No More Learning

Yet, as he was a man
of a kind disposition and a most refined courtesy, he put a force upon
himself, and answered with more vehemence and quickness indeed than was
his wont, yet not uncivilly. "Surely, Mr Milton, you speak not as you
think. I am indeed one of those who believe that God hath reserved to
himself the censure of kings, and that their crimes and oppressions are
not to be resisted by the hands of their subjects. Yet can I easily
find excuse for the violence of such as are stung to madness by grievous
tyranny. But what shall we say for these men? Which of their just
demands was not granted? Which even of their cruel and unreasonable
requisitions, so as it were not inconsistent with all law and order, was
refused? Had they not sent Strafford to the block and Laud to the Tower?
Had they not destroyed the Courts of the High Commission and the Star
Chamber? Had they not reversed the proceedings confirmed by the voices
of the judges of England, in the matter of ship-money? Had they not
taken from the king his ancient and most lawful power touching the order
of knighthood? Had they not provided that, after their dissolution,
triennial parliaments should be holden, and that their own power should
continue till of their great condescension they should be pleased to
resign it themselves? What more could they ask? Was it not enough that
they had taken from their king all his oppressive powers, and many
that were most salutary? Was it not enough that they had filled his
council-board with his enemies, and his prisons with his adherents? Was
it not enough that they had raised a furious multitude, to shout and
swagger daily under the very windows of his royal palace? Was it not
enough that they had taken from him the most blessed prerogative of
princely mercy; that, complaining of intolerance themselves, they had
denied all toleration to others; that they had urged, against forms,
scruples childish as those of any formalist; that they had persecuted
the least remnant of the popish rites with the fiercest bitterness of
the popish spirit? Must they besides all this have full power to command
his armies, and to massacre his friends?

"For military command, it was never known in any monarchy, nay, in any
well ordered republic, that it was committed to the debates of a large
and unsettled assembly. For their other requisition, that he should give
up to their vengeance all who had defended the rights of his crown, his
honour must have been ruined if he had complied. Is it not therefore
plain that they desired these things only in order that, by refusing,
his Majesty might give them a pretence for war?

"Men have often risen up against fraud, against cruelty, against
rapine. But when before was it known that concessions were met with
importunities, graciousness with insults, the open palm of bounty with
the clenched fist of malice? Was it like trusty delegates of the Commons
of England, and faithful stewards of their liberty and their wealth, to
engage them for such causes in civil war, which both to liberty and
to wealth is of all things the most hostile. Evil indeed must be the
disease which is not more tolerable than such a medicine. Those who,
even to save a nation from tyrants, excite it to civil war do in general
but minister to it the same miserable kind of relief wherewith the
wizards of Pharaoh mocked the Egyptian. We read that, when Moses had
turned their waters into blood, those impious magicians, intending, not
benefit to the thirsting people, but vain and emulous ostentation of
their own art, did themselves also change into blood the water which the
plague had spared. Such sad comfort do those who stir up war minister
to the oppressed. But here where was the oppression? What was the
favour which had not been granted? What was the evil which had not been
removed? What further could they desire? "

"These questions," said Mr Milton, austerely, "have indeed often
deceived the ignorant; but that Mr Cowley should have been so beguiled,
I marvel. You ask what more the Parliament could desire? I will
answer you in one word, security. What are votes, and statutes, and
resolutions? They have no eyes to see, no hands to strike and avenge.
They must have some safeguard from without. Many things, therefore,
which in themselves were peradventure hurtful, was this Parliament
constrained to ask, lest otherwise good laws and precious rights should
be without defence. Nor did they want a great and signal example of this
danger. I need not remind you that, many years before, the two Houses
had presented to the king the Petition of Right, wherein were set down
all the most valuable privileges of the people of this realm. Did not
Charles accept it? Did he not declare it to be law? Was it not as
fully enacted as ever were any of those bills of the Long Parliament
concerning which you spoke? And were those privileges therefore enjoyed
more fully by the people? No: the king did from that time redouble
his oppressions as if to avenge himself for the shame of having been
compelled to renounce them. Then were our estates laid under shameful
impositions, our houses ransacked, our bodies imprisoned. Then was the
steel of the hangman blunted with mangling the ears of harmless men.
Then our very minds were fettered, and the iron entered into our souls.
Then we were compelled to hide our hatred, our sorrow, and our scorn,
to laugh with hidden faces at the mummery of Laud, to curse under our
breath the tyranny of Wentworth. Of old time it was well and nobly
said, by one of our kings, that an Englishman ought to be as free as his
thoughts. Our prince reversed the maxim; he strove to make our thoughts
as much slaves as ourselves. To sneer at a Romish pageant, to miscall a
lord's crest, were crimes for which there was no mercy. These were all
the fruits which we gathered from those excellent laws of the former
Parliament, from these solemn promises of the king. Were we to be
deceived again? Were we again to give subsidies, and receive nothing but
promises? Were we again to make wholesome statutes, and then leave
them to be broken daily and hourly, until the oppressor should have
squandered another supply, and should be ready for another perjury? You
ask what they could desire which he had not already granted. Let me
ask of you another question. What pledge could he give which he had not
already violated? From the first year of his reign, whenever he had need
of the purses of his Commons to support the revels of Buckingham or the
processions of Laud, he had assured them that, as he was a gentleman
and a king, he would sacredly preserve their rights. He had pawned
those solemn pledges, and pawned them again and again; but when had
he redeemed them? 'Upon my faith,'--'Upon my sacred word,'--'Upon the
honour of a prince,'--came so easily from his lips, and dwelt so short
a time on his mind that they were as little to be trusted as the 'By the
hilts' of an Alsatian dicer.

"Therefore it is that I praise this Parliament for what else I might
have condemned. If what he had granted had been granted graciously and
readily, if what he had before promised had been faithfully observed,
they could not be defended. It was because he had never yielded the
worst abuse without a long struggle, and seldom without a large bribe;
it was because he had no sooner disentangled himself from his troubles
than he forgot his promises; and, more like a villainous huckster than a
great king, kept both the prerogative and the large price which had been
paid to him to forego it; it was because of these things that it was
necessary and just to bind with forcible restraints one who could be
bound neither by law nor honour. Nay, even while he was making those
very concessions of which you speak, he betrayed his deadly hatred
against the people and their friends. Not only did he, contrary to
all that ever was deemed lawful in England, order that members of the
Commons House of Parliament should be impeached of high treason at
the bar of the Lords; thereby violating both the trial by jury and the
privileges of the House; but, not content with breaking the law by his
ministers, he went himself armed to assail it. In the birth-place and
sanctuary of freedom, in the House itself; nay in the very chair of the
speaker, placed for the protection of free speech and privilege, he sat,
rolling his eyes round the benches, searching for those whose blood he
desired, and singling out his opposers to the slaughter. This most foul
outrage fails. Then again for the old arts. Then come gracious messages.
Then come courteous speeches. Then is again mortgaged his often
forfeited honour. He will never again violate the laws. He will respect
their rights as if they were his own. He pledges the dignity of his
crown; that crown which had been committed to him for the weal of his
people, and which he never named, but that he might the more easily
delude and oppress them.

"The power of the sword, I grant you, was not one to be permanently
possessed by Parliament. Neither did that Parliament demand it as a
permanent possession. They asked it only for temporary security. Nor can
I see on what conditions they could safely make peace with that false
and wicked king, save such as would deprive him of all power to injure.

"For civil war, that it is an evil I dispute not. But that it is the
greatest of evils, that I stoutly deny. It doth indeed appear to the
misjudging to be a worse calamity than bad government, because its
miseries are collected together within a short space and time, and may
easily at one view be taken in and perceived. But the misfortunes of
nations ruled by tyrants, being distributed over many centuries and many
places, as they are of greater weight and number, so are they of less
display. When the Devil of tyranny hath gone into the body politic he
departs not but with struggles, and foaming, and great convulsions.
Shall he, therefore, vex it for ever, lest, in going out, he for a
moment tear and rend it? Truly this argument touching the evils of war
would better become my friend Elwood, or some other of the people called
Quakers, than a courtier and a cavalier. It applies no more to this war
than to all others, as well foreign as domestic, and, in this war, no
more to the Houses than to the king; nay, not so much, since he by a
little sincerity and moderation might have rendered that needless which
their duty to God and man then enforced them to do. "

"Pardon me, Mr Milton," said Mr Cowley; "I grieve to hear you speak thus
of that good king. Most unhappy indeed he was, in that he reigned at a
time when the spirit of the then living generation was for freedom, and
the precedents of former ages for prerogative. His case was like to that
of Christopher Columbus, when he sailed forth on an unknown ocean, and
found that the compass, whereby he shaped his course, had shifted from
the north pole whereto before it had constantly pointed. So it was with
Charles. His compass varied; and therefore he could not tack aright. If
he had been an absolute king he would doubtless, like Titus Vespasian,
have been called the delight of the human race. If he had been a Doge of
Venice, or a Stadtholder of Holland, he would never have outstepped the
laws. But he lived when our government had neither clear definitions nor
strong sanctions. Let, therefore, his faults be ascribed to the time. Of
his virtues the praise is his own.

"Never was there a more gracious prince, or a more proper gentleman.
In every pleasure he was temperate, in conversation mild and grave, in
friendship constant, to his servants liberal, to his queen faithful and
loving, in battle grave, in sorrow and captivity resolved, in death most
Christian and forgiving.

"For his oppressions, let us look at the former history of this realm.
James was never accounted a tyrant. Elizabeth is esteemed to have been
the mother of her people. Were they less arbitrary? Did they never lay
hands on the purses of their subjects but by Act of Parliament? Did they
never confine insolent and disobedient men but in due course of law? Was
the court of Star Chamber less active? Were the ears of libellers more
safe? I pray you, let not king Charles be thus dealt with. It was enough
that in his life he was tried for an alleged breach of laws which none
ever heard named till they were discovered for his destruction. Let not
his fame be treated as was his sacred and anointed body. Let not his
memory be tried by principles found out ex post facto. Let us not judge
by the spirit of one generation a man whose disposition had been formed
by the temper and fashion of another. "

"Nay, but conceive me, Mr Cowley," said Mr Milton; "inasmuch as, at the
beginning of his reign, he imitated those who had governed before him,
I blame him not. To expect that kings will, of their own free choice,
abridge their prerogative, were argument of but slender wisdom.
Whatever, therefore, lawless, unjust, or cruel, he either did or
permitted during the first years of his reign, I pass by. But for what
was done after that he had solemnly given his consent to the Petition
of Right, where shall we find defence? Let it be supposed, which yet I
concede not, that the tyranny of his father and of Queen Elizabeth had
been no less rigorous than was his. But had his father, had that queen,
sworn like him, to abstain from those rigours? Had they, like him, for
good and valuable consideration, aliened their hurtful prerogatives?
Surely not: from whatever excuse you can plead for him he had wholly
excluded himself. The borders of countries, we know, are mostly the
seats of perpetual wars and tumults. It was the same with the undefined
frontiers, which of old separated privilege and prerogative. They were
the debatable land of our polity. It was no marvel if, both on the one
side and on the other, inroads were often made. But, when treaties have
been concluded, spaces measured, lines drawn, landmarks set up, that
which before might pass for innocent error or just reprisal becomes
robbery, perjury, deadly sin. He knew not, you say, which of his powers
were founded on ancient law, and which only on vicious example. But had
he not read the Petition of Right? Had not proclamation been made from
his throne, Soit fait comme il est desire?

"For his private virtues they are beside the question. Remember you
not," and Mr Milton smiled, but somewhat sternly, "what Dr Cauis saith
in the Merry Wives of Shakspeare? 'What shall the honest man do in my
closet? There is no honest man that shall come in my closet. ' Even so
say I. There is no good man who shall make us his slaves. If he break
his word to his people, is it a sufficient defence that he keeps it
to his companions? If he oppress and extort all day, shall he be held
blameless because he prayeth at night and morning? If he be insatiable
in plunder and revenge, shall we pass it by because in meat and drink
he is temperate? If he have lived like a tyrant, shall all be forgotten
because he hath died like a martyr?

"He was a man, as I think, who had so much semblance of virtues as might
make his vices most dangerous. He was not a tyrant after our wonted
English model. The second Richard, the second and fourth Edwards, and
the eighth Harry, were men profuse, gay, boisterous; lovers of women and
of wine, of no outward sanctity or gravity. Charles was a ruler after
the Italian fashion; grave, demure, of a solemn carriage, and a sober
diet; as constant at prayers as a priest, as heedless of oaths as an
atheist. "

Mr Cowley answered somewhat sharply: "I am sorry, Sir, to hear you speak
thus. I had hoped that the vehemence of spirit which was caused by these
violent times had now abated. Yet, sure, Mr Milton, whatever you may
think of the character of King Charles, you will not still justify his
murder? "

"Sir," said Mr Milton, "I must have been of a hard and strange nature,
if the vehemence which was imputed to me in my younger days had not been
diminished by the afflictions wherewith it hath pleased Almighty God
to chasten my age. I will not now defend all that I may heretofore have
written. But this I say, that I perceive not wherefore a king should be
exempted from all punishment. Is it just that where most is given least
should be required? Or politic that where there is the greatest power to
injure there should be no danger to restrain? But, you will say,
there is no such law. Such a law there is. There is the law of
selfpreservation written by God himself on our hearts. There is the
primal compact and bond of society, not graven on stone, or sealed with
wax, nor put down on parchment, nor set forth in any express form of
words by men when of old they came together; but implied in the very act
that they so came together, pre-supposed in all subsequent law, not to
be repealed by any authority, nor invalidated by being omitted in any
code; inasmuch as from thence are all codes and all authority.

"Neither do I well see wherefore you cavaliers, and, indeed, many of us
whom you merrily call Roundheads, distinguish between those who fought
against King Charles, and specially after the second commission given to
Sir Thomas Fairfax, and those who condemned him to death. Sure, if his
person were inviolable, it was as wicked to lift the sword against it at
Naseby as the axe at Whitehall. If his life might justly be taken, why
not in course of trial as well as by right of war?

"Thus much in general as touching the right. But, for the execution of
King Charles in particular, I will not now undertake to defend it. Death
is inflicted, not that the culprit may die, but that the state may be
thereby advantaged. And, from all that I know, I think that the death of
King Charles hath more hindered than advanced the liberties of England.

"First, he left an heir. He was in captivity. The heir was in freedom.
He was odious to the Scots. The heir was favoured by them. To kill
the captive therefore, whereby the heir, in the apprehension of all
royalists, became forthwith king--what was it, in truth, but to set
their captive free, and to give him besides other great advantages?

"Next, it was a deed most odious to the people, and not only to your
party, but to many among ourselves; and, as it is perilous for any
government to outrage the public opinion, so most was it perilous for a
government which had from that opinion alone its birth, its nurture, and
its defence.

"Yet doth not this properly belong to our dispute; nor can these faults
be justly charged upon that most renowned Parliament. For, as you know,
the high court of justice was not established until the House had been
purged of such members as were adverse to the army, and brought wholly
under the control of the chief officers. "

"And who," said Mr Cowley, "levied that army? Who commissioned those
officers? Was not the fate of the Commons as justly deserved as was that
of Diomedes, who was devoured by those horses whom he had himself taught
to feed on the flesh and blood of men? How could they hope that others
would respect laws which they had themselves insulted; that swords which
had been drawn against the prerogatives of the king would be put up at
an ordinance of the Commons? It was believed, of old, that there were
some devils easily raised but never to be laid; insomuch that, if a
magician called them up, he should be forced to find them always some
employment; for, though they would do all his bidding, yet, if he left
them but for one moment without some work of evil to perform, they would
turn their claws against himself. Such a fiend is an army. They who
evoke it cannot dismiss it. They are at once its masters and its slaves.
Let them not fail to find for it task after task of blood and rapine.
Let them not leave it for a moment in repose, lest it tear them in
pieces.

"Thus was it with that famous assembly. They formed a force which they
could neither govern nor resist. They made it powerful. They made it
fanatical. As if military insolence were not of itself sufficiently
dangerous, they heightened it with spiritual pride,--they encouraged
their soldiers to rave from the tops of tubs against the men of Belial,
till every trooper thought himself a prophet. They taught them to abuse
popery, till every drummer fancied that he was as infallible as a pope.

"Then it was that religion changed her nature. She was no longer
the parent of arts and letters, of wholesome knowledge, of innocent
pleasures, of blessed household smiles. In their place came sour faces,
whining voices, the chattering of fools, the yells of madmen. Then men
fasted from meat and drink, who fasted not from bribes and blood. Then
men frowned at stage-plays, who smiled at massacres. Then men preached
against painted faces, who felt no remorse for their own most painted
lives. Religion had been a pole-star to light and to guide. It was now
more like to that ominous star in the book of the Apocalypse, which
fell from heaven upon the fountains and rivers and changed them into
wormwood; for even so did it descend from its high and celestial
dwelling-place to plague this earth, and to turn into bitterness all
that was sweet, and into poison all that was nourishing.

"Therefore it was not strange that such things should follow. They who
had closed the barriers of London against the king could not defend
them against their own creatures. They who had so stoutly cried for
privilege, when that prince, most unadvisedly no doubt, came among them
to demand their members, durst not wag their fingers when Oliver filled
their hall with soldiers, gave their mace to a corporal, put their keys
in his pocket, and drove them forth with base terms, borrowed half from
the conventicle and half from the ale-house. Then were we, like the
trees of the forest in holy writ, given over to the rule of the bramble;
then from the basest of the shrubs came forth the fire which devoured
the cedars of Lebanon.
We bowed down before a man of mean birth, of
ungraceful demeanour, of stammering and most vulgar utterance, of
scandalous and notorious hypocrisy. Our laws were made and unmade at his
pleasure; the constitution of our Parliaments changed by his writ and
proclamation; our persons imprisoned; our property plundered; our lands
and houses overrun with soldiers; and the great charter itself was
but argument for a scurrilous jest; and for all this we may thank that
Parliament; for never, unless they had so violently shaken the vessel,
could such foul dregs have risen to the top. "

Then answered Mr Milton: "What you have now said comprehends so great a
number of subjects, that it would require, not an evening's sail on the
Thames, but rather a voyage to the Indies, accurately to treat of all:
yet, in as few words as I may, I will explain my sense of these matters.

"First, as to the army. An army, as you have well set forth, is always
a weapon dangerous to those who use it; yet he who falls among thieves
spares not to fire his musquetoon, because he may be slain if it burst
in his hand. Nor must states refrain from defending themselves, lest
their defenders should at last turn against them. Nevertheless, against
this danger statesmen should carefully provide; and, that they may do
so, they should take especial care that neither the officers nor the
soldiers do forget that they are also citizens. I do believe that the
English army would have continued to obey the parliament with all duty,
but for one act, which, as it was in intention, in seeming, and in
immediate effect, worthy to be compared with the most famous in history,
so was it, in its final consequence, most injurious. I speak of that
ordinance called the "self-denying", and of the new model of the army.
By those measures the Commons gave up the command of their forces into
the hands of men who were not of themselves. Hence, doubtless, derived
no small honour to that noble assembly, which sacrificed to the hope of
public good the assurance of private advantage. And, as to the conduct
of the war, the scheme prospered. Witness the battle of Naseby, and the
memorable exploits of Fairfax in the west. But thereby the Parliament
lost that hold on the soldiers and that power to control them, which
they retained while every regiment was commanded by their own members.
Politicians there be, who would wholly divide the legislative from
the executive power. In the golden age this may have succeeded; in the
millennium it may succeed again. But, where great armies and great taxes
are required, there the executive government must always hold a great
authority, which authority, that it may not oppress and destroy the
legislature, must be in some manner blended with it. The leaders of
foreign mercenaries have always been most dangerous to a country. The
officers of native armies, deprived of the civil privileges of other
men, are as much to be feared. This was the great error of that
Parliament: and, though an error it were, it was an error generous,
virtuous, and more to be deplored than censured.

"Hence came the power of the army and its leaders, and especially of
that most famous leader, whom both in our conversation to-day, and in
that discourse whereon I before touched, you have, in my poor opinion,
far too roughly handled. Wherefore you speak contemptibly of his parts
I know not; but I suspect that you are not free from the error common to
studious and speculative men. Because Oliver was an ungraceful orator,
and never said, either in public or private, anything memorable, you
will have it that he was of a mean capacity. Sure this is unjust. Many
men have there been ignorant of letters, without wit, without eloquence,
who yet had the wisdom to devise, and the courage to perform, that which
they lacked language to explain. Such men often, in troubled times, have
worked out the deliverance of nations and their own greatness, not
by logic, not by rhetoric, but by wariness in success, by calmness in
danger, by fierce and stubborn resolution in all adversity. The hearts
of men are their books; events are their tutors; great actions are their
eloquence: and such an one, in my judgment, was his late Highness, who,
if none were to treat his name scornfully now shook not at the sound of
it while he lived, would, by very few, be mentioned otherwise than with
reverence. His own deeds shall avouch him for a great statesman, a great
soldier, a true lover of his country, a merciful and generous conqueror.

"For his faults, let us reflect that they who seem to lead are
oftentimes most constrained to follow. They who will mix with men, and
especially they who will govern them, must in many things obey them.
They who will yield to no such conditions may be hermits, but cannot
be generals and statesmen. If a man will walk straight forward without
turning to the right or the left, he must walk in a desert, and not in
Cheapside. Thus was he enforced to do many things which jumped not with
his inclination nor made for his honour; because the army, on which
alone he could depend for power and life, might not otherwise be
contented. And I, for mine own part, marvel less that he sometimes was
fain to indulge their violence than that he could so often restrain it.

"In that he dissolved the Parliament, I praise him. It then was so
diminished in numbers, as well by the death as by the exclusion of
members, that it was no longer the same assembly; and, if at that time
it had made itself perpetual, we should have been governed, not by an
English House of Commons, but by a Venetian Council.

"If in his following rule he overstepped the laws, I pity rather than
condemn him. He may be compared to that Maeandrius of Samos, of whom
Herodotus saith, in his Thalia, that, wishing to be of all men the most
just, he was not able; for after the death of Polycrates he offered
freedom to the people; and not till certain of them threatened to call
him to a reckoning for what he had formerly done, did he change his
purpose, and make himself a tyrant, lest he should be treated as a
criminal.

"Such was the case of Oliver. He gave to his country a form of
government so free and admirable that, in near six thousand years,
human wisdom hath never devised any more excellent contrivance for human
happiness. To himself he reserved so little power that it would scarcely
have sufficed for his safety, and it is a marvel that it could suffice
for his ambition. When, after that, he found that the members of his
Parliament disputed his right even to that small authority which he had
kept, when he might have kept all, then indeed I own that he began to
govern by the sword those who would not suffer him to govern by the law.

"But, for the rest, what sovereign was ever more princely in pardoning
injuries, in conquering enemies, in extending the dominions and
the renown of his people? What sea, what shore did he not mark with
imperishable memorials of his friendship or his vengeance? The gold of
Spain, the steel of Sweden, the ten thousand sails of Holland, availed
nothing against him. While every foreign state trembled at our arms, we
sat secure from all assault. War, which often so strangely troubles both
husbandry and commerce, never silenced the song of our reapers, or the
sound of our looms. Justice was equally administered; God was freely
worshipped.

"Now look at that which we have taken in exchange. With the restored
king have come over to us vices of every sort, and most the basest and
most shameful,--lust without love--servitude without loyalty--foulness
of speech--dishonesty of dealing--grinning contempt of all things good
and generous. The throne is surrounded by men whom the former Charles
would have spurned from his footstool. The altar is served by slaves
whose knees are supple to every being but God. Rhymers, whose books the
hangman should burn, pandars, actors, and buffoons, these drink a health
and throw a main with the King; these have stars on their breasts and
gold sticks in their hands; these shut out from his presence the best
and bravest of those who bled for his house. Even so doth God visit
those who know not how to value freedom. He gives them over to the
tyranny which they have desired, Ina pantes epaurontai basileos. "

"I will not," said Mr Cowley, "dispute with you on this argument. But,
if it be as you say, how can you maintain that England hath been so
greatly advantaged by the rebellion? "

"Understand me rightly, Sir," said Mr Milton. "This nation is not given
over to slavery and vice. We tasted indeed the fruits of liberty before
they had well ripened. Their flavour was harsh and bitter; and we turned
from them with loathing to the sweeter poisons of servitude. This is
but for a time. England is sleeping on the lap of Dalilah, traitorously
chained, but not yet shorn of strength. Let the cry be once heard--the
Philistines be upon thee; and at once that sleep will be broken, and
those chains will be as flax in the fire. The great Parliament hath left
behind it in our hearts and minds a hatred of tyrants, a just knowledge
of our rights, a scorn of vain and deluding names; and that the
revellers of Whitehall shall surely find. The sun is darkened; but it is
only for a moment: it is but an eclipse; though all birds of evil omen
have begun to scream, and all ravenous beasts have gone forth to prey,
thinking it to be midnight. Woe to them if they be abroad when the rays
again shine forth!

"The king hath judged ill. Had he been wise he would have remembered
that he owed his restoration only to confusions which had wearied us
out, and made us eager for repose. He would have known that the folly
and perfidy of a prince would restore to the good old cause many hearts
which had been alienated thence by the turbulence of factions; for, if
I know aught of history, or of the heart of man, he will soon learn that
the last champion of the people was not destroyed when he murdered Vane,
nor seduced when he beguiled Fairfax. "

Mr Cowley seemed to me not to take much amiss what Mr Milton had said
touching that thankless court, which had indeed but poorly requited his
own good service. He only said, therefore, "Another rebellion! Alas!
alas! Mr Milton! If there be no choice but between despotism and
anarchy, I prefer despotism. "

"Many men," said Mr Milton, "have floridly and ingeniously compared
anarchy and despotism; but they who so amuse themselves do but look at
separate parts of that which is truly one great whole. Each is the cause
and the effect of the other; the evils of either are the evils of
both. Thus do states move on in the same eternal cycle, which, from the
remotest point, brings them back again to the same sad starting-post:
and, till both those who govern and those who obey shall learn and mark
this great truth, men can expect little through the future, as they
have known little through the past, save vicissitudes of extreme evils,
alternately producing and produced.

"When will rulers learn that, where liberty is not, security end order
can never be? We talk of absolute power; but all power hath limits,
which, if not fixed by the moderation of the governors, will be fixed
by the force of the governed. Sovereigns may send their opposers to
dungeons; they may clear out a senate-house with soldiers; they may
enlist armies of spies; they may hang scores of the disaffected in
chains at every cross road; but what power shall stand in that frightful
time when rebellion hath become a less evil than endurance? Who shall
dissolve that terrible tribunal, which, in the hearts of the oppressed,
denounces against the oppressor the doom of its wild justice? Who shall
repeal the law of selfdefence? What arms or discipline shall resist
the strength of famine and despair? How often were the ancient Caesars
dragged from their golden palaces, stripped of their purple robes,
mangled, stoned, defiled with filth, pierced with hooks, hurled into
Tiber? How often have the Eastern Sultans perished by the sabres of
their own janissaries, or the bow-strings of their own mutes! For no
power which is not limited by laws can ever be protected by them. Small,
therefore, is the wisdom of those who would fly to servitude as if it
were a refuge from commotion; for anarchy is the sure consequence of
tyranny. That governments may be safe, nations must be free. Their
passions must have an outlet provided, lest they make one.

"When I was at Naples, I went with Signor Manso, a gentleman of
excellent parts and breeding, who had been the familiar friend of that
famous poet Torquato Tasso, to see the burning mountain Vesuvius. I
wondered how the peasants could venture to dwell so fearlessly and
cheerfully on its sides, when the lava was flowing from its summit;
but Manso smiled, and told me that when the fire descends freely they
retreat before it without haste or fear. They can tell how fast it will
move, and how far; and they know, moreover, that, though it may work
some little damage, it will soon cover the fields over which it hath
passed with rich vineyards and sweet flowers. But, when the flames are
pent up in the mountain, then it is that they have reason to fear; then
it is that the earth sinks and the sea swells; then cities are swallowed
up; and their place knoweth them no more. So it is in politics: where
the people is most closely restrained, there it gives the greatest
shocks to peace and order; therefore would I say to all kings, let your
demagogues lead crowds, lest they lead armies; let them bluster, lest
they massacre; a little turbulence is, as it were, the rainbow of the
state; it shows indeed that there is a passing shower; but it is a
pledge that there shall be no deluge. "

"This is true," said Mr Cowley; "yet these admonitions are not less
needful to subjects than to sovereigns. "

"Surely," said Mr Milton; "and, that I may end this long debate with a
few words in which we shall both agree, I hold that, as freedom is the
only safeguard of governments, so are order and moderation generally
necessary to preserve freedom. Even the vainest opinions of men are not
to be outraged by those who propose to themselves the happiness of men
for their end, and who must work with the passions of men for their
means. The blind reverence for things ancient is indeed so foolish
that it might make a wise man laugh, if it were not also sometimes so
mischievous that it would rather make a good man weep. Yet, since it may
not be wholly cured it must be discreetly indulged; and therefore those
who would amend evil laws should consider rather how much it may be safe
to spare, than how much it may be possible to change. Have you not heard
that men who have been shut up for many years in dungeons shrink if they
see the light, and fall down if their irons be struck off? And so, when
nations have long been in the house of bondage, the chains which have
crippled them are necessary to support them, the darkness which hath
weakened their sight is necessary to preserve it. Therefore release them
not too rashly, lest they curse their freedom and pine for their prison.

"I think indeed that the renowned Parliament, of which we have talked so
much, did show, until it became subject to the soldiers, a singular
and admirable moderation, in such times scarcely to be hoped, and
most worthy to be an example to all that shall come after. But on this
argument I have said enough: and I will therefore only pray to Almighty
God that those who shall, in future times stand forth in defence of
our liberties, as well civil as religious, may adorn the good cause
by mercy, prudence, and soberness, to the glory of his name and the
happiness and honour of the English people. "

And so ended that discourse; and not long after we were set on shore
again at the Temple Gardens, and there parted company: and the same
evening I took notes of what had been said, which I have here more fully
set down, from regard both to the fame of the men, and the importance of
the subject-matter.

*****




ON THE ATHENIAN ORATORS. (August 1824. )

"To the famous orators repair,
Those ancient, whose resistless eloquence
Wielded at will that fierce democratie,
Shook the arsenal, and fulmined over Greece
To Macedon and Artaxerxes' throne. " --Milton.

The celebrity of the great classical writers is confined within no
limits, except those which separate civilised from savage man. Their
works are the common property of every polished nation. They have
furnished subjects for the painter, and models for the poet. In the
minds of the educated classes throughout Europe, their names
are indissolubly associated with the endearing recollections of
childhood,--the old school-room,--the dog-eared grammar,--the first
prize,--the tears so often shed and so quickly dried. So great is the
veneration with which they are regarded, that even the editors and
commentators who perform the lowest menial offices to their memory, are
considered, like the equerries and chamberlains of sovereign princes,
as entitled to a high rank in the table of literary precedence. It is,
therefore, somewhat singular that their productions should so rarely
have been examined on just and philosophical principles of criticism.

The ancient writers themselves afford us but little assistance.
When they particularise, they are commonly trivial: when they would
generalise, they become indistinct. An exception must, indeed, be made
in favour of Aristotle. Both in analysis and in combination, that great
man was without a rival. No philosopher has ever possessed, in an equal
degree, the talent either of separating established systems into their
primary elements, or of connecting detached phenomena in harmonious
systems. He was the great fashioner of the intellectual chaos; he
changed its darkness into light, and its discord into order. He brought
to literary researches the same vigour and amplitude of mind to which
both physical and metaphysical science are so greatly indebted. His
fundamental principles of criticism are excellent. To cite only a
single instance:--the doctrine which he established, that poetry is an
imitative art, when justly understood, is to the critic what the compass
is to the navigator. With it he may venture upon the most extensive
excursions. Without it he must creep cautiously along the coast, or lose
himself in a trackless expanse, and trust, at best, to the guidance of
an occasional star. It is a discovery which changes a caprice into a
science.

The general propositions of Aristotle are valuable. But the merit of the
superstructure bears no proportion to that of the foundation. This is
partly to be ascribed to the character of the philosopher, who, though
qualified to do all that could be done by the resolving and combining
powers of the understanding, seems not to have possessed much of
sensibility or imagination. Partly, also, it may be attributed to the
deficiency of materials. The great works of genius which then existed
were not either sufficiently numerous or sufficiently varied to enable
any man to form a perfect code of literature. To require that a critic
should conceive classes of composition which had never existed, and then
investigate their principles, would be as unreasonable as the demand of
Nebuchadnezzar, who expected his magicians first to tell him his dream
and then to interpret it.

With all his deficiencies, Aristotle was the most enlightened and
profound critic of antiquity. Dionysius was far from possessing the same
exquisite subtilty, or the same vast comprehension. But he had access
to a much greater number of specimens; and he had devoted himself, as
it appears, more exclusively to the study of elegant literature. His
peculiar judgments are of more value than his general principles. He is
only the historian of literature. Aristotle is its philosopher.

Quintilian applied to general literature the same principles by which he
had been accustomed to judge of the declamations of his pupils. He looks
for nothing but rhetoric, and rhetoric not of the highest order. He
speaks coldly of the incomparable works of Aeschylus. He admires, beyond
expression, those inexhaustible mines of common-places, the plays of
Euripides. He bestows a few vague words on the poetical character of
Homer. He then proceeds to consider him merely as an orator. An orator
Homer doubtless was, and a great orator. But surely nothing is more
remarkable, in his admirable works, than the art with which his
oratorical powers are made subservient to the purposes of poetry. Nor
can I think Quintilian a great critic in his own province. Just as are
many of his remarks, beautiful as are many of his illustrations, we
can perpetually detect in his thoughts that flavour which the soil of
despotism generally communicates to all the fruits of genius. Eloquence
was, in his time, little more than a condiment which served to stimulate
in a despot the jaded appetite for panegyric, an amusement for
the travelled nobles and the blue-stocking matrons of Rome. It is,
therefore, with him, rather a sport than a war; it is a contest of
foils, not of swords. He appears to think more of the grace of the
attitude than of the direction and vigour of the thrust. It must be
acknowledged, in justice to Quintilian, that this is an error to which
Cicero has too often given the sanction, both of his precept and of his
example.

Longinus seems to have had great sensibility, but little discrimination.
He gives us eloquent sentences, but no principles. It was happily
said that Montesquieu ought to have changed the name of his book from
"L'Esprit des Lois" to "L'Esprit sur les Lois". In the same manner
the philosopher of Palmyra ought to have entitled his famous work, not
"Longinus on the Sublime," but "The Sublimities of Longinus. " The origin
of the sublime is one of the most curious and interesting subjects of
inquiry that can occupy the attention of a critic. In our own country it
has been discussed, with great ability, and, I think, with very little
success, by Burke and Dugald Stuart. Longinus dispenses himself from all
investigations of this nature, by telling his friend Terentianus that he
already knows everything that can be said upon the question. It is to be
regretted that Terentianus did not impart some of his knowledge to
his instructor: for from Longinus we learn only that sublimity means
height--or elevation. (Akrotes kai exoche tis logon esti ta uoe. ) This
name, so commodiously vague, is applied indifferently to the noble
prayer of Ajax in the Iliad, and to a passage of Plato about the human
body, as full of conceits as an ode of Cowley. Having no fixed standard,
Longinus is right only by accident. He is rather a fancier than a
critic.

Modern writers have been prevented by many causes from supplying the
deficiencies of their classical predecessors. At the time of the revival
of literature, no man could, without great and painful labour, acquire
an accurate and elegant knowledge of the ancient languages. And,
unfortunately, those grammatical and philological studies, without which
it was impossible to understand the great works of Athenian and Roman
genius, have a tendency to contract the views and deaden the sensibility
of those who follow them with extreme assiduity. A powerful mind, which
has been long employed in such studies, may be compared to the gigantic
spirit in the Arabian tale, who was persuaded to contract himself to
small dimensions in order to enter within the enchanted vessel, and,
when his prison had been closed upon him, found himself unable to escape
from the narrow boundaries to the measure of which he had reduced his
stature. When the means have long been the objects of application, they
are naturally substituted for the end. It was said, by Eugene of Savoy,
that the greatest generals have commonly been those who have been at
once raised to command, and introduced to the great operations of war,
without being employed in the petty calculations and manoeuvres which
employ the time of an inferior officer. In literature the principle is
equally sound. The great tactics of criticism will, in general, be best
understood by those who have not had much practice in drilling syllables
and particles.

I remember to have observed among the French Anas a ludicrous instance
of this. A scholar, doubtless of great learning, recommends the study
of some long Latin treatise, of which I now forget the name, on the
religion, manners, government, and language of the early Greeks. "For
there," says he, "you will learn everything of importance that is
contained in the Iliad and Odyssey, without the trouble of reading two
such tedious books. " Alas! it had not occurred to the poor gentleman
that all the knowledge to which he attached so much value was useful
only as it illustrated the great poems which he despised, and would be
as worthless for any other purpose as the mythology of Caffraria, or the
vocabulary of Otaheite.

Of those scholars who have disdained to confine themselves to verbal
criticism few have been successful. The ancient languages have,
generally, a magical influence on their faculties. They were "fools
called into a circle by Greek invocations. " The Iliad and Aeneid were to
them not books but curiosities, or rather reliques. They no more admired
those works for their merits than a good Catholic venerates the house of
the Virgin at Loretto for its architecture. Whatever was classical was
good. Homer was a great poet, and so was Callimachus. The epistles of
Cicero were fine, and so were those of Phalaris. Even with respect to
questions of evidence they fell into the same error. The authority of
all narrations, written in Greek or Latin, was the same with them. It
never crossed their minds that the lapse of five hundred years, or
the distance of five hundred leagues, could affect the accuracy of
a narration;--that Livy could be a less veracious historian than
Polybius;--or that Plutarch could know less about the friends of
Xenophon than Xenophon himself. Deceived by the distance of time, they
seem to consider all the Classics as contemporaries; just as I have
known people in England, deceived by the distance of place, take it for
granted that all persons who live in India are neighbours, and ask an
inhabitant of Bombay about the health of an acquaintance at Calcutta.
It is to be hoped that no barbarian deluge will ever again pass over
Europe. But should such a calamity happen, it seems not improbable that
some future Rollin or Gillies will compile a history of England from
Miss Porter's Scottish Chiefs, Miss Lee's Recess, and Sir Nathaniel
Wraxall's Memoirs.

It is surely time that ancient literature should be examined in a
different manner, without pedantical prepossessions, but with a just
allowance, at the same time, for the difference of circumstances and
manners. I am far from pretending to the knowledge or ability which
such a task would require. All that I mean to offer is a collection of
desultory remarks upon a most interesting portion of Greek literature.

It may be doubted whether any compositions which have ever been produced
in the world are equally perfect in their kind with the great Athenian
orations. Genius is subject to the same laws which regulate the
production of cotton and molasses. The supply adjusts itself to the
demand. The quantity may be diminished by restrictions, and multiplied
by bounties.