a very quick perambulation of the country, staid two
months at Florence; where he found his way into the academies, and
produced his compositions with such applause, as appears to have exalted
him in his own opinion, and confirmed him in the hope, that, "by labour
and intense study, which," says he, "I take to be my portion in this
life, joined with a strong propensity of nature," he might "leave
something so written to aftertimes, as they should not willingly let it
die. " It appears, in all his writings, that he had the usual concomitant
of great abilities, a lofty and steady confidence in himself, perhaps
not without some contempt of others; for scarcely any man ever wrote so
much, and praised so few. Of his praise he was very frugal; as he set
its value high, and considered his mention of a name, as a security
against the waste of time, and a certain preservative from oblivion.

At Florence he could not, indeed, complain that his merit wanted
distinction: Carlo Dati presented him with an encomiastick inscription,
in the tumid lapidary style; and Francini wrote him an ode, of which the
first stanza is only empty noise; the rest are, perhaps, too diffuse on
common topicks; but the last is natural and beautiful.

From Florence he went to Sienna, and from Sienna to Rome, where he was
again received with kindness by the learned and the great. Holstenius,
the keeper of the Vatican library, who had resided three years at
Oxford, introduced him to cardinal Barberini; and he, at a musical
entertainment, waited for him at the door, and led him by the hand into
the assembly. Here Selvaggi praised him in a distich, and Salsilli in a
tetrastick; neither of them of much value. The Italians were gainers
by this literary commerce; for the encomiums with which Milton repaid
Salsilli, though not secure against a stern grammarian, turn the balance
indisputably in Milton's favour.

Of these Italian testimonies, poor as they are, he was proud enough to
publish them before his poems; though he says, he cannot be suspected
but to have known that they were said, "non tam de se, quam supra se. "

At Rome, as at Florence, he staid only two months; a time, indeed,
sufficient, if he desired only to ramble with an explainer of its
antiquities, or to view palaces and count pictures; but certainly too
short for the contemplation of learning, policy, or manners.

From Rome he passed on to Naples in company of a hermit, a companion
from whom little could be expected; yet to him Milton owed his
introduction to Manso, marquis of Villa, who had been before the patron
of Tasso. Manso was enough delighted with his accomplishments to honour
him with a sorry distich, in which he commends him for every thing but
his religion: and Milton, in return, addressed him in a Latin poem,
which must have raised an high opinion of English elegance and
literature.

His purpose was now to have visited Sicily and Greece; but, hearing of
the differences between the king and parliament, he thought it proper to
hasten home, rather than pass his life in foreign amusements, while his
countrymen were contending for their rights. He, therefore, came back to
Rome, though the merchants informed him of plots laid against him by the
jesuits, for the liberty of his conversations on religion. He had sense
enough to judge that there was no danger, and, therefore, kept on his
way, and acted as before, neither obtruding nor shunning controversy. He
had, perhaps, given some offence by visiting Galileo, then a prisoner in
the inquisition for philosophical heresy; and at Naples he was told by
Manso, that, by his declarations on religious questions, he had excluded
himself from some distinctions which he should otherwise have paid him.
But such conduct, though it did not please, was yet sufficiently safe;
and Milton staid two months more at Rome, and went on to Florence
without molestation.

From Florence he visited Lucca. He afterwards went to Venice; and,
having sent away a collection of musick and other books, travelled to
Geneva, which he, probably, considered as the metropolis of orthodoxy.

Here he reposed, as in a congenial element, and became acquainted with
John Diodati and Frederick Spanheim, two learned professors of divinity.
From Geneva he passed through France; and came home, after an absence of
a year and three months.

At his return he heard of the death of his friend Charles Diodati; a
man, whom it is reasonable to suppose, of great merit, since he was
thought, by Milton, worthy of a poem, entitled Epitaphium Damonis,
written with the common, but childish, imitation of pastoral life.

He now hired a lodging at the house of one Russet, a tailor, in St.
Bride's church-yard, and undertook the education of John and Edward
Philips, his sister's sons. Finding his rooms too little, he took a
house and garden in Aldersgate street[31], which was not then so much
out of the world as it is now; and chose his dwelling at the upper end
of a passage, that he might avoid the noise of the street. Here he
received more boys, to be boarded and instructed.

Let not our veneration for Milton forbid us to look with some degree
of merriment on great promises and small performance, on the man who
hastens home, because his countrymen are contending for their liberty,
and, when he reaches the scene of action, vapours away his patriotism in
a private boarding-school. This is the period of his life from which all
his biographers seem inclined to shrink. They are unwilling that Milton
should be degraded to a schoolmaster; but, since it cannot be denied
that he taught boys, one finds out that he taught for nothing, and
another, that his motive was only zeal for the propagation of learning
and virtue; and all tell what they do not know to be true, only to
excuse an act which no wise man will consider as in itself disgraceful.
His father was alive; his allowance was not ample; and he supplied its
deficiencies by an honest and useful employment.

It is told, that in the art of education he performed wonders; and a
formidable list is given of the authors, Greek and Latin, that were read
in Aldersgate street, by youth between ten and fifteen or sixteen years
of age. Those who tell or receive these stories should consider, that
nobody can be taught faster than he can learn. The speed of the horseman
must be limited by the power of the horse. Every man, that has ever
undertaken to instruct others, can tell what slow advances he has been
able to make, and how much patience it requires to recall vagrant
inattention, to stimulate sluggish indifference, and to rectify absurd
misapprehension.

The purpose of Milton, as it seems, was to teach something more solid
than the common literature of schools, by reading those authors that
treat of physical subjects; such as the georgick, and astronomical
treatises of the ancients. This was a scheme of improvement which seems
to have busied many literary projectors of that age. Cowley, who had
more means than Milton of knowing what was wanting to the embellishments
of life, formed the same plan of education in his imaginary college.

But the truth is, that the knowledge of external nature, and the
sciences which that knowledge requires or includes, are not the great or
the frequent business of the human mind. Whether we provide for action
or conversation, whether we wish to be useful or pleasing, the first
requisite is the religious and moral knowledge of right and wrong; the
next is an acquaintance with the history of mankind, and with those
examples which may be said to embody truth, and prove, by events,
the reasonableness of opinions. Prudence and justice are virtues
and excellencies of all times and of all places; we are perpetually
moralists, but we are geometricians only by chance. Our intercourse
with intellectual nature is necessary; our speculations upon matter
are voluntary, and at leisure. Physiological learning is of such rare
emergence, that one may know another half his life, without being able
to estimate his skill in hydrostaticks or astronomy; but his moral and
prudential character immediately appears.

Those authors, therefore, are to be read at schools that supply most
axioms of prudence, most principles of moral truth, and most materials
for conversation; and these purposes are best served by poets, orators,
and historians. Let me not be censured for this digression, as pedantick
or paradoxical; for, if I have Milton against me, I have Socrates on my
side. It was his labour to turn philosophy from the study of nature to
speculations upon life; but the innovators whom I oppose are turning off
attention from life to nature. They seem to think, that we are placed
here to watch the growth of plants, or the motions of the stars.
Socrates was rather of opinion, that what we had to learn was, how to do
good, and avoid evil:

'Oti toi en megaroisi kakon t agathon te tetukta']

Of institutions we may judge by their effects. From this wonder-working
academy, I do not know that there ever proceeded any man very eminent
for knowledge: its only genuine product, I believe, is a small history
of poetry, written in Latin by his nephew Philips, of which, perhaps,
none of my readers has ever heard[32].

That in his school, as in every thing else which he undertook, he
laboured with great diligence, there is no reason for doubting. One part
of his method deserves general imitation. He was careful to instruct his
scholars in religion. Every Sunday was spent upon theology; of which
he dictated a short system, gathered from the writers that were then
fashionable in the Dutch universities.

He set his pupils an example of hard study and spare diet; only now and
then he allowed himself to pass a day of festivity and indulgence with
some gay gentlemen of Gray's inn.

He now began to engage in the controversies of the times, and lent
his breath to blow the flames of contention. In 1641, he published a
treatise of Reformation, in two books, against the established church;
being willing to help the puritans, who were, he says, "inferior to the
prelates in learning. "

Hall, bishop of Norwich, had published an Humble Remonstrance, in
defence of episcopacy; to which, in 1641, five ministers[33], of whose
names the first letters made the celebrated word Smectymnuus, gave their
answer. Of this answer a confutation was attempted by the learned Usher;
and to the confutation Milton published a reply, entitled, of Prelatical
Episcopacy, and whether it may be deduced from the Apostolical Times, by
virtue of those testimonies which are alleged to that purpose in some
late treatises, one whereof goes under the name of James, lord bishop of
Armagh.

I have transcribed this title to show, by his contemptuous mention of
Usher, that he had now adopted the puritanical savageness of manners.
His next work was, the Reason of Church Government urged against
Prelacy, by Mr. John Milton, 1642. In this book he discovers, not with
ostentatious exultation, but with calm confidence, his high opinion of
his own powers; and promises to undertake something, he yet knows not
what, that may be of use and honour to his country. "This," says he, "is
not to be obtained but by devout prayer to that eternal spirit that can
enrich with all utterance and knowledge, 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, and insight into all seemly and generous arts and
affairs; till which in some measure be compast, I refuse not to sustain
this expectation. " From a promise like this, at once fervid, pious, and
rational, might be expected the Paradise Lost.

He published, the same year, two more pamphlets, upon the same question.
To one of his antagonists, who affirms that he was "vomited out of the
university," he answers, in general terms: "The fellows of the college,
wherein I spent some years, at my parting, after I had taken two
degrees, as the manner is, signified, many times, how much better it
would content them that I should stay. As for the common approbation or
dislike of that place, as now it is, that I should esteem or disesteem
myself the more for that, too simple is the answerer, if he think to
obtain with me. Of small practice were the physician who could not
judge, by what she and her sister have of long time vomited, that the
worser stuff she strongly keeps in her stomach, but the better she is
ever kecking at, and is queasy; she vomits now out of sickness; but,
before it will be well with her, she must vomit by strong physick. The
university, in the time of her better health, and my younger judgment, I
never greatly admired, but now much less. "

This is surely the language of a man who thinks that he has been
injured. He proceeds to describe the course of his conduct, and
the train of his thoughts; and, because he has been suspected of
incontinence, gives an account of his own purity: "That if I be justly
charged," says he, "with this crime, it may come upon me with tenfold
shame. "

The style of his piece is rough, and such, perhaps, was that of his
antagonist. This roughness he justifies, by great examples, in a long
digression. Sometimes he tries to be humorous: "Lest I should take him
for some chaplain in hand, some squire of the body to his prelate, one
who serves not at the altar only, but at the court-cupboard, he will
bestow on us a pretty model of himself; and sets me out half a dozen
ptisical mottoes, wherever he had them, hopping short in the measure of
convulsion fits; in which labour the agony of his wit having escaped
narrowly, instead of well-sized periods, he greets us with a quantity of
thumb-ring poesies. And thus ends this section, or rather dissection,
of himself. " Such is the controversial merriment of Milton; his gloomy
seriousness is yet more offensive. Such is his malignity, "that hell
grows darker at his frown. " His father, after Reading was taken by
Essex, came to reside in his house; and his school increased. At
Whitsuntide, in his thirty-fifth year, he married Mary, the daughter of
Mr. Powel, a justice of the peace in Oxfordshire. He brought her to town
with him, and expected all the advantages of a conjugal life. The lady,
however, seems not much to have delighted in the pleasures of spare
diet and hard study; for, as Philips relates, "having for a month led a
philosophick life, after having been used at home to a great house, and
much company and joviality, her friends, possibly by her own desire,
made earnest suit to have her company the remaining part of the summer;
which was granted, upon a promise of her return at Michaelmas. "

Milton was too busy to much miss his wife: he pursued his studies; and
now and then visited the lady Margaret Leigh, whom he has mentioned in
one of his sonnets. At last Michaelmas arrived; but the lady had no
inclination to return to the sullen gloom of her husband's habitation,
and, therefore, very willingly forgot her promise. He sent her a letter,
but had no answer: he sent more with the same success. It could be
alleged that letters miscarry; he, therefore, despatched a messenger,
being by this time too angry to go himself. His messenger was sent back
with some contempt. The family of the lady were cavaliers.

In a man whose opinion of his own merit was like Milton's, less
provocation than this might have raised violent resentment.