Gabriel Goodman, bishop of Gloucester, a man
of a versatile temper, and the author of a book entitled, the Fall of Man,
or the Corruption of Nature proved by Natural Reason.
of a versatile temper, and the author of a book entitled, the Fall of Man,
or the Corruption of Nature proved by Natural Reason.
Samuel Johnson - Lives of the Poets - 1
But he has, unhappily, perplexed his poetry with his
philosophy. His infernal and celestial powers are sometimes pure spirit,
and sometimes animated body. When Satan walks with his lance upon the
"burning marl," he has a body; when, in his passage between hell and the
new world, he is in danger of sinking in the vacuity, and is supported
by a gust of rising vapours, he has a body; when he animates the toad,
he seems to be mere spirit, that can penetrate matter at pleasure; when
he starts "up in his own shape," he has, at least, a determined form;
and, when he is brought before Gabriel, he has "a spear and a shield,"
which he had the power of hiding in the toad, though the arms of the
contending angels are evidently material.
The vulgar inhabitants of Pandaemonium, being "incorporeal spirits,"
are "at large, though without number," in a limited space: yet, in the
battle, when they were overwhelmed by mountains, their armour hurt them,
"crushed in upon their substance, now grown gross by sinning. " This,
likewise, happened to the uncorrupted angels, who were overthrown the
"sooner for their arms, for unarmed they might easily, as spirits,
have evaded by contraction or remove. " Even as spirits they are hardly
spiritual; for "contraction" and "remove" are images of matter; but if
they could have escaped without their armour, they might have escaped
from it, and left only the empty cover to be battered. Uriel, when he
rides on a sunbeam, is material; Satan is material when he is afraid of
the prowess of Adam.
The confusion of spirit and matter, which pervades the whole narration
of the war of heaven, fills it with incongruity; and the book in which
it is related is, I believe, the favourite of children, and gradually
neglected, as knowledge is increased.
After the operation of immaterial agents which cannot be explained, may
be considered that of allegorical persons, which have no real existence.
To exalt causes into agents, to invest abstract ideas with form, and
animate them with activity, has always been the right of poetry. But
such airy beings are, for the most part, suffered only to do their
natural office, and retire. Thus fame tells a tale, and victory hovers
over a general, or perches on a standard; but fame and victory can do no
more. To give them any real employment, or ascribe to them any material
agency, is to make them allegorical no longer, but to shock the mind by
ascribing effects to nonentity. In the Prometheus of Aeschylus, we see
violence and strength, and in the Alcestis of Euripides, we see death
brought upon the stage, all as active persons of the drama; but no
precedents can justify absurdity.
Milton's allegory of sin and death is, undoubtedly, faulty. Sin is,
indeed, the mother of death, and may be allowed to be the portress of
hell; but when they stop the journey of Satan, a journey described as
real, and when death offers him battle, the allegory is broken. That sin
and death should have shown the way to hell, might have been allowed;
but they cannot facilitate the passage by building a bridge, because the
difficulty of Satan's passage is described as real and sensible, and the
bridge ought to be only figurative. The hell assigned to the rebellious
spirits is described as not less local than the residence of man. It
is placed in some distant part of space, separated from the regions of
harmony and order by a chaotick waste and an unoccupied vacuity; but
sin and death worked up "a mole of aggravated soil," cemented with
"asphaltus;" a work too bulky for ideal architects.
This unskilful allegory appears to me one of the greatest faults of the
poem; and to this there was no temptation but the author's opinion of
its beauty.
To the conduct of the narrative some objections may be made. Satan is,
with great expectation, brought before Gabriel in Paradise, and is
suffered to go away unmolested. The creation of man is represented as the
consequence of the vacuity left in heaven by the expulsion of the rebels;
yet Satan mentions it as a report "rife in heaven" before his departure.
To find sentiments for the state of innocence was very difficult; and
something of anticipation, perhaps, is now and then discovered. Adam's
discourse of dreams seems not to be the speculation of a new-created
being. I know not whether his answer to the angel's reproof for curiosity
does not want something of propriety; it is the speech of a man
acquainted with many other men. Some philosophical notions, especially
when the philosophy is false, might have been better omitted. The
angel, in a comparison, speaks of "timorous deer," before deer were yet
timorous, and before Adam could understand the comparison.
Dryden remarks, that Milton has some flats among his elevations. This is
only to say, that all the parts are not equal. In every work, one part
must be for the sake of others; a palace must have passages; a poem must
have transitions. It is no more to be required that wit should always be
blazing, than that the sun should always stand at noon. In a great work
there is a vicissitude of luminous and opaque parts, as there is in the
world a succession of day and night. Milton, when he has expatiated in
the sky, may be allowed, sometimes, to revisit earth; for what other
author ever soared so high, or sustained his flight so long?
Milton, being well versed in the Italian poets, appears to have borrowed
often from them; and, as every man catches something from his companions,
his desire of imitating Ariosto's levity has disgraced his work with
the Paradise of Fools; a fiction not, in itself, ill imagined, but too
ludicrous for its place.
His play on words, in which he delights too often; his equivocations,
which Bentley endeavours to defend by the example of the ancients; his
unnecessary and ungraceful use of terms of art; it is not necessary to
mention, because they are easily remarked, and generally censured; and,
at last, bear so little proportion to the whole, that they scarcely
deserve the attention of a critick.
Such are the faults of that wonderful performance, Paradise Lost; which
he who can put in balance with its beauties must be considered not as
nice but as dull; as less to be censured for want of candour, than pitied
for want of sensibility.
Of Paradise Regained, the general judgment seems now to be right, that it
is, in many parts, elegant, and everywhere instructive. It was not to be
supposed that the writer of Paradise Lost could ever write without great
effusions of fancy, and exalted precepts of wisdom. The basis of Paradise
Regained is narrow; a dialogue without action can never please, like an
union of the narrative and dramatick powers. Had this poem been written
not by Milton, but by some imitator, it would have claimed and received
universal praise.
If Paradise Regained has been too much depreciated, Sampson Agonistes
has, in requital, been too much admired. It could only be by long
prejudice, and the bigotry of learning, that Milton could prefer the
ancient tragedies, with their encumbrance of a chorus, to the exhibitions
of the French and English stages; and it is only by a blind confidence
in the reputation of Milton, that a drama can be praised, in which the
intermediate parts have neither cause nor consequence, neither hasten nor
retard the catastrophe.
In this tragedy are, however, many particular beauties, many just
sentiments and striking lines; but it wants that power of attracting the
attention, which a well-connected plan produces.
Milton would not have excelled in dramatick writing; he knew human nature
only in the gross, and had never studied the shades of character, nor the
combinations of concurring, or the perplexity of contending passions. He
had read much, and knew what books could teach; but had mingled little
in the world, and was deficient in the knowledge which experience must
confer.
Through all his greater works there prevails an uniform peculiarity of
diction, a mode and cast of expression which bears little resemblance to
that of any former writer; and which is so far removed from common use,
that an unlearned reader, when he first opens his book, finds himself
surprised by a new language.
This novelty has been, by those who can find nothing wrong in Milton,
imputed to his laborious endeavours after words suitable to the grandeur
of his ideas. "Our language," says Addison, "sunk under him. " But the
truth is, that, both in prose and verse, he had formed his style by a
perverse and pedantick principle. He was desirous to use English words
with a foreign idiom. This in all his prose is discovered and condemned;
for there judgment operates freely, neither softened by the beauty, nor
awed by the dignity of his thoughts; but such is the power of his poetry,
that his call is obeyed without resistance, the reader feels himself
in captivity to a higher and a nobler mind, and criticism sinks in
admiration.
Milton's style was not modified by his subject; what is shown with
greater extent in Paradise Lost may be found in Comus. One source of his
peculiarity was his familiarity with the Tuscan poets; the disposition of
his words is, I think, frequently Italian; perhaps, sometimes, combined
with other tongues.
Of him, at last, may be said what Jonson says of Spenser, that "he wrote
no language," but has formed what Butler calls a "Babylonish dialect,"
in itself harsh and barbarous, but made by exalted genius and extensive
learning the vehicle of so much instruction, and so much pleasure, that,
like other lovers, we find grace in its deformity.
Whatever be the faults of his diction, he cannot want the praise of
copiousness and variety; he was master of his language in its full
extent; and has selected the melodious words with such diligence, that
from his book alone the art of English poetry might be learned.
After his diction, something must be said of his versification. The
"measure," he says, "is the English heroick verse without rhyme. " Of
this mode he had many examples among the Italians, and some in his own
country. The earl of Surrey is said to have translated one of Virgil's
books without rhyme[62]; and, beside our tragedies, a few short poems had
appeared in blank verse, particularly one tending to reconcile the nation
to Raleigh's wild attempt upon Guiana, and probably written by Raleigh
himself. These petty performances cannot be supposed to have much
influenced Milton, who, more probably took his hint from Trissino's
Italia Liberata; and, finding blank verse easier than rhyme, was desirous
of persuading himself that it is better.
"Rhyme," he says, and says truly, "is no necessary adjunct of true
poetry. " But, perhaps, of poetry, as a mental operation, metre or musick
is no necessary adjunct: it is, however, by the musick of metre that
poetry has been discriminated in all languages; and, in languages
melodiously constructed with a due proportion of long and short
syllables, metre is sufficient. But one language cannot communicate its
rules to another; where metre is scanty and imperfect, some help is
necessary. The musick of the English heroick lines strikes the ear so
faintly, that it is easily lost, unless all the syllables of every
line cooperate together; this cooperation can be only obtained by the
preservation of every verse unmingled with another, as a distinct system
of sounds; and this distinctness is obtained and preserved by the
artifice of rhyme. The variety of pauses, so much boasted by the lovers
of blank verse, changes the measures of an English poet to the periods
of a declaimer; and there are only a few skilful and happy readers of
Milton, who enable their audience to perceive where the lines end or
begin. "Blank verse," said an ingenious critick, "seems to be verse only
to the eye. " Poetry may subsist without rhyme, but English poetry will
not often please; nor can rhyme ever be safely spared, but where the
subject is able to support itself. Blank verse makes some approach to
that which is called the lapidary style; has neither the easiness
of prose, nor the melody of numbers, and, therefore, tires by long
continuance. Of the Italian writers without rhyme, whom Milton alleges as
precedents, not one is popular; what reason could urge in its defence,
has been confuted by the ear.
But, whatever be the advantage of rhyme, I cannot prevail on myself to
wish that Milton had been a rhymer; for I cannot wish his work to be
other than it is; yet, like other heroes, he is to be admired rather than
imitated. He that thinks himself capable of astonishing may write blank
verse; but those that hope only to please must condescend to rhyme.
The highest praise of genius is original invention. Milton cannot be said
to have contrived the structure of an epick poem, and, therefore, owes
reverence to that vigour and amplitude of mind to which all generations
must be indebted for the, art of poetical narration, for the texture of
the fable, the variation of incidents, the interposition of dialogue, and
all the stratagems that surprise and enchain attention. But, of all the
borrowers from Homer, Milton is, perhaps, the least indebted. He was
naturally a thinker for himself, confident of his own abilities, and
disdainful of help or hindrance: he did not refuse admission to the
thoughts or images of his predecessors, but he did not seek them. From
his contemporaries he neither courted nor received support; there is
in his writings nothing by which the pride of other authors might be
gratified, or favour gained; no exchange of praise, nor solicitation of
support. His great works were performed under discountenance, and in
blindness; but difficulties vanished at his touch; he was born for
whatever is arduous; and his work is not the greatest of heroick poems,
only because it is not the first.
[Footnote 26: In this assertion Dr. Johnson was mistaken. Milton was
admitted a pensioner, and not a sizar, as will appear by the following
extract from the college register: "Johannes Milton, Londinensis, filius
Johannis, institutus fuit in literarum elementis sub Mag'ro Gill Gymnasii
Paulini praefecto, admissus est _Pensionarius Minor_, Feb. 12? , 1624, sub
M'ro Chappell, solvitq. pro Ingr. 0l. 10s. 0d. " R. ]
[Footnote 27: Published 1632. R. ]
[Footnote 28: On this subject, see Dr. Symons's Life of Milton, 71, 72.
ED. ]
[Footnote 29: By the mention of this name, he evidently refers to
Albumazar, acted at Cambridge, in 1614. Ignoramus, and other plays were
performed at the same time. The practice was then very frequent. The
last dramatick performance at either university, was the Grateful Fair,
written by Christopher Smart, and represented at Pembroke college,
Cambridge, about 1747. R. ]
[Footnote 30: It has, nevertheless, its foundation in reality. The earl
of Bridgewater, being president of Wales, in the year 1634, had his
residence at Ludlow castle, in Shropshire, at which time lord Brackly
and Mr. Egerton, his sons, and lady Alice Egerton, his daughter, passing
through a place called the Haywood forest, or Haywood, in Herefordshire,
were benighted, and the lady for a short time lost: this accident, being
related to their father upon their arrival at his castle, Milton, at the
request of his friend, Henry Lawes, who taught music in the family, wrote
this masque. Lawes set it to music, and it was acted on Michaelmas night:
the two brothers, the young lady, and Lawes himself, bearing each a part
in the representation.
The lady Alice Egerton became afterwards the wife of the earl of Carbury,
who, at his seat called Golden grove, in Caermarthenshire, harboured Dr.
Jeremy Taylor in the time of the usurpation. Among the doctor's sermons
is one on her death, in which her character is finely portrayed. Her
sister, lady Mary, was given in marriage to lord Herbert, of Cherbury.
Notwithstanding Dr. Johnson's assertion, that the fiction is derived from
Homer's Circe, it may be conjectured, that it was rather taken from the
Comus of Erycius Puteanus, in which, under the fiction of a dream, the
characters of Comus and his attendants are delineated, and the delights
of sensualists exposed and reprobated. This little tract was published
at Louvain, in 1611, and afterwards at Oxford, in 1634, the very year in
which Milton's Comus was written. H. Milton evidently was indebted to the
Old Wives' Tale of George Peele for the plan of Comus. R. ]
[Footnote 31: This is inaccurately expressed: Philips, and Dr. Newton,
after him, say a garden-house, i. e. a house situated in a garden, and of
which there were, especially in the north suburbs of London, very many,
if not few else. The term is technical, and frequently occurs in the
Athen. and Fast. Oxon. The meaning thereof may be collected from the
article, Thomas Farnaby, the famous schoolmaster, of whom the author
says, that he taught in Goldsmith's rents, in Cripplegate parish, behind
Redcross street, where were large gardens and handsome houses. Milton's
house in Jewin street was also a garden-house, as were, indeed, most of
his dwellings after his settlement in London. H. ]
[Footnote 32: Johnson did not here allude to Philips's Theatrum Poetarum,
as has been ignorantly supposed, but, as he himself informed Mr. Malone,
to another work by the same author, entitled, Tractatulus de carmine
dramatico poetarum veterum praesertim in choris tragicis et veteris
comoediae. Cui subjungitur compendiosa enumeratio poetarum (saltern
quorum fama maxima enituit) qui a tempore Dantis Aligerii usque ad hanc
aetatem claruerunt, etc. J. B. ]
[Footnote 33: Stephen Marshall, Edmund Calamy, Thomas Young, Matthew
Newcomen, William Spurstow. R. ]
[Footnote 34: It was animadverted upon, but without any mention of
Milton's name, by bishop Hall, in his Cases of Conscience, Decade 4, Case
2. J. B. ]
[Footnote 35: He terms the author of it a shallow-brained puppy; and thus
refers to it in his index: "Of a noddy who wrote a book about wiving. "
J. B. ]
[Footnote 36: This charge, as far as regards Milton, is examined by Dr.
Symons with more moderation than usually characterizes his high-sounding
and wordy panegyrics. See Life of Milton. ED. ]
[Footnote 37: The work here referred to is Selectarum de Lingua Latina
Observationum Libri duo. Ductu et cura Joannis Ker, 1719. Ker observes,
that vapulandum is pinguis solaecismus. J. B. ]
[Footnote 38: It may be doubted whether _gloriosissimus_ be here used
with Milton's boasted purity. _Res gloriosa_ is an _illustrious thing_;
but _vir gloriosus_ is _commonly_ a _braggart_, as in _miles gloriosus_.
Dr. J. ]
[Footnote 39: The Cambridge dictionary, published in 4to. 1693, is
no other than a copy, with some small additions, of that of Dr. Adam
Littleton in 1686, by sundry persons, of whom though their names are
concealed, there is great reason to conjecture that Milton's nephew,
Edward Philips, is one: for it is expressly said by Wood, Fasti, vol. i.
p. 266, that Milton's Thesaurus came to his hands; and it is asserted in
the preface thereto, that the editors thereof had the use of three large
folios in manuscript, collected and digested into alphabetical order by
Mr. John Milton. It has been remarked, that the additions, together
with the preface above mentioned, and a large part of the title of
the Cambridge dictionary, have been incorporated and printed with the
subsequent editions of Littleton's dictionary, till that of 1735. Vid.
Biogr. Brit. 2985, in not. So that, for aught that appears to the
contrary, Philips was the last possessor of Milton's manuscripts. H. ]
[Footnote 40: _Id est_, to be the subject of an heroick poem, written by
sir Richard Blackmore. H. ]
[Footnote 41: Trinity college. R. ]
[Footnote 42: The dramas in which Justice, Mercy, Faith, &c. were
introduced, were moralities, not mysteries. MALONE. ]
[Footnote 43: Philips says expressly, that Milton was excepted and
disqualified from bearing any office; but Toland says he was not excepted
at all, and consequently included in the general pardon, or act of
indemnity, passed the 29th of August, 1660. Toland is right, for I find
Goodwin and Ph. Nye, the minister, excepted in the act, but Milton not
named. However, he obtained a special pardon in December, 1660, which
passed the privy seal, but not the great seal. MALONE. ]
[Footnote 44: It was told before by A. Wood in Ath. Oxon. vol. ii. p.
412. second edition. ]
[Footnote 45: That Milton saved Davenant, is attested by Aubrey, and by
Wood, from him; but none of them say that Davenant saved Milton: this is
Richardson's assertion merely. MALONE. ]
[Footnote 46: A different account of the means by which Milton secured
himself, is given by an historian lately brought to light: "Milton,
Latin secretary to Cromwell, distinguished by his writings in favour of
the rights and liberties of the people, pretended to be dead, and had a
publick funeral procession. The king applauded his policy in escaping
the punishment of death, by a seasonable show of dying. " Cunningham's
History of Great Britain, vol. i. p. 14. R. ]
[Footnote 47: Gildon, in his continuation of Langbaine's account of the
dramatick poets, 8vo. 1693, says, that he had been told that Milton,
after the restoration, kept a school at or near Greenwich. The
publication of an Accidence at that period gives some countenance to this
tradition. MALONE]
[Footnote 48: It is scarcely necessary to inform the reader, that this
relation of Voltaire's was perfectly true, as far as relates to the
existence of the play which he speaks of, namely, the Adamo of Andreini;
but it is still a question whether Milton ever saw it. J. B. ]
[Footnote 49: This opinion is, with great learning and ingenuity,
refuted in a book now very little known, an Apology or Declaration of
the Power and Providence of God in the Government of the World, by Dr.
George Hakewill, London, folio, 1635. The first who ventured to propagate
it in this country was Dr.
Gabriel Goodman, bishop of Gloucester, a man
of a versatile temper, and the author of a book entitled, the Fall of Man,
or the Corruption of Nature proved by Natural Reason. Lond. 1616, and
1624. quarto. He was plundered in the usurpation, turned Roman catholick,
and died in obscurity. See Athen, Oxon. vol. i. p. 727. H. ]
[Footnote 50:
--Unless _an age too late_, or cold
Climate, or years damp my intended wing.
Par. Lost. b. ix. l. 44. ]
[Footnote 51: Johnson has, in many places of
his Rambler and Idler, ridiculed the notion of a dependance of our mental
powers on the variations of atmosphere. In Boswell's life, however,
there are some recorded instances of his own subjection to this
common infirmity. We cannot refrain from denouncing, as unfeeling and
ungenerous, Johnson's sarcasms at Milton's distempered imagination, when
old age, disease, and darkness had come upon him. Dr. Symons runs into
the diametrically opposite extreme. ED. ]
[Footnote 52: "Statura fateor non sum procera: seel quae mediocri tamen
quam parvae propior sit: sed quid si parva, qua et summi saepe tum pace
tum bello viri fuere, quanquam parva cur dicitur, quae ad virtutem satis
magna est. " Defensio Secunda. ED. ]
[Footnote 53: Both these persons were living at Holloway, about the year
1734, and, at that time, possessed such a degree of health and strength,
as enabled them, on Sundays and prayer-days, to walk a mile up a steep
hill to Highgate chapel. One of them was ninety-two at the time of her
death. Their parentage was known to few, and their names were corrupted
into Melton. By the crown-office, mentioned in the two last paragraphs,
we are to understand the crown-office of the court of Chancery. H. ]
[Footnote 54: Printed in the first volume of this collection. ]
[Footnote 55: With the exception of Comus, in which, Dr. J. afterwards
says, may very plainly be discovered the dawn or twilight of Paradise
Lost. C. ]
[Footnote 56: Here, as Warton justly observes, "Johnson has confounded
two descriptions! "
The melancholy man does not go
out while it rains, but waits, till----the sun begins to fling
His flaring beams. J. B. ]
[Footnote 57: Mr. Warton intimates, and there can be little doubt of the
truth of his conjecture, that Milton borrowed many of the images in these
two fine poems from Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy, a book published
in 1621, and, at sundry times since, abounding in learning, curious
information, and pleasantry. Mr. Warton says, that Milton appears to have
been an attentive reader thereof; and to this assertion I add, of my own
knowledge, that it was a book that Dr. Johnson frequently resorted to,
as many others have done, for amusement after the fatigue of study.
H. --Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy, Johnson said, was the only book
that ever took him out of bed two hours sooner than he wished to rise.
Boswell's Life, ii. 120. ]
[Footnote 58: Surely there are precedents enough for the practice,
though pessimi exempli, in Milton's favourite tragedian Euripides. ED. ]
[Footnote 59: Author of the Essay on Study. ]
[Footnote 60: Algarotti terms it, "gigantesca sublimita Miltoniana. "
Dr. J. ]
[Footnote 61: But, says Dr. Warton, it has, throughout, a reference to
human life and actions. C. ]
[Footnote 62: The earl of Surrey translated two books of Virgil without
rhyme; the second and the fourth. J. B. ]
BUTLER.
Of the great author of Hudibras there is a life prefixed to the later
editions of his poem, by an unknown writer, and, therefore, of disputable
authority; and some account is incidentally given by Wood, who confesses
the uncertainty of his own narrative; more, however, than they knew
cannot now be learned, and nothing remains but to compare and copy them.
Samuel Butler was born in the parish of Strensham, in Worcestershire,
according to his biographer, in 1612. This account Dr. Nash finds
confirmed by the register. He was christened Feb. 14.
His father's condition is variously represented: Wood mentions him as
competently wealthy; but Mr. Longneville, the son of Butler's principal
friend, says he was an honest farmer, with some small estate, who made a
shift to educate his son at the grammar school of Worcester, under Mr.
Henry Bright[63], from whose care he removed, for a short time, to
Cambridge; but, for want of money, was never made a member of any college.
Wood leaves us rather doubtful whether he went to Cambridge or Oxford;
but, at last, makes him pass six or seven years at Cambridge, without
knowing in what hall or college; yet it can hardly be imagined that he
lived so long in either university but as belonging to one house or
another; and it is still less likely that he could have so long inhabited
a place of learning with so little distinction as to leave his residence
uncertain. Dr. Nash has discovered that his father was owner of a house
and a little land, worth about eight pounds a year, still called Butler's
tenement.
Wood has his information from his brother, whose narrative placed him at
Cambridge, in opposition to that of his neighbours, which sent him to
Oxford. The brother's seems the best authority, till, by confessing his
inability to tell his hall or college, he gives reason to suspect that he
was resolved to bestow on him an academical education; but durst not name
a college, for fear of detection.
He was, for some time, according to the author of his life, clerk to Mr.
Jefferys, of Earl's Croomb, in Worcestershire, an eminent justice of
the peace. In his service he had not only leisure for study, but for
recreation: his amusements were musick and painting; and the reward of
his pencil was the friendship of the celebrated Cooper. Some pictures,
said to be his, were shown to Dr. Nash, at Earl's Croomb; but, when he
inquired for them some years afterwards, he found them destroyed, to stop
windows, and owns that they hardly deserved a better fate.
He was afterwards admitted into the family of the countess of Kent, where
he had the use of a library; and so much recommended himself to Selden,
that he was often employed by him in literary business. Selden, as is
well known, was steward to the countess, and is supposed to have gained
much of his wealth by managing her estate.
In what character Butler was admitted into that lady's service, how long
he continued in it, and why he left it, is, like the other incidents of
his life, utterly unknown. The vicissitudes of his condition placed him
afterwards in the family of sir Samuel Luke, one of Cromwell's officers.
Here he observed so much of the character of the sectaries, that he is
said to have written or begun his poem at this time; and it is likely
that such a design would be formed in a place where he saw the principles
and practices of the rebels, audacious and undisguised in the confidence
of success.
At length the king returned, and the time came in which loyalty hoped
for its reward. Butler, however, was only made secretary to the earl of
Carbury, president of the principality of Wales; who conferred on him the
stewardship of Ludlow castle, when the court of the marches was revived.
In this part of his life, he married Mrs. Herbert, a gentlewoman of a
good family; and lived, says Wood, upon her fortune, having studied
the common law, but never practised it. A fortune she had, says his
biographer, but it was lost by bad securities.
In 1663 was published the first part, containing three cantos, of the
poem of Hudibras, which, as Prior relates, was made known at court by
the taste and influence of the earl of Dorset. When it was known, it was
necessarily admired: the king quoted, the courtiers studied, and the
whole party of the royalists applauded it. Every eye watched for the
golden shower which was to fall upon the author, who certainly was not
without his part in the general expectation.
In 1664 the second part appeared; the curiosity of the nation was
rekindled, and the writer was again praised and elated. But praise was
his whole reward. Clarendon, says Wood, gave him reason to hope for
"places and employments of value and credit;" but no such advantages did
he ever obtain. It is reported that the king once gave him three hundred
guineas; but of this temporary bounty I find no proof.
Wood relates that he was secretary to Villiers, duke of Buckingham, when
he was chancellor of Cambridge: this is doubted by the other writer, who
yet allows the duke to have been his frequent benefactor. That both these
accounts are false there is reason to suspect, from a story told by
Packe, in his account of the life of Wycherley; and from some verses
which Mr. Thyer has published in the author's Remains.
"Mr. Wycherley," says Packe, "had always laid hold of an opportunity
which offered of representing to the duke of Buckingham how well Mr.
Butler had deserved of the royal family, by writing his inimitable
Hudibras; and that it was a reproach to the court, that a person of his
loyalty and wit should suffer in obscurity, and under the wants he did.
The duke always seemed to hearken to him with attention enough; and,
after some time, undertook to recommend his pretensions to his majesty.
Mr. Wycherley, in hopes to keep him steady to his word, obtained of his
grace to name a day, when he might introduce that modest and unfortunate
poet to his new patron. At last an appointment was made, and the place of
meeting was agreed to be the Roebuck. Mr. Butler and his friend attended
accordingly; the duke joined them; but, as the d--l would have it, the
door of the room where they sat was open, and his grace, who had seated
himself near it, observing a pimp of his acquaintance (the creature too
was a knight) trip by with a brace of ladies, immediately quitted his
engagement to follow another kind of business, at which he was more ready
than in doing good offices to men of desert, though no one was better
qualified than he, both in regard to his fortune and understanding, to
protect them; and, from that time to the day of his death, poor Butler
never found the least effect of his promise! "
Such is the story. The verses are written with a degree of acrimony, such
as neglect and disappointment might naturally excite; and such as it
would be hard to imagine Butler capable of expressing against a man who
had any claim to his gratitude.
Notwithstanding this discouragement and neglect, he still prosecuted his
design; and, in 1678, published the third part, which still leaves the
poem imperfect and abrupt. How much more he originally intended, or with
what events the action was to be concluded, it is vain to conjecture. Nor
can it be thought strange that he should stop here, however unexpectedly.
To write without reward is sufficiently unpleasing. He had now arrived
at an age when he might think it proper to be in jest no longer, and,
perhaps, his health might now begin to fail.
He died in 1680; and Mr. Longueville, having unsuccessfully solicited a
subscription for his interment in Westminster Abbey, buried him, at his
own cost, in the church-yard of Covent garden[64]. Dr. Simon Patrick read
the service.
Granger was informed by Dr. Pearce, who named for his authority Mr.
Lowndes, of the treasury, that Butler had a yearly pension of an hundred
pounds. This is contradicted by all tradition, by the complaints of
Oldham, and by the reproaches of Dryden; and, I am afraid, will never be
confirmed.
About sixty years afterwards, Mr. Barber, a printer, mayor of London,
and a friend to Butler's principles, bestowed on him a monument in
Westminster Abbey, thus inscribed:
M. S.
SAMUELIS BUTLERI,
Qui Strenshamiae in agro Vigorn. nat. 1612,
obijt Lond. 1680.
Vir doctus imprimis, acer, integer;
Operibus ingenii, non item praemiis, foelix:
Satyrici apud nos carminis artifex egregius;
Quo simulatae religionis larvam detraxit,
Et perduellium scelera liberrime exagitavit;
Scriptorum in suo genere, primus et postremus.
Ne, cui vivo deerant fere omnia,
Deesset etiam mortuo tumulus,
Hoc tandem posito marmore, curavit
JOHANNES BARBER, Civis Londinensis, 1721.
After his death were published three small volumes of his posthumous
works; I know not by whom collected, or by what authority
ascertained[65]; and, lately, two volumes more have been printed by Mr.
Thyer, of Manchester, indubitably genuine. From none of these pieces can
his life be traced, or his character discovered. Some verses, in the
last collection, show him to have been among those who ridiculed the
institution of the Royal Society, of which the enemies were, for some
time, very numerous and very acrimonious; for what reason it is hard to
conceive, since the philosophers professed not to advance doctrines, but
to produce facts: and the most zealous enemy of innovation must admit
the gradual progress of experience, however he may oppose hypothetical
temerity.
In this mist of obscurity passed the life of Butler, a man whose name can
only perish with his language. The mode and place of his education are
unknown; the events of his life are variously related; and all that can
be told with certainty is, that he was poor.
* * * * *
The poem of Hudibras is one of those compositions of which a nation
may justly boast; as the images which it exhibits are domestick, the
sentiments unborrowed and unexpected, and the strain of diction original
and peculiar. We must not, however, suffer the pride, which we assume
as the countrymen of Butler, to make any encroachment upon justice, nor
appropriate those honours which others have a right to share. The poem of
Hudibras is not wholly English; the original idea is to be found in the
history of Don Quixote; a book to which a mind of the greatest powers may
be indebted without disgrace.
Cervantes shows a man, who having, by the incessant perusal of incredible
tales, subjected his understanding to his imagination, and familiarized
his mind by pertinacious meditation to trains of incredible events, and
scenes of impossible existence; goes out, in the pride of knighthood, to
redress wrongs, and defend virgins, to rescue captive princesses, and
tumble usurpers from their thrones; attended by a squire, whose cunning,
too low for the suspicion of a generous mind, enables him often to cheat
his master.
The hero of Butler is a presbyterian justice, who, in the confidence of
legal authority and the rage of zealous ignorance, ranges the country to
repress superstition, and correct abuses, accompanied by an independent
clerk, disputatious and obstinate, with whom he often debates, but never
conquers him.
Cervantes had so much kindness for Don Quixote, that, however he
embarrasses him with absurd distresses, he gives him so much sense and
virtue as may preserve our esteem; wherever he is, or whatever he does,
he is made, by matchless dexterity, commonly ridiculous, but never
contemptible.
But for poor Hudibras, his poet had no tenderness; he chooses not that
any pity should be shown, or respect paid him; he gives him up at once to
laughter and contempt, without any quality that can dignify or protect
him.
In forming the character of Hudibras, and describing his person and
habiliments, the author seems to labour with a tumultuous confusion of
dissimilar ideas. He had read the history of the mock knights-errant; he
knew the notions and manners of a presbyterian magistrate, and tried to
unite the absurdities of both, however distant, in one personage. Thus he
gives him that pedantick ostentation of knowledge which has no relation
to chivalry, and loads him with martial encumbrances that can add nothing
to his civil dignity. He sends him out a "colonelling," and yet never
brings him within sight of war.
If Hudibras be considered as the representative of the presbyterians, it
is not easy to say why his weapons should be represented as ridiculous or
useless; for, whatever judgment might be passed upon their knowledge or
their arguments, experience had sufficiently shown that their swords were
not to be despised. The hero, thus compounded of swaggerer and pedant, of
knight and justice, is led forth to action, with his squire Ralpho, an
independent enthusiast.
Of the contexture of events planned by the author, which is called the
action of the poem, since it is left imperfect, no judgment can he
made. It is probable, that the hero was to be led through many luckless
adventures, which would give occasion, like his attack upon the "bear
and fiddle," to expose the ridiculous rigour of the sectaries; like his
encounter with Sidrophel and Whacum, to make superstition and credulity
contemptible; or, like his recourse to the low retailer of the law,
discover the fraudulent practices of different professions.
What series of events he would have formed, or in what manner he would
have rewarded or punished his hero, it is now vain to conjecture. His
work must have had, as it seems, the defect which Dryden imputes to
Spenser; the action could not have been one; there could only have been
a succession of incidents, each of which might have happened without the
rest, and which could not all cooperate to any single conclusion.
The discontinuity of the action might, however, have been easily
forgiven, if there had been action enough; but, I believe, every reader
regrets the paucity of events, and complains that, in the poem of
Hudibras, as in the history of Thucydides, there is more said than done.
The scenes are too seldom changed, and the attention is tired with long
conversation.
It is, indeed, much more easy to form dialogues than to contrive
adventures. Every position makes way for an argument, and every objection
dictates an answer. When two disputants are engaged upon a complicated
and extensive question, the difficulty is not to continue, but to end
the controversy. But whether it be that we comprehend but few of the
possibilities of life, or that life itself affords little variety, every
man, who has tried, knows how much labour it will cost to form such a
combination of circumstances as shall have, at once, the grace of novelty
and credibility, and delight fancy without violence to reason.
Perhaps the dialogue of this poem is not perfect. Some power of engaging
the attention might have been added to it by quicker reciprocation, by
seasonable interruptions, by sudden questions, and by a nearer approach
to dramatick sprightliness; without which, fictitious speeches will
always tire, however sparkling with sentences, and however variegated
with allusions.
The great source of pleasure is variety. Uniformity must tire at last,
though it be uniformity of excellence. We love to expect; and, when
expectation is disappointed or gratified, we want to be again expecting.
For this impatience of the present, whoever would please must make
provision. The skilful writer "irritat, mulcet," makes a due distribution
of the still and animated parts. It is for want of this artful
intertexture, and those necessary changes, that the whole of a book may
be tedious, though all the parts are praised.
If inexhaustible wit could give perpetual pleasure, no eye would ever
leave half-read the work of Butler; for what poet has ever brought so
many remote images so happily together? It is scarcely possible to peruse
a page without finding some association of images that was never found
before. By the first paragraph the reader is amused, by the next he is
delighted, and by a few more strained to astonishment; but astonishment
is a toilsome pleasure; he is soon weary of wondering, and longs to be
diverted:
"Omnia vult belle Matho dicere, dic aliquando
Et bene, die neutrum, dic aliquando male. "
Imagination is useless without knowledge: nature gives in vain the power
of combination, unless study and observation supply materials to be
combined. Butler's treasures of knowledge appear proportioned to his
expense: whatever topick employs his mind, he shows himself qualified to
expand and illustrate it with all the accessories that books can furnish:
he is found not only to have travelled the beaten road, but the by-paths
of literature; not only to have taken general surveys, but to have
examined particulars with minute inspection.
If the French boast the learning of Rabelais, we need not be afraid of
confronting them with Butler.
But the most valuable parts of his performance are those which retired
study and native wit cannot supply. He that merely makes a book from
books may be useful, but can scarcely be great. Butler had not suffered
life to glide beside him unseen or unobserved. He had watched, with great
diligence, the operations of human nature, and traced the effects of
opinion, humour, interest, and passion. From such remarks proceeded
that great number of sententious distichs, which have passed into
conversation, and are added as proverbial axioms to the general stock of
practical knowledge.
When any work has been viewed and admired, the first question of
intelligent curiosity is, how was it performed? Hudibras was not a hasty
effusion; it was not produced by a sudden tumult of imagination, or a
short paroxysm of violent labour. To accumulate such a mass of sentiments
at the call of accidental desire, or of sudden necessity, is beyond the
reach and power of the most active and comprehensive mind. I am informed
by Mr. Thyer, of Manchester, the excellent editor of this author's
relicks, that he could show something like Hudibras in prose. He has in
his possession the commonplace-book, in which Butler reposited, not
such events or precepts as are gathered by reading, but such remarks,
similitudes, allusions, assemblages, or inferences, as occasion prompted,
or meditation produced; those thoughts that were generated in his own
mind, and might be usefully applied to some future purpose. Such is the
labour of those who write for immortality.
But human works are not easily found without a perishable part. Of the
ancient poets every reader feels the mythology tedious and oppressive.
Of Hudibras, the manners, being founded on opinions, are temporary and
local, and, therefore, become every day less intelligible, and less
striking. What Cicero says of philosophy is true, likewise, of wit and
humour, that "time effaces the fictions of opinion, and confirms the
determinations of nature. " Such manners as depend upon standing relations
and general passions are coextended with the race of man; but those
modifications of life, and peculiarities of practice, which are the
progeny of errour and perverseness, or, at best, of some accidental
influence or transient persuasion, must perish with their parents.
Much, therefore, of that humour which transported the last century[66]
with merriment, is lost to us, who do not know the sour solemnity, the
sullen superstition, the gloomy moroseness, and the stubborn scruples of
the ancient puritans; or, if we know them, derive our information only
from books, or from tradition, have never had them before our eyes, and
cannot, but by recollection and study, understand the lines in which they
are satirized. Our grandfathers knew the picture from the life; we judge
of the life by contemplating the picture.
It is scarcely possible, in the regularity and composure of the present
time, to image the tumult of absurdity, and clamour of contradiction,
which perplexed doctrine, disordered practice, and disturbed both publick
and private quiet, in that age when subordination was broken, and awe was
hissed away; when any unsettled innovator, who could hatch a half-formed
notion, produced it to the publick; when every man might become a
preacher, and almost every preacher could collect a congregation.
The wisdom of the nation is very reasonably supposed to reside in the
parliament. What can be concluded of the lower classes of the people,
when in one of the parliaments, summoned by Cromwell, it was seriously
proposed, that all the records in the Tower should be burnt, that all
memory of things past should be effaced, and that the whole system of
life should commence anew?
We have never been witnesses of animosities excited by the use of minced
pies and plumporridge; nor seen with what abhorrence those, who could eat
them at all other times of the year, would shrink from them in December.
philosophy. His infernal and celestial powers are sometimes pure spirit,
and sometimes animated body. When Satan walks with his lance upon the
"burning marl," he has a body; when, in his passage between hell and the
new world, he is in danger of sinking in the vacuity, and is supported
by a gust of rising vapours, he has a body; when he animates the toad,
he seems to be mere spirit, that can penetrate matter at pleasure; when
he starts "up in his own shape," he has, at least, a determined form;
and, when he is brought before Gabriel, he has "a spear and a shield,"
which he had the power of hiding in the toad, though the arms of the
contending angels are evidently material.
The vulgar inhabitants of Pandaemonium, being "incorporeal spirits,"
are "at large, though without number," in a limited space: yet, in the
battle, when they were overwhelmed by mountains, their armour hurt them,
"crushed in upon their substance, now grown gross by sinning. " This,
likewise, happened to the uncorrupted angels, who were overthrown the
"sooner for their arms, for unarmed they might easily, as spirits,
have evaded by contraction or remove. " Even as spirits they are hardly
spiritual; for "contraction" and "remove" are images of matter; but if
they could have escaped without their armour, they might have escaped
from it, and left only the empty cover to be battered. Uriel, when he
rides on a sunbeam, is material; Satan is material when he is afraid of
the prowess of Adam.
The confusion of spirit and matter, which pervades the whole narration
of the war of heaven, fills it with incongruity; and the book in which
it is related is, I believe, the favourite of children, and gradually
neglected, as knowledge is increased.
After the operation of immaterial agents which cannot be explained, may
be considered that of allegorical persons, which have no real existence.
To exalt causes into agents, to invest abstract ideas with form, and
animate them with activity, has always been the right of poetry. But
such airy beings are, for the most part, suffered only to do their
natural office, and retire. Thus fame tells a tale, and victory hovers
over a general, or perches on a standard; but fame and victory can do no
more. To give them any real employment, or ascribe to them any material
agency, is to make them allegorical no longer, but to shock the mind by
ascribing effects to nonentity. In the Prometheus of Aeschylus, we see
violence and strength, and in the Alcestis of Euripides, we see death
brought upon the stage, all as active persons of the drama; but no
precedents can justify absurdity.
Milton's allegory of sin and death is, undoubtedly, faulty. Sin is,
indeed, the mother of death, and may be allowed to be the portress of
hell; but when they stop the journey of Satan, a journey described as
real, and when death offers him battle, the allegory is broken. That sin
and death should have shown the way to hell, might have been allowed;
but they cannot facilitate the passage by building a bridge, because the
difficulty of Satan's passage is described as real and sensible, and the
bridge ought to be only figurative. The hell assigned to the rebellious
spirits is described as not less local than the residence of man. It
is placed in some distant part of space, separated from the regions of
harmony and order by a chaotick waste and an unoccupied vacuity; but
sin and death worked up "a mole of aggravated soil," cemented with
"asphaltus;" a work too bulky for ideal architects.
This unskilful allegory appears to me one of the greatest faults of the
poem; and to this there was no temptation but the author's opinion of
its beauty.
To the conduct of the narrative some objections may be made. Satan is,
with great expectation, brought before Gabriel in Paradise, and is
suffered to go away unmolested. The creation of man is represented as the
consequence of the vacuity left in heaven by the expulsion of the rebels;
yet Satan mentions it as a report "rife in heaven" before his departure.
To find sentiments for the state of innocence was very difficult; and
something of anticipation, perhaps, is now and then discovered. Adam's
discourse of dreams seems not to be the speculation of a new-created
being. I know not whether his answer to the angel's reproof for curiosity
does not want something of propriety; it is the speech of a man
acquainted with many other men. Some philosophical notions, especially
when the philosophy is false, might have been better omitted. The
angel, in a comparison, speaks of "timorous deer," before deer were yet
timorous, and before Adam could understand the comparison.
Dryden remarks, that Milton has some flats among his elevations. This is
only to say, that all the parts are not equal. In every work, one part
must be for the sake of others; a palace must have passages; a poem must
have transitions. It is no more to be required that wit should always be
blazing, than that the sun should always stand at noon. In a great work
there is a vicissitude of luminous and opaque parts, as there is in the
world a succession of day and night. Milton, when he has expatiated in
the sky, may be allowed, sometimes, to revisit earth; for what other
author ever soared so high, or sustained his flight so long?
Milton, being well versed in the Italian poets, appears to have borrowed
often from them; and, as every man catches something from his companions,
his desire of imitating Ariosto's levity has disgraced his work with
the Paradise of Fools; a fiction not, in itself, ill imagined, but too
ludicrous for its place.
His play on words, in which he delights too often; his equivocations,
which Bentley endeavours to defend by the example of the ancients; his
unnecessary and ungraceful use of terms of art; it is not necessary to
mention, because they are easily remarked, and generally censured; and,
at last, bear so little proportion to the whole, that they scarcely
deserve the attention of a critick.
Such are the faults of that wonderful performance, Paradise Lost; which
he who can put in balance with its beauties must be considered not as
nice but as dull; as less to be censured for want of candour, than pitied
for want of sensibility.
Of Paradise Regained, the general judgment seems now to be right, that it
is, in many parts, elegant, and everywhere instructive. It was not to be
supposed that the writer of Paradise Lost could ever write without great
effusions of fancy, and exalted precepts of wisdom. The basis of Paradise
Regained is narrow; a dialogue without action can never please, like an
union of the narrative and dramatick powers. Had this poem been written
not by Milton, but by some imitator, it would have claimed and received
universal praise.
If Paradise Regained has been too much depreciated, Sampson Agonistes
has, in requital, been too much admired. It could only be by long
prejudice, and the bigotry of learning, that Milton could prefer the
ancient tragedies, with their encumbrance of a chorus, to the exhibitions
of the French and English stages; and it is only by a blind confidence
in the reputation of Milton, that a drama can be praised, in which the
intermediate parts have neither cause nor consequence, neither hasten nor
retard the catastrophe.
In this tragedy are, however, many particular beauties, many just
sentiments and striking lines; but it wants that power of attracting the
attention, which a well-connected plan produces.
Milton would not have excelled in dramatick writing; he knew human nature
only in the gross, and had never studied the shades of character, nor the
combinations of concurring, or the perplexity of contending passions. He
had read much, and knew what books could teach; but had mingled little
in the world, and was deficient in the knowledge which experience must
confer.
Through all his greater works there prevails an uniform peculiarity of
diction, a mode and cast of expression which bears little resemblance to
that of any former writer; and which is so far removed from common use,
that an unlearned reader, when he first opens his book, finds himself
surprised by a new language.
This novelty has been, by those who can find nothing wrong in Milton,
imputed to his laborious endeavours after words suitable to the grandeur
of his ideas. "Our language," says Addison, "sunk under him. " But the
truth is, that, both in prose and verse, he had formed his style by a
perverse and pedantick principle. He was desirous to use English words
with a foreign idiom. This in all his prose is discovered and condemned;
for there judgment operates freely, neither softened by the beauty, nor
awed by the dignity of his thoughts; but such is the power of his poetry,
that his call is obeyed without resistance, the reader feels himself
in captivity to a higher and a nobler mind, and criticism sinks in
admiration.
Milton's style was not modified by his subject; what is shown with
greater extent in Paradise Lost may be found in Comus. One source of his
peculiarity was his familiarity with the Tuscan poets; the disposition of
his words is, I think, frequently Italian; perhaps, sometimes, combined
with other tongues.
Of him, at last, may be said what Jonson says of Spenser, that "he wrote
no language," but has formed what Butler calls a "Babylonish dialect,"
in itself harsh and barbarous, but made by exalted genius and extensive
learning the vehicle of so much instruction, and so much pleasure, that,
like other lovers, we find grace in its deformity.
Whatever be the faults of his diction, he cannot want the praise of
copiousness and variety; he was master of his language in its full
extent; and has selected the melodious words with such diligence, that
from his book alone the art of English poetry might be learned.
After his diction, something must be said of his versification. The
"measure," he says, "is the English heroick verse without rhyme. " Of
this mode he had many examples among the Italians, and some in his own
country. The earl of Surrey is said to have translated one of Virgil's
books without rhyme[62]; and, beside our tragedies, a few short poems had
appeared in blank verse, particularly one tending to reconcile the nation
to Raleigh's wild attempt upon Guiana, and probably written by Raleigh
himself. These petty performances cannot be supposed to have much
influenced Milton, who, more probably took his hint from Trissino's
Italia Liberata; and, finding blank verse easier than rhyme, was desirous
of persuading himself that it is better.
"Rhyme," he says, and says truly, "is no necessary adjunct of true
poetry. " But, perhaps, of poetry, as a mental operation, metre or musick
is no necessary adjunct: it is, however, by the musick of metre that
poetry has been discriminated in all languages; and, in languages
melodiously constructed with a due proportion of long and short
syllables, metre is sufficient. But one language cannot communicate its
rules to another; where metre is scanty and imperfect, some help is
necessary. The musick of the English heroick lines strikes the ear so
faintly, that it is easily lost, unless all the syllables of every
line cooperate together; this cooperation can be only obtained by the
preservation of every verse unmingled with another, as a distinct system
of sounds; and this distinctness is obtained and preserved by the
artifice of rhyme. The variety of pauses, so much boasted by the lovers
of blank verse, changes the measures of an English poet to the periods
of a declaimer; and there are only a few skilful and happy readers of
Milton, who enable their audience to perceive where the lines end or
begin. "Blank verse," said an ingenious critick, "seems to be verse only
to the eye. " Poetry may subsist without rhyme, but English poetry will
not often please; nor can rhyme ever be safely spared, but where the
subject is able to support itself. Blank verse makes some approach to
that which is called the lapidary style; has neither the easiness
of prose, nor the melody of numbers, and, therefore, tires by long
continuance. Of the Italian writers without rhyme, whom Milton alleges as
precedents, not one is popular; what reason could urge in its defence,
has been confuted by the ear.
But, whatever be the advantage of rhyme, I cannot prevail on myself to
wish that Milton had been a rhymer; for I cannot wish his work to be
other than it is; yet, like other heroes, he is to be admired rather than
imitated. He that thinks himself capable of astonishing may write blank
verse; but those that hope only to please must condescend to rhyme.
The highest praise of genius is original invention. Milton cannot be said
to have contrived the structure of an epick poem, and, therefore, owes
reverence to that vigour and amplitude of mind to which all generations
must be indebted for the, art of poetical narration, for the texture of
the fable, the variation of incidents, the interposition of dialogue, and
all the stratagems that surprise and enchain attention. But, of all the
borrowers from Homer, Milton is, perhaps, the least indebted. He was
naturally a thinker for himself, confident of his own abilities, and
disdainful of help or hindrance: he did not refuse admission to the
thoughts or images of his predecessors, but he did not seek them. From
his contemporaries he neither courted nor received support; there is
in his writings nothing by which the pride of other authors might be
gratified, or favour gained; no exchange of praise, nor solicitation of
support. His great works were performed under discountenance, and in
blindness; but difficulties vanished at his touch; he was born for
whatever is arduous; and his work is not the greatest of heroick poems,
only because it is not the first.
[Footnote 26: In this assertion Dr. Johnson was mistaken. Milton was
admitted a pensioner, and not a sizar, as will appear by the following
extract from the college register: "Johannes Milton, Londinensis, filius
Johannis, institutus fuit in literarum elementis sub Mag'ro Gill Gymnasii
Paulini praefecto, admissus est _Pensionarius Minor_, Feb. 12? , 1624, sub
M'ro Chappell, solvitq. pro Ingr. 0l. 10s. 0d. " R. ]
[Footnote 27: Published 1632. R. ]
[Footnote 28: On this subject, see Dr. Symons's Life of Milton, 71, 72.
ED. ]
[Footnote 29: By the mention of this name, he evidently refers to
Albumazar, acted at Cambridge, in 1614. Ignoramus, and other plays were
performed at the same time. The practice was then very frequent. The
last dramatick performance at either university, was the Grateful Fair,
written by Christopher Smart, and represented at Pembroke college,
Cambridge, about 1747. R. ]
[Footnote 30: It has, nevertheless, its foundation in reality. The earl
of Bridgewater, being president of Wales, in the year 1634, had his
residence at Ludlow castle, in Shropshire, at which time lord Brackly
and Mr. Egerton, his sons, and lady Alice Egerton, his daughter, passing
through a place called the Haywood forest, or Haywood, in Herefordshire,
were benighted, and the lady for a short time lost: this accident, being
related to their father upon their arrival at his castle, Milton, at the
request of his friend, Henry Lawes, who taught music in the family, wrote
this masque. Lawes set it to music, and it was acted on Michaelmas night:
the two brothers, the young lady, and Lawes himself, bearing each a part
in the representation.
The lady Alice Egerton became afterwards the wife of the earl of Carbury,
who, at his seat called Golden grove, in Caermarthenshire, harboured Dr.
Jeremy Taylor in the time of the usurpation. Among the doctor's sermons
is one on her death, in which her character is finely portrayed. Her
sister, lady Mary, was given in marriage to lord Herbert, of Cherbury.
Notwithstanding Dr. Johnson's assertion, that the fiction is derived from
Homer's Circe, it may be conjectured, that it was rather taken from the
Comus of Erycius Puteanus, in which, under the fiction of a dream, the
characters of Comus and his attendants are delineated, and the delights
of sensualists exposed and reprobated. This little tract was published
at Louvain, in 1611, and afterwards at Oxford, in 1634, the very year in
which Milton's Comus was written. H. Milton evidently was indebted to the
Old Wives' Tale of George Peele for the plan of Comus. R. ]
[Footnote 31: This is inaccurately expressed: Philips, and Dr. Newton,
after him, say a garden-house, i. e. a house situated in a garden, and of
which there were, especially in the north suburbs of London, very many,
if not few else. The term is technical, and frequently occurs in the
Athen. and Fast. Oxon. The meaning thereof may be collected from the
article, Thomas Farnaby, the famous schoolmaster, of whom the author
says, that he taught in Goldsmith's rents, in Cripplegate parish, behind
Redcross street, where were large gardens and handsome houses. Milton's
house in Jewin street was also a garden-house, as were, indeed, most of
his dwellings after his settlement in London. H. ]
[Footnote 32: Johnson did not here allude to Philips's Theatrum Poetarum,
as has been ignorantly supposed, but, as he himself informed Mr. Malone,
to another work by the same author, entitled, Tractatulus de carmine
dramatico poetarum veterum praesertim in choris tragicis et veteris
comoediae. Cui subjungitur compendiosa enumeratio poetarum (saltern
quorum fama maxima enituit) qui a tempore Dantis Aligerii usque ad hanc
aetatem claruerunt, etc. J. B. ]
[Footnote 33: Stephen Marshall, Edmund Calamy, Thomas Young, Matthew
Newcomen, William Spurstow. R. ]
[Footnote 34: It was animadverted upon, but without any mention of
Milton's name, by bishop Hall, in his Cases of Conscience, Decade 4, Case
2. J. B. ]
[Footnote 35: He terms the author of it a shallow-brained puppy; and thus
refers to it in his index: "Of a noddy who wrote a book about wiving. "
J. B. ]
[Footnote 36: This charge, as far as regards Milton, is examined by Dr.
Symons with more moderation than usually characterizes his high-sounding
and wordy panegyrics. See Life of Milton. ED. ]
[Footnote 37: The work here referred to is Selectarum de Lingua Latina
Observationum Libri duo. Ductu et cura Joannis Ker, 1719. Ker observes,
that vapulandum is pinguis solaecismus. J. B. ]
[Footnote 38: It may be doubted whether _gloriosissimus_ be here used
with Milton's boasted purity. _Res gloriosa_ is an _illustrious thing_;
but _vir gloriosus_ is _commonly_ a _braggart_, as in _miles gloriosus_.
Dr. J. ]
[Footnote 39: The Cambridge dictionary, published in 4to. 1693, is
no other than a copy, with some small additions, of that of Dr. Adam
Littleton in 1686, by sundry persons, of whom though their names are
concealed, there is great reason to conjecture that Milton's nephew,
Edward Philips, is one: for it is expressly said by Wood, Fasti, vol. i.
p. 266, that Milton's Thesaurus came to his hands; and it is asserted in
the preface thereto, that the editors thereof had the use of three large
folios in manuscript, collected and digested into alphabetical order by
Mr. John Milton. It has been remarked, that the additions, together
with the preface above mentioned, and a large part of the title of
the Cambridge dictionary, have been incorporated and printed with the
subsequent editions of Littleton's dictionary, till that of 1735. Vid.
Biogr. Brit. 2985, in not. So that, for aught that appears to the
contrary, Philips was the last possessor of Milton's manuscripts. H. ]
[Footnote 40: _Id est_, to be the subject of an heroick poem, written by
sir Richard Blackmore. H. ]
[Footnote 41: Trinity college. R. ]
[Footnote 42: The dramas in which Justice, Mercy, Faith, &c. were
introduced, were moralities, not mysteries. MALONE. ]
[Footnote 43: Philips says expressly, that Milton was excepted and
disqualified from bearing any office; but Toland says he was not excepted
at all, and consequently included in the general pardon, or act of
indemnity, passed the 29th of August, 1660. Toland is right, for I find
Goodwin and Ph. Nye, the minister, excepted in the act, but Milton not
named. However, he obtained a special pardon in December, 1660, which
passed the privy seal, but not the great seal. MALONE. ]
[Footnote 44: It was told before by A. Wood in Ath. Oxon. vol. ii. p.
412. second edition. ]
[Footnote 45: That Milton saved Davenant, is attested by Aubrey, and by
Wood, from him; but none of them say that Davenant saved Milton: this is
Richardson's assertion merely. MALONE. ]
[Footnote 46: A different account of the means by which Milton secured
himself, is given by an historian lately brought to light: "Milton,
Latin secretary to Cromwell, distinguished by his writings in favour of
the rights and liberties of the people, pretended to be dead, and had a
publick funeral procession. The king applauded his policy in escaping
the punishment of death, by a seasonable show of dying. " Cunningham's
History of Great Britain, vol. i. p. 14. R. ]
[Footnote 47: Gildon, in his continuation of Langbaine's account of the
dramatick poets, 8vo. 1693, says, that he had been told that Milton,
after the restoration, kept a school at or near Greenwich. The
publication of an Accidence at that period gives some countenance to this
tradition. MALONE]
[Footnote 48: It is scarcely necessary to inform the reader, that this
relation of Voltaire's was perfectly true, as far as relates to the
existence of the play which he speaks of, namely, the Adamo of Andreini;
but it is still a question whether Milton ever saw it. J. B. ]
[Footnote 49: This opinion is, with great learning and ingenuity,
refuted in a book now very little known, an Apology or Declaration of
the Power and Providence of God in the Government of the World, by Dr.
George Hakewill, London, folio, 1635. The first who ventured to propagate
it in this country was Dr.
Gabriel Goodman, bishop of Gloucester, a man
of a versatile temper, and the author of a book entitled, the Fall of Man,
or the Corruption of Nature proved by Natural Reason. Lond. 1616, and
1624. quarto. He was plundered in the usurpation, turned Roman catholick,
and died in obscurity. See Athen, Oxon. vol. i. p. 727. H. ]
[Footnote 50:
--Unless _an age too late_, or cold
Climate, or years damp my intended wing.
Par. Lost. b. ix. l. 44. ]
[Footnote 51: Johnson has, in many places of
his Rambler and Idler, ridiculed the notion of a dependance of our mental
powers on the variations of atmosphere. In Boswell's life, however,
there are some recorded instances of his own subjection to this
common infirmity. We cannot refrain from denouncing, as unfeeling and
ungenerous, Johnson's sarcasms at Milton's distempered imagination, when
old age, disease, and darkness had come upon him. Dr. Symons runs into
the diametrically opposite extreme. ED. ]
[Footnote 52: "Statura fateor non sum procera: seel quae mediocri tamen
quam parvae propior sit: sed quid si parva, qua et summi saepe tum pace
tum bello viri fuere, quanquam parva cur dicitur, quae ad virtutem satis
magna est. " Defensio Secunda. ED. ]
[Footnote 53: Both these persons were living at Holloway, about the year
1734, and, at that time, possessed such a degree of health and strength,
as enabled them, on Sundays and prayer-days, to walk a mile up a steep
hill to Highgate chapel. One of them was ninety-two at the time of her
death. Their parentage was known to few, and their names were corrupted
into Melton. By the crown-office, mentioned in the two last paragraphs,
we are to understand the crown-office of the court of Chancery. H. ]
[Footnote 54: Printed in the first volume of this collection. ]
[Footnote 55: With the exception of Comus, in which, Dr. J. afterwards
says, may very plainly be discovered the dawn or twilight of Paradise
Lost. C. ]
[Footnote 56: Here, as Warton justly observes, "Johnson has confounded
two descriptions! "
The melancholy man does not go
out while it rains, but waits, till----the sun begins to fling
His flaring beams. J. B. ]
[Footnote 57: Mr. Warton intimates, and there can be little doubt of the
truth of his conjecture, that Milton borrowed many of the images in these
two fine poems from Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy, a book published
in 1621, and, at sundry times since, abounding in learning, curious
information, and pleasantry. Mr. Warton says, that Milton appears to have
been an attentive reader thereof; and to this assertion I add, of my own
knowledge, that it was a book that Dr. Johnson frequently resorted to,
as many others have done, for amusement after the fatigue of study.
H. --Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy, Johnson said, was the only book
that ever took him out of bed two hours sooner than he wished to rise.
Boswell's Life, ii. 120. ]
[Footnote 58: Surely there are precedents enough for the practice,
though pessimi exempli, in Milton's favourite tragedian Euripides. ED. ]
[Footnote 59: Author of the Essay on Study. ]
[Footnote 60: Algarotti terms it, "gigantesca sublimita Miltoniana. "
Dr. J. ]
[Footnote 61: But, says Dr. Warton, it has, throughout, a reference to
human life and actions. C. ]
[Footnote 62: The earl of Surrey translated two books of Virgil without
rhyme; the second and the fourth. J. B. ]
BUTLER.
Of the great author of Hudibras there is a life prefixed to the later
editions of his poem, by an unknown writer, and, therefore, of disputable
authority; and some account is incidentally given by Wood, who confesses
the uncertainty of his own narrative; more, however, than they knew
cannot now be learned, and nothing remains but to compare and copy them.
Samuel Butler was born in the parish of Strensham, in Worcestershire,
according to his biographer, in 1612. This account Dr. Nash finds
confirmed by the register. He was christened Feb. 14.
His father's condition is variously represented: Wood mentions him as
competently wealthy; but Mr. Longneville, the son of Butler's principal
friend, says he was an honest farmer, with some small estate, who made a
shift to educate his son at the grammar school of Worcester, under Mr.
Henry Bright[63], from whose care he removed, for a short time, to
Cambridge; but, for want of money, was never made a member of any college.
Wood leaves us rather doubtful whether he went to Cambridge or Oxford;
but, at last, makes him pass six or seven years at Cambridge, without
knowing in what hall or college; yet it can hardly be imagined that he
lived so long in either university but as belonging to one house or
another; and it is still less likely that he could have so long inhabited
a place of learning with so little distinction as to leave his residence
uncertain. Dr. Nash has discovered that his father was owner of a house
and a little land, worth about eight pounds a year, still called Butler's
tenement.
Wood has his information from his brother, whose narrative placed him at
Cambridge, in opposition to that of his neighbours, which sent him to
Oxford. The brother's seems the best authority, till, by confessing his
inability to tell his hall or college, he gives reason to suspect that he
was resolved to bestow on him an academical education; but durst not name
a college, for fear of detection.
He was, for some time, according to the author of his life, clerk to Mr.
Jefferys, of Earl's Croomb, in Worcestershire, an eminent justice of
the peace. In his service he had not only leisure for study, but for
recreation: his amusements were musick and painting; and the reward of
his pencil was the friendship of the celebrated Cooper. Some pictures,
said to be his, were shown to Dr. Nash, at Earl's Croomb; but, when he
inquired for them some years afterwards, he found them destroyed, to stop
windows, and owns that they hardly deserved a better fate.
He was afterwards admitted into the family of the countess of Kent, where
he had the use of a library; and so much recommended himself to Selden,
that he was often employed by him in literary business. Selden, as is
well known, was steward to the countess, and is supposed to have gained
much of his wealth by managing her estate.
In what character Butler was admitted into that lady's service, how long
he continued in it, and why he left it, is, like the other incidents of
his life, utterly unknown. The vicissitudes of his condition placed him
afterwards in the family of sir Samuel Luke, one of Cromwell's officers.
Here he observed so much of the character of the sectaries, that he is
said to have written or begun his poem at this time; and it is likely
that such a design would be formed in a place where he saw the principles
and practices of the rebels, audacious and undisguised in the confidence
of success.
At length the king returned, and the time came in which loyalty hoped
for its reward. Butler, however, was only made secretary to the earl of
Carbury, president of the principality of Wales; who conferred on him the
stewardship of Ludlow castle, when the court of the marches was revived.
In this part of his life, he married Mrs. Herbert, a gentlewoman of a
good family; and lived, says Wood, upon her fortune, having studied
the common law, but never practised it. A fortune she had, says his
biographer, but it was lost by bad securities.
In 1663 was published the first part, containing three cantos, of the
poem of Hudibras, which, as Prior relates, was made known at court by
the taste and influence of the earl of Dorset. When it was known, it was
necessarily admired: the king quoted, the courtiers studied, and the
whole party of the royalists applauded it. Every eye watched for the
golden shower which was to fall upon the author, who certainly was not
without his part in the general expectation.
In 1664 the second part appeared; the curiosity of the nation was
rekindled, and the writer was again praised and elated. But praise was
his whole reward. Clarendon, says Wood, gave him reason to hope for
"places and employments of value and credit;" but no such advantages did
he ever obtain. It is reported that the king once gave him three hundred
guineas; but of this temporary bounty I find no proof.
Wood relates that he was secretary to Villiers, duke of Buckingham, when
he was chancellor of Cambridge: this is doubted by the other writer, who
yet allows the duke to have been his frequent benefactor. That both these
accounts are false there is reason to suspect, from a story told by
Packe, in his account of the life of Wycherley; and from some verses
which Mr. Thyer has published in the author's Remains.
"Mr. Wycherley," says Packe, "had always laid hold of an opportunity
which offered of representing to the duke of Buckingham how well Mr.
Butler had deserved of the royal family, by writing his inimitable
Hudibras; and that it was a reproach to the court, that a person of his
loyalty and wit should suffer in obscurity, and under the wants he did.
The duke always seemed to hearken to him with attention enough; and,
after some time, undertook to recommend his pretensions to his majesty.
Mr. Wycherley, in hopes to keep him steady to his word, obtained of his
grace to name a day, when he might introduce that modest and unfortunate
poet to his new patron. At last an appointment was made, and the place of
meeting was agreed to be the Roebuck. Mr. Butler and his friend attended
accordingly; the duke joined them; but, as the d--l would have it, the
door of the room where they sat was open, and his grace, who had seated
himself near it, observing a pimp of his acquaintance (the creature too
was a knight) trip by with a brace of ladies, immediately quitted his
engagement to follow another kind of business, at which he was more ready
than in doing good offices to men of desert, though no one was better
qualified than he, both in regard to his fortune and understanding, to
protect them; and, from that time to the day of his death, poor Butler
never found the least effect of his promise! "
Such is the story. The verses are written with a degree of acrimony, such
as neglect and disappointment might naturally excite; and such as it
would be hard to imagine Butler capable of expressing against a man who
had any claim to his gratitude.
Notwithstanding this discouragement and neglect, he still prosecuted his
design; and, in 1678, published the third part, which still leaves the
poem imperfect and abrupt. How much more he originally intended, or with
what events the action was to be concluded, it is vain to conjecture. Nor
can it be thought strange that he should stop here, however unexpectedly.
To write without reward is sufficiently unpleasing. He had now arrived
at an age when he might think it proper to be in jest no longer, and,
perhaps, his health might now begin to fail.
He died in 1680; and Mr. Longueville, having unsuccessfully solicited a
subscription for his interment in Westminster Abbey, buried him, at his
own cost, in the church-yard of Covent garden[64]. Dr. Simon Patrick read
the service.
Granger was informed by Dr. Pearce, who named for his authority Mr.
Lowndes, of the treasury, that Butler had a yearly pension of an hundred
pounds. This is contradicted by all tradition, by the complaints of
Oldham, and by the reproaches of Dryden; and, I am afraid, will never be
confirmed.
About sixty years afterwards, Mr. Barber, a printer, mayor of London,
and a friend to Butler's principles, bestowed on him a monument in
Westminster Abbey, thus inscribed:
M. S.
SAMUELIS BUTLERI,
Qui Strenshamiae in agro Vigorn. nat. 1612,
obijt Lond. 1680.
Vir doctus imprimis, acer, integer;
Operibus ingenii, non item praemiis, foelix:
Satyrici apud nos carminis artifex egregius;
Quo simulatae religionis larvam detraxit,
Et perduellium scelera liberrime exagitavit;
Scriptorum in suo genere, primus et postremus.
Ne, cui vivo deerant fere omnia,
Deesset etiam mortuo tumulus,
Hoc tandem posito marmore, curavit
JOHANNES BARBER, Civis Londinensis, 1721.
After his death were published three small volumes of his posthumous
works; I know not by whom collected, or by what authority
ascertained[65]; and, lately, two volumes more have been printed by Mr.
Thyer, of Manchester, indubitably genuine. From none of these pieces can
his life be traced, or his character discovered. Some verses, in the
last collection, show him to have been among those who ridiculed the
institution of the Royal Society, of which the enemies were, for some
time, very numerous and very acrimonious; for what reason it is hard to
conceive, since the philosophers professed not to advance doctrines, but
to produce facts: and the most zealous enemy of innovation must admit
the gradual progress of experience, however he may oppose hypothetical
temerity.
In this mist of obscurity passed the life of Butler, a man whose name can
only perish with his language. The mode and place of his education are
unknown; the events of his life are variously related; and all that can
be told with certainty is, that he was poor.
* * * * *
The poem of Hudibras is one of those compositions of which a nation
may justly boast; as the images which it exhibits are domestick, the
sentiments unborrowed and unexpected, and the strain of diction original
and peculiar. We must not, however, suffer the pride, which we assume
as the countrymen of Butler, to make any encroachment upon justice, nor
appropriate those honours which others have a right to share. The poem of
Hudibras is not wholly English; the original idea is to be found in the
history of Don Quixote; a book to which a mind of the greatest powers may
be indebted without disgrace.
Cervantes shows a man, who having, by the incessant perusal of incredible
tales, subjected his understanding to his imagination, and familiarized
his mind by pertinacious meditation to trains of incredible events, and
scenes of impossible existence; goes out, in the pride of knighthood, to
redress wrongs, and defend virgins, to rescue captive princesses, and
tumble usurpers from their thrones; attended by a squire, whose cunning,
too low for the suspicion of a generous mind, enables him often to cheat
his master.
The hero of Butler is a presbyterian justice, who, in the confidence of
legal authority and the rage of zealous ignorance, ranges the country to
repress superstition, and correct abuses, accompanied by an independent
clerk, disputatious and obstinate, with whom he often debates, but never
conquers him.
Cervantes had so much kindness for Don Quixote, that, however he
embarrasses him with absurd distresses, he gives him so much sense and
virtue as may preserve our esteem; wherever he is, or whatever he does,
he is made, by matchless dexterity, commonly ridiculous, but never
contemptible.
But for poor Hudibras, his poet had no tenderness; he chooses not that
any pity should be shown, or respect paid him; he gives him up at once to
laughter and contempt, without any quality that can dignify or protect
him.
In forming the character of Hudibras, and describing his person and
habiliments, the author seems to labour with a tumultuous confusion of
dissimilar ideas. He had read the history of the mock knights-errant; he
knew the notions and manners of a presbyterian magistrate, and tried to
unite the absurdities of both, however distant, in one personage. Thus he
gives him that pedantick ostentation of knowledge which has no relation
to chivalry, and loads him with martial encumbrances that can add nothing
to his civil dignity. He sends him out a "colonelling," and yet never
brings him within sight of war.
If Hudibras be considered as the representative of the presbyterians, it
is not easy to say why his weapons should be represented as ridiculous or
useless; for, whatever judgment might be passed upon their knowledge or
their arguments, experience had sufficiently shown that their swords were
not to be despised. The hero, thus compounded of swaggerer and pedant, of
knight and justice, is led forth to action, with his squire Ralpho, an
independent enthusiast.
Of the contexture of events planned by the author, which is called the
action of the poem, since it is left imperfect, no judgment can he
made. It is probable, that the hero was to be led through many luckless
adventures, which would give occasion, like his attack upon the "bear
and fiddle," to expose the ridiculous rigour of the sectaries; like his
encounter with Sidrophel and Whacum, to make superstition and credulity
contemptible; or, like his recourse to the low retailer of the law,
discover the fraudulent practices of different professions.
What series of events he would have formed, or in what manner he would
have rewarded or punished his hero, it is now vain to conjecture. His
work must have had, as it seems, the defect which Dryden imputes to
Spenser; the action could not have been one; there could only have been
a succession of incidents, each of which might have happened without the
rest, and which could not all cooperate to any single conclusion.
The discontinuity of the action might, however, have been easily
forgiven, if there had been action enough; but, I believe, every reader
regrets the paucity of events, and complains that, in the poem of
Hudibras, as in the history of Thucydides, there is more said than done.
The scenes are too seldom changed, and the attention is tired with long
conversation.
It is, indeed, much more easy to form dialogues than to contrive
adventures. Every position makes way for an argument, and every objection
dictates an answer. When two disputants are engaged upon a complicated
and extensive question, the difficulty is not to continue, but to end
the controversy. But whether it be that we comprehend but few of the
possibilities of life, or that life itself affords little variety, every
man, who has tried, knows how much labour it will cost to form such a
combination of circumstances as shall have, at once, the grace of novelty
and credibility, and delight fancy without violence to reason.
Perhaps the dialogue of this poem is not perfect. Some power of engaging
the attention might have been added to it by quicker reciprocation, by
seasonable interruptions, by sudden questions, and by a nearer approach
to dramatick sprightliness; without which, fictitious speeches will
always tire, however sparkling with sentences, and however variegated
with allusions.
The great source of pleasure is variety. Uniformity must tire at last,
though it be uniformity of excellence. We love to expect; and, when
expectation is disappointed or gratified, we want to be again expecting.
For this impatience of the present, whoever would please must make
provision. The skilful writer "irritat, mulcet," makes a due distribution
of the still and animated parts. It is for want of this artful
intertexture, and those necessary changes, that the whole of a book may
be tedious, though all the parts are praised.
If inexhaustible wit could give perpetual pleasure, no eye would ever
leave half-read the work of Butler; for what poet has ever brought so
many remote images so happily together? It is scarcely possible to peruse
a page without finding some association of images that was never found
before. By the first paragraph the reader is amused, by the next he is
delighted, and by a few more strained to astonishment; but astonishment
is a toilsome pleasure; he is soon weary of wondering, and longs to be
diverted:
"Omnia vult belle Matho dicere, dic aliquando
Et bene, die neutrum, dic aliquando male. "
Imagination is useless without knowledge: nature gives in vain the power
of combination, unless study and observation supply materials to be
combined. Butler's treasures of knowledge appear proportioned to his
expense: whatever topick employs his mind, he shows himself qualified to
expand and illustrate it with all the accessories that books can furnish:
he is found not only to have travelled the beaten road, but the by-paths
of literature; not only to have taken general surveys, but to have
examined particulars with minute inspection.
If the French boast the learning of Rabelais, we need not be afraid of
confronting them with Butler.
But the most valuable parts of his performance are those which retired
study and native wit cannot supply. He that merely makes a book from
books may be useful, but can scarcely be great. Butler had not suffered
life to glide beside him unseen or unobserved. He had watched, with great
diligence, the operations of human nature, and traced the effects of
opinion, humour, interest, and passion. From such remarks proceeded
that great number of sententious distichs, which have passed into
conversation, and are added as proverbial axioms to the general stock of
practical knowledge.
When any work has been viewed and admired, the first question of
intelligent curiosity is, how was it performed? Hudibras was not a hasty
effusion; it was not produced by a sudden tumult of imagination, or a
short paroxysm of violent labour. To accumulate such a mass of sentiments
at the call of accidental desire, or of sudden necessity, is beyond the
reach and power of the most active and comprehensive mind. I am informed
by Mr. Thyer, of Manchester, the excellent editor of this author's
relicks, that he could show something like Hudibras in prose. He has in
his possession the commonplace-book, in which Butler reposited, not
such events or precepts as are gathered by reading, but such remarks,
similitudes, allusions, assemblages, or inferences, as occasion prompted,
or meditation produced; those thoughts that were generated in his own
mind, and might be usefully applied to some future purpose. Such is the
labour of those who write for immortality.
But human works are not easily found without a perishable part. Of the
ancient poets every reader feels the mythology tedious and oppressive.
Of Hudibras, the manners, being founded on opinions, are temporary and
local, and, therefore, become every day less intelligible, and less
striking. What Cicero says of philosophy is true, likewise, of wit and
humour, that "time effaces the fictions of opinion, and confirms the
determinations of nature. " Such manners as depend upon standing relations
and general passions are coextended with the race of man; but those
modifications of life, and peculiarities of practice, which are the
progeny of errour and perverseness, or, at best, of some accidental
influence or transient persuasion, must perish with their parents.
Much, therefore, of that humour which transported the last century[66]
with merriment, is lost to us, who do not know the sour solemnity, the
sullen superstition, the gloomy moroseness, and the stubborn scruples of
the ancient puritans; or, if we know them, derive our information only
from books, or from tradition, have never had them before our eyes, and
cannot, but by recollection and study, understand the lines in which they
are satirized. Our grandfathers knew the picture from the life; we judge
of the life by contemplating the picture.
It is scarcely possible, in the regularity and composure of the present
time, to image the tumult of absurdity, and clamour of contradiction,
which perplexed doctrine, disordered practice, and disturbed both publick
and private quiet, in that age when subordination was broken, and awe was
hissed away; when any unsettled innovator, who could hatch a half-formed
notion, produced it to the publick; when every man might become a
preacher, and almost every preacher could collect a congregation.
The wisdom of the nation is very reasonably supposed to reside in the
parliament. What can be concluded of the lower classes of the people,
when in one of the parliaments, summoned by Cromwell, it was seriously
proposed, that all the records in the Tower should be burnt, that all
memory of things past should be effaced, and that the whole system of
life should commence anew?
We have never been witnesses of animosities excited by the use of minced
pies and plumporridge; nor seen with what abhorrence those, who could eat
them at all other times of the year, would shrink from them in December.
