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ESSAY ON MILTON

(Edinburgh Review, August, 1825.)

Joannis Miltoni, Angli, de Doctrina Christiana libri duo posthumi.1 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. 1825.2

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1. TOWARDS the close of the year 1823, Mr. Lemon,3 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

S$ 1-8. PREFATORY REMARKS. Description of a theological work by John Milton, lately discovered.

1 Literally, Two Posthumous Books of John Milton, Englishman, on Christian Doctrine. Milton's title originally intended for it was probably Idea Theologiæ or “A Body of Divinity."

2 Published in two editions, Latin and English, by Dr. Sumner. Both are now rare books. The English version, re-edited by J. A. St. John, is to be found in Bohn's Standard Library, Milton's Prose Works, Vols. IV., V.

3 Robert Lemon, F.S. A., noted for other discoveries among the state papers. See Appendix to Scott's Rob Roy. Until the beginning of this century the English state papers were much neglected and carelessly kept. Since Mr. Lemon's time, however, they have been carefully studied and calendared. All such records are now kept in the Record-Office under the special charge of the Master of the Rolls through the deputy-keeper of the Records. For some adventures of the English state papers, see Stories from the State-Paper Office, A. C. Ewald (Houghton, Mifflin, and Co., 1882).

Repositories for documents.

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office of Secretary,1 and several papers relating to the Popish Trials and the Rye-house Plot.3 The whole was wrapped up in an envelope, superscribed To Mr. Skinner, Merchant. On examination, the large manuscript proved to be the 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 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,5 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 is a genuine relic of the great poet."

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1 See Introduction, 16.

Arising from the bogus Popish Plot invented by Dr. Titus Oates, 1678. Among other extraordinary lies Dr. Oates testified that " the late John Milton" had been a member of a treasonable Papist Club in London!

3 The Whig conspiracy to assassinate Charles II. in 1683. See Introduction, 19.

Anthony à Wood (1632-1695), in his History of Oxford University (Athena Oxonienses, 1691), gives a life of Milton, who took the Master's degree there in 1635. This life is based largely upon notes furnished by one Aubrey, a contemporary of Milton, who knew some of his family and friends very well and drew from them much information. John Toland (1670-1722), the Deist, wrote an early Life of Milton, published in 1698.

A Parliament summoned to Oxford by Charles II. in 1681. See Introduction, 19.

The adventures of this manuscript are now better known than when this paragraph was written. After the publication of Macaulay's Essay, more documents were found by Mr. Lemon and others, showing that Mr. Daniel Skinner, a nephew of Cyriac, had been employed under Milton's own direction in preparing this manuscript for

2. Mr. Sumner,1 who was commanded by His Majesty to edit and translate the treatise, has acquitted himself of his task in a manner honourable to his talents and to his character. His version is not indeed very easy or elegant 2; 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, and tolerant towards those of others.

3. The book itself will not add much to the fame of Milton. It is, like all his Latin works, well writtenthough not exactly in the style of the prize essays of Oxford and Cambridge. There is no elaborate imitation of

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publication. It was to be published after Milton's death, which occurred in 1674 during the preparation of the book for the press. In 1675, accordingly, Mr. Skinner tried to get it printed, along with certain public letters written by Milton as Secretary of the Commonwealth, at the press of Elzevir in Amsterdam. The printer, Daniel Elzevir, looked over the manuscript, and was so alarmed by its contents that he notified the English government, saying that "there were many things in it which ought to be suppressed." The government thereupon obliged the Skinners to give the manuscript up. It was then thrown aside among other old papers until it was found one hundred and fifty years afterwards, as described above.

1 Afterwards Lord Bishop of Winchester; at this time Royal Chaplain and Librarian. “His Majesty" is George the Fourth.

2 Notice Macaulay's careful use throughout the essay of this word, which is often abused in common speech.

3 Oxford and Cambridge, the two great English universities, have maintained in England a high standard in Latin style by encouraging prize compositions in prose and verse. Although Macaulay was himself an excellent classical scholar at Trinity College, Cambridge, we learn from his biography that Latin composition was never a very attractive exercise to him. "I never practised composition," he says in a letter, a single hour since I have been at Cambridge.” He is therefore a little scornful here about these prize essays; in fact, as we learn from his nephew, other men of his time wrote better Latin than he did.

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