the truth." Towards the end the argument takes a wider sweep, and Milton, again the poet and the seer, hails with exultation the approach of the time he thinks he discerns when all the Lord's people shall be prophets. "Behold now this vast city, a city of refuge, the mansion house of liberty, encompassed and surrounded with His protection; the shop of war hath not there more anvils and hammers working to fashion out the plates and instruments of armed justice in defence of beleaguered truth, than there be pens and heads there, sitting by their studious lamps, musing, searching, revolving new notions and ideas wherewith to present, as with their homage and their fealty, the approaching reformation." He clearly indicates that he regards the licensing ordinance as not really the offspring of an honest though mistaken concern for religion and morality, but as a device of Presbyterianism to restrain this outpouring of the spirit and silence Independents as well as Royalists. Pres'byterianism had indeed been weighed in the balance and found wanting, and Milton's pamphlet was the handwriting on the wall. The fine gold must have become very dim ere a Puritan pen could bring itself to indite that scathing satire on the "factor to whose care and credit the wealthy man may commit the whole managing of his religious affairs; some divine of note and estimation that must be. To him he adheres; resigns the whole warehouse of his religion, with all the locks and keys into his custody; and, indeed, makes the very person of that man his religion-esteems his associating with him a sufficient evidence and commendation of his own piety. So that a man may say his religion is now no more within himself, but is become a dividual movable, and goes and comes near him according as that good man frequents the house. He entertains him, gives him gifts, feasts him, lodges him, his religion comes home at night, prays, is liberally supped and sumptuously laid to sleep, rises, is saluted; and after the malmsey or some well-spiced brewage, and better breakfasted than He whose morning appetite would have gladly fed on green figs between Bethany and Jerusalem, his religion walks abroad at eight, and leaves his kind entertainer in the shop, trading all day without his religion." This is a startling passage. We should have pronounced hitherto that Milton's one hopeless, congenital, irremediable want, alike in literature and in life, was humour. And now, surely as ever Saul was among the prophets, behold Milton among the wits. R CHAPTER IV. ANGING with Milton's spirit over the "fresh woods and pastures new," foreshadowed in the closing verse of "Lycidas," we have left his mortal part in its suburban dwelling in Aldersgate Street, which he seems to have first inhabited shortly before the convocation of the Long Parliament in November, 1640. His visible occupations are study and the instruction of his nephews; by and by he becomes involved in the revolutionary tempest that rages around; and, while living like a pedagogue, is writing like a prophet. He is none the less cherishing lofty projects for epic and drama; and we also learn from Phillips that his society included " some young sparks," and may assume that he then, as afterwards 66 Disapproved that care, though wise in show, That with superfluous burden loads the day, And, when God sends a cheerful hour, refrains." There is eloquent testimony of his interest in public affairs in his subscription of four pounds, a large sum in those days, for the relief of the homeless Protestants of Ulster. The progress of events must have filled him with exultation, and when at length civil war broke out in September, 1642, Parliament had no more zealous champion. His zeal, however, did not carry him into the ranks, for which some biographers blame him. But if he thought that he could serve his cause better with a pamphlet than with a musket, surely he had good reason for what he thought. It should seem, moreover, that if Milton detested the enemy's principles, he respected his pikes and guns : WHEN THE ASSAULT WAS INTENDED TO THE CITY [NOVEMBER, 1642.] Captain, or Colonel, or Knight in arms, Whose chance on these defenceless doors may seize, If deed of honour did thee ever please, Guard them, and him within protect from harms. He can requite thee, for he knows the charms The house of Pindarus, when temple and tower Of sad Electra's poet had the power To save the Athenian walls from ruin bare. If this strain seems deficient in the fierceness befitting a besieged patriot, let it be remembered that Milton's doors were literally defenceless, being outside the rampart of the City. We now approach the most curious episode of Milton's life, and the most irreconcilable with the conventional opinion of him. Up to this time this heroic existence must have seemed dull to many, for it has been a life without love. He has indeed, in his beautiful Sonnet to the Nightingale (about 1632), professed himself a follower of Love: but if so, he has hitherto followed at a most respectful distance. Yet he had not erred, when in the Italian sonnet, so finely rendered in Professor Masson's biography, he declared the heart his vulnerable point : "Young, gentle-natured, and a simple wooer, Since from myself I stand in doubt to fly, I know it faithful, fearless, constant, pure, In its conceptions graceful, good, and high. When the world roars, and flames the startled sky; In its own adamant it rests secure ; As free from chance and malice ever found, And fears and hopes that vulgar minds confuse, As it is loyal to each manly thing And to the sounding lyre and to the Muse. Only in that part is it not so sound Where Love hath set in it his cureless sting." It is highly probable that the very reaction from party strife turned the young man's fancies to thoughts of love in the spring of 1643. Escorted, we must fear, by a chorus of mocking cuckoos, Milton, about May 21st, rode into the country on a mysterious errand. It is a ghoulish and ogreish idea, but it really seems as if the elder Milton quartered his progeny upon his debtors, as the ichneumon fly quarters hers upon caterpillars. Milton had, at all events for the last sixteen years, been regularly drawing interest from an Oxfordshire |