THE ESSAY ON MILTON

THIS essay was the first of the long list of brilliant compositions which Macaulay contributed to the Edinburgh Review, and in some respects was the most notable. It is to be studied, not as a critical or historical production, but as a fervent personal plea for a poet and man of whom the English people of that age knew little and cared less. For Milton as a poet Macaulay had a profound admiration, which yielded in fervency only to his affection for him as a man, and his glowing enthusiasm and brilliant panegyric may excuse his failure as a critic and interpreter of Milton's art. As Carlyle rescued Cromwell from the infamy to which he had been consigned, and gained him a deserved recognition as the greatest of English statesmen and generals, so Macaulay corrected the false judgment which had been passed on Milton and his works through the influence of Johnson's misleading Life and restored him to his rightful position as the greatest, save one, of English poets.

Some passages of this essay are among the most striking and beautiful to be found in the whole range of English prose, notably the passages in which he describes the Puritans and Cavaliers. But his treat

ment of Milton's poetry, and his remarks upon the theory of poetry, are altogether misleading and should not be accepted. They will, however, afford opportunities for much profitable study and discussion.

The student should have at hand some standard life of Milton, to which he should refer freely during the study of this essay. Masson's Life is by far the best of the numerous biographies of Milton.

H

(Edinburgh Review, August, 1825)

TOWARDS the close of the year 1823, Mr. Lemon,° deputy keeper of the state papers, in the course of his researches among the presses of his office, met with a large Latin manuscript. With it were found corrected copies of the foreign despatches written by Milton, while he filled the office of Secretary, and several papers relating to the Popish Trials and the Ryehouse Plot. The whole was wrapped up in an envelope, superscribed To Mr. Skinner, Merchant. On examination, the large manuscript proved to be the 10 long-lost Essay on the Doctrines of Christianity, which, according to Wood and Toland,° Milton finished after the Restoration, and deposited with Cyriac Skinner. Skinner, it is well known, held the same political

1 Joannis Miltoni Angli, de Doctrinâ Christianâ libri duo posthumi. A Treatise on Christian Doctrine, compiled from the Holy Scriptures alone. By John Milton, translated from the original by Charles R. Sumner, M.A., etc., etc. 1825.

NOTE. This character (°) placed after a word indicates a reference to the notes.

opinions with his illustrious friend. It is therefore probable, as Mr. Lemon conjectures, that he may have fallen under the suspicions of the government during that persecution of the Whigs" which followed the dissolution of the Oxford Parliament, and that, in consequence of a general seizure of his papers, this work may have been brought to the office in which it has been found. But whatever the adventures of the manuscript may have been, no doubt can exist that it 10 is a genuine relic of the great poet.

Mr. Sumner, who was commanded by his Majesty to edit and translate the treatise, has acquitted himself of his task in a manner honorable to his talents and to his character. His version is not indeed very easy or elegant; but it is entitled to the praise of clearness and fidelity. His notes abound with interesting quotations, and have the rare merit of really elucidating the text. The preface is evidently the work of a sensible and candid man, firm in his own religious opinions, 20 and tolerant towards those of others.

The book itself will not add much to the fame of Milton. It is, like all his Latin works, well written, though not exactly in the style of the prize essays of Oxford and Cambridge. There is no elaborate imitation of classical antiquity, no scrupulous purity, none

of the ceremonial cleanness which characterizes the diction of our academical Pharisees. The author does not attempt to polish and brighten his composition into the Ciceronian gloss and brilliancy. He does not, in short, sacrifice sense and spirit to pedantic refinements. The nature of his subject compelled

him to use many words

"That would have made Quintilian stare and gasp."

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But he writes with as much ease and freedom as if Latin were his mother tongue; and, where he is least 10 happy, his failure seems to arise from the carelessness of a native, not from the ignorance of a foreigner. We may apply to him what Denham with great felicity says of Cowley. He wears the garb, but not the clothes of the ancients.

Throughout the volume are discernible the traces of a powerful and independent mind, emancipated from the influence of authority, and devoted to the search of truth. Milton professes to form his system from the Bible alone; and his digest of Scriptural 20 texts is certainly among the best that have appeared. But he is not always so happy in his inferences as in his citations.