MILTON AND THE COMMONWEALTH. the proscription designed for him by the restored government, he gave himself up to those pursuits which lay nearest his heart; and amid the tumultuous revelry and stunning licentiousness into which English society suddenly broke, he, as has been exquisitely said, "meditated, undisturbed by the obscene tumult which raged all around, a song so sublime and so holy that it would not have misbecome the lips of those ethereal Virtues whom he saw, with that inner eye which no calamity could darken, flinging down on the jasper pavement their crowns of amaranth and gold."* In reviewing Milton's connection with the Commonwealth, it would be interesting in the highest degree could we adequately trace the influence which he exerted upon its fortunes and features. But on this head little can be said with any degree of certainty. It is clear that in his official connection with it, his influence was very slight and altogether subordinate. Though some have spoken as if in his office of Latin Secretary he possessed somewhat of the power which now belongs to the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, it is evident that so far from this, he had no share whatever in the government, and was indeed in no sense a servant of the state, but merely a servant of the Council and of Cromwell. Nor does his personal influence with the rulers of the nation appear to have been at any time great. In one of his private letters he expresses his regret at being unable to assist his friend to a very secondary office on account of his very slight intimacy and infrequent intercourse with the grandees, (gratiosi.) Artists have frequently painted pictures of Cromwell and Milton in attitudes which would indicate familiarity of intercourse between them, but by Cromwell Milton seems always to have been kept at a distance, being probably regarded by that strong-willed and practical man as much too ethereal and speculative a genius to be of great use either in the closet or at the council. Nor does Milton seem to have been at any time a popular writer with the masses; and certainly there is no trace of his ever having formed a party or led the multitude in any of his controversies. For this many things may seem to account. For one thing, his style of writing was anything but popular; it is by much too involved in the construction of sentences, by much too foreign in the phraseology, and by much too elevated and stately in the march of the ideas, to be [Nov. appreciated by any but men of scholarly tastes and habits. Then again, the weak part of Milton's mind was his incapacity for calm, inductive, analytical ratiocination; with him all is assumed à priori, and reasoned from synthetically; and hence he is often inconsequent, often inconsistent, and often, we even dare to say, grandiloquently obscure. But the main source of his want of general influence was doubtless the utterly unpractical character of his mind. Upon the mass of men, abstract reasoning and splendid declamation are little better than thrown away. the attempt to follow it. Ten words setting They cannot come up to it; they are lost in forth a plain workable rule will be appreciated by them immensely beyond the most ably reasoned and eloquently enforced exposition of an abstract principle. What they want is, not to think, but to be advised and guided; and they will rather follow the man who does not ask them to think, than the man who does. They like, also, a leader who is in some sense one of themselveswho keeps by them and is guilty of no flights who leads them by patiently going along with them, not by taking bold bounds forward and calling to them to follow. Now in all this Milton was utterly wanting. He could speculate and reason, and describe and satirize, and denounce and declaim; but to give a plain, straightforward piece of advice, did not belong to him. His genius was wholly idiosyncratic. As Wordsworth finely and justly expresses it, "His soul was like a star, and dwelt apart." The sphere in which his thoughts and fancies ranged was one into which only minds of the higher order dare he needed an interpreter-an offence which or care to venture. When he spoke to others, the vulgar never forgive. His church, his republic, his government, were all in theory. The visions in which he delighted had but little to do with the actual realities amidst which he lived and wrote. The people felt that he was amongst them, but not of them. They, perhaps, were proud of him-of his fame; but when he began to speak, they moved away, and left to him that which he, in his scornful pride, desired-" fit audience, though few." Milton exercised no influence upon the fate But let us not conclude from this that of his country by his matchless writings; or even that his influence was small. We should be nearer the truth were we to say, that his influence was, and will yet be, all the greater that in his own day he was so little followed. Had he been less of a thinker, less of a far reaching speculator, less of an abstract and unpractical dealer in principles, he might in his own age have been a mighty leader of the mob, and in all after-time forgotten. He belongs to the prophet-minds of earth, who may be without honor in their own country, and among their own kindred, but whose words are destined to live, and through their mighty working to mould or change the whole aspect of the race. And though in his own day there were but few who sat at his feet and received his teaching, yet, through the few who did, he doubtless acted upon his countrymen at large, and for a while at least, and in a measure, influenced the destinies of England. Certain it is, that the course of events shaped itself much after the model which he had fashioned; and that all the grand prominent features of the Commonwealth find their ideal in the pictures he has drawn. In this respect, as in many others, he strongly reminds us of Burke. The latter, it is well known, had but little personal influence, and exercised but little power directly by either his speeches or his writings in his own day. His rising to address the Speaker in the House of Commons was the signal for multitudes of the members to vacate their sets. "What!" said a member, entering the house one day, and meeting the retiring crowd; "what! is the house up?" "No," was the reply, "but Burke is.' And so it continued to the last. Burke was never popular in the ordinary sense of that term. He presumed to think and to teach; and he was left to those who cared to be his pupils. By the mass he was regarded in the light of a wearisome and unsafe man. And no wonder! He was imprudent enough to carry the lessons of philosophy into an assembly of practical debaters. Simple old man! "He went on refining, To the masses in his own day, he was as a strange and uncongenial spirit; but from his towering height he spoke down to the loftier minds of his own and succeeding ages; and now, of the doctrines which he taught, many are incorporated with the substance of the British Constitution, whilst others of them are eagerly canvassed on the platform of popular discussion, and seem to be advancing toward possession of the general mind. It forms no part of our present design to examine into the soundness of Milton's opinions; on this point there is room for much difference of sentiment, and probably we should dissent from as many of them as we should agree with. Nor can we attempt even to state his views at large on questions of a political and politico-ecclesiastical kind, as this would require greatly more space than remains at our disposal. It is impossible, however, to close this article without adverting, though it must be, of necessity, briefly, to the relation in which his published opinions place him to the Commonwealth, both in a political and religious point of view. In politics, Milton was a republican. He had formed to himself an ideal Commonwealth, the features of which were partly borrowed from the lordly republics of ancient Greece and Italy, partly supplied by his own imagination. The establishment of such in England he thought easy and desirable, and for this he labored with all the energies of his mighty pen. He saw in such a constitution a security for national glory, for the extension of commerce and discovery, for the interests of learning, and above all, for the enjoyment by learned men of free speech and free writing, such as no form of hereditary monarchy seemed to him to promise: how it was to affect the welfare of the masses, Milton, we fear, thought and cared little. With the bold avowal of these sentiments, he had hailed the dawn of the Common And thought of convincing, while they thought of wealth as an approximation at least to the dining." And yet who of all that generation has so powerfully influenced the political genius of England during the succeeding age as Edmund Burke? Who of all his great compeers has left on the minds of his countrymen so broadly and deeply the stamp of his peculiar opinions and modes of thinking? Who has done so much to create what is now regarded as sound political science by the best thinkers on such subjects in Europe? And much such a fortune as this was that of Milton. realization of his favorite dream. During the continuance of the Commonwealth, he advocated its cause by the reiteration of these sentiments; and when he saw it beginning to decay, he sought again to restore it to vigor by the utterance of the same doctrines he had preached during its rise and its progress. Who shall say that he who thus watched by the cradle and sat by the bier of the Commonwealth-its hearty friend and fearless defender throughout-was without a powerful influence upon its form and its working? MILTON AND THE COMMONWEALTH. [Nov. of parties; and he would have kept himself at ease until an opportunity was afforded him either to escape from the desolated realm, or to tread to a secure and easy throne over the necks of a prostrate and panting nation. It was precisely because Cromwell was neither a coward nor a self-seeker that he acted as he did. He saw his country in danger. He knew he could save his country, though at the expense of ease, and the risk of safety to himself. And, therefore, like a true and bold patriot as he was, he threw himself into the breach, and by his single arm sustained the cause, and secured the deliverance of his country. This is the defence which in the judgment of all wellinformed and candid men in the present day suffices for Cromwell. We claim it as covering Milton no less. The necessity which constrained the superior virtually to ascend the throne, made it equally imperative on the inferior not to desert his bureau. in judging of Milton's conduct in this instance, Moreover, it should ever be borne in mind that the republic of his aspirations was not a democracy. He had little sympathy with and no confidence in the unlettered crowdwhat he calls "the blockish vulgar." He could talk of addressing them as It is proper to notice here the charge which has been brought against Milton of inconsistency in that he, a republican, continued in the service of Cromwell after the latter had assumed the supreme power, and had in reality made himself sole master of the State. On this charge Milton's accusers have been fond of dwelling, and they have not hesitated in some cases to urge it so far as to impeach his general character for integrity, uprightness, and honor. We believe no charge was ever less deserved. We believe there was as little of self-seeking in Milton's official connection with Cromwell as ever characterized the conduct of any man who served a monarch. It has been usual with Milton's apologists to urge in his defence that being a mere servant, and not therefore responsible for the doings of his superior, there was no violation of uprightness or consistency in his continuing to serve his country under Cromwell as its solitary chief, in the same capacity in which he had served it under the Council of State. But this, though undoubtedly true, is only a small part of the vindication which may be justly offered of Milton's conduct in this particular. It was not more inconsistent in Milton to continue to serve Cromwell as Protector than it was in Cromwell to become Protector. The same defence which justifies Cromwell justifies Milton. Now no person imagines now-adays that it was from mere selfish motives, or from a desire to enslave his country, that Oliver took into his own hands the supreme power in the Commonwealth. Whatever it may have been fashionable for the wits and sycophants of the Restoration, or the Tories of a later age, to assert concerning his unprincipled ambition and unhallowed usurpation, the enlightened judgment of the present day pronounces him what the enlightened judgment of his own day pronounced himthe savior of his country. Affairs had come to such a pass in England, that the cause alike of liberty and of order demanded that Cromwell should do as he did. The conflict of parties and the force of circumstances had brought things to such a head that the only alternative for the nation was Cromwell or confusion the Reign of a Protector or a Reign of Terror. Had Cromwell been a coward, or a man absorbed in seeking his own interests, he would have shrunk from the uneasy and perilous dignity which was forced upon him. He would have allowed the nation to embroil itself in a new strife; he would have suffered the energies of the people to expend themselves in the tumult passim. *Sonnet on Tetrachordon. Ready Way to establish a Free Commonwealth, were deposited, reside."* He held also that when the people would not elect such a council, it was the duty of any man who had the power to benefit his country, by declaring this to be his mind, and calling in the aid of the army to assist in the prosecution thereof. With such views, we do not see how he could have felt any very great scruple, under any circumstances, in continuing to adhere to the service of Cromwell after he became Protector. There can be no doubt that he regarded Oliver as the best man of his age. In his sonnet to the Protector, he expressly styles him, "Cromwell, our chief of men;" and in the apostrophe addressed to him in the "Defensio Secunda," he tells him, speaking of his elevation as Protector, "such power is thy due, thou liberator of thy country, author of her freedom, her guardian also and conservator." Why, then, should not he who desired to see England governed by her best men, consent to the supremacy of one whose superiority to all others was in his view unquestionable-of one whose services to his country threw those of all others into the shade-of one who had alone showed himself competent to guide the vessel of the state through the storms and breakers amidst which it had been cast? In ecclesiastical matters, Milton was wholly at one with the predominant party in the Commonwealth. He was the strenuous advocate of liberty of conscience. He desired to see all sects on a footing of perfect equality, so far as relation to the civil power was concerned. He opposed the endowment of religion by the state, as unscriptural and impolitic; as the fruitful source of corruption to the church, and of disquiet and misrule to the community. He claimed equal liberty of profession and of worship for all Christians, with the one exception of the Romanists, whom he regarded as politically unsafe, as contemners of the sole authority in religious matters-the Bible, and as idolators. Of episcopacy, in all its forms, and through all its grades, he had an implacable hatred. His dislike to presbytery was hardly less bitter; he maintained that "New Presbyter is but old Priest writ large;" and he bestows upon the Presbyterian party, in his own day, names not much more savory than those which he had always at hand for the bishops. To forms of prayer, and especially to * Ready Way to establish a Free Commonwealth, vol. ii. p. 121. † See Letter to General Monk, vol. ii. p. 103. Comp. First Defence, vol. i. p. 143. the Liturgy of the Church of England, he had a strong aversion; thinking, that by such forms, the spirit of true devotion is stinted, that the imposition of them is "a tyranny that would have longer hands than those giants who threatened bondage to heaven,”* and that the Book of Common Prayer was "an Englished mass-book, composed, for aught we know, by men neither learned nor godly." Indeed, to forms of all sorts, he had a disinclination, which so grew upon him, that he ended by neglecting every kind of social or apparent worship, and by standing aloof from all religious parties. He is commonly, classed among the Independents, and a Baptist minister wrote a book some years ago, professedly on Milton's Life and Times, but really for the purpose of proving him to have been a Baptist. But with the Independents as a religious body, whether Baptist or Pædobaptist, he was never identified. In many of his opinions he more approximated the Quakers than any other denomination of Christians. It would be interesting to know in what light Milton was regarded by the great and good men whose names have come down to us as the religious leaders of that time. One would like to know what Owen thought of him; or Baxter, or Howe, or Godwin; all of whom must have known him, and been in the habit of meeting him at Whitehall. One can easily believe that with some of these men he had little sympathy; but between such a mind as that of Howe and such a mind as that of Milton, there must have been much that was congenial. But no trace remains of the intercourse of any of these parties with him; no indication of their judgment of him. It would be impossible, we think, to infer from any portion of their or his published writings, either that they had read any of Milton's books, or that he had read any of theirs. The distance between him and them is, to all appearance, as great as if they and he had lived in different ages, and written in different tongues. It is not easy to account for this. Perhaps Milton, in his fierce dislike of priests, was not disposed to have intercourse with any who sustained, however meekly and holily, the sacred profession. Perhaps his open neglect of forms of worship, and the public institutions of religion, led those good men to re * Eiconoclastes, c. 16. Works, vol. i. p. 431. John Milton: his Life and Times, Religious and Political Opinions, &c. By Joseph Ivimey. Lond. 1833. 8vo. gard him with suspicion, to shun his society, and to neglect his books. Perhaps they hardly deemed him altogether of sound mind, and thought the less they had to do with him and his crotchets the better. And it may be, that Milton was really what of late it has been confidently asserted he was, in heart an Arian; in which case, men such as those we have named would have shrunk from him with horror. We state this latter suggestion as resting on an assumption which, at the best, is doubtful. The only direct evidence that Milton was imbued with the sentiments of the Arians, is supplied by his long-lost System of Divinity, recently brought to light and published, with a translation, by the Bishop of Winchester. But this evidence is greatly invalidated by the following circumstances: 1. Whilst in some passages of this work Milton speaks like an Arian, in others he uses language entirely incompatible with the Arian system. 2. There is no evidence to show that this work was the production of Milton's maturer years; so that, for aught that appears, it may contain only the crude conceptions of his earlier years. 3. There is no evidence to show that Milton ever wrote this work as one continuous composition, at any time. 4. there is abundant evidence to show that he was in the habit, during the course of his life, of compiling opinions on theology from the writings of foreign divines, whose words he quoted; so that, for aught we can tell, this treatise may be merely a compilation of opinions, many of which are naturally discordant, and which Milton may have cited for various reasons, and not always because he held the views expressed; and, 5. The MS. of this work is obviously incomplete, in many places it is interlined, and many slips containing additional matter, are pasted on the margin; so that what it would have become, had Milton prepared it for the press, we cannot say. It seems, therefore, hardly fair to the memory of the poet, to build on such a work any very serious charge against his orthodoxy; more especially as that charge is contradicted by express declarations contained in the works he himself published during his lifetime.* At * In the Iconoclastes, he speaks of "the infections of Arian and Palagian heresies." (W. 483.) Comp. Par. Lost, iii. 138; Ode on Christ's Nativity; Of Reformation in England, book ii. (Works, vol. ii., p. 417,) &c. · any rate, we may reasonably doubt whether it was to this he owed his manifest estrangement from the great evangelical sectaries of his day. But whatever may have been the defects or errors of Milton's theological creed, it is impossible to refuse him the honor due to a life of the sincerest piety and the most dignified virtue. No man ever lived under a more abiding sense of responsibility. No man ever strove more faithfully to use time and talent "as ever in the great Taskmaster's eye." No man so richly endowed was ever less ready to trust in his own powers, or more prompt to own his dependence on "that eternal and propitial throne, where nothing is readier than grace and refuge to the distresses of mortal suppliants." His morality was of the loftiest order. He possessed a self-control which, in one susceptible of such vehement emotions, was marvelous. No one ever saw him indulging in those propensities which overcloud the mind and pollute the heart. No youthful excesses, no revelries or debaucheries of maturer years, treasured up for him a suffering and remorseful old age. From his youth up, he was temperate in all things, as became one who had consecrated himself to a life-struggle against vice, and error, and darknesss, in all its forms. He had started with the conviction "that he who would not be frustrate of his hope to write well hereafter in laudable things, ought himself to be a true poem; that is, a composition and pattern of the best and honorableest things;" and from this he never swerved. His life was indeed a true poem; or it might be compared to an anthem on his own favorite organ-high-toned, solemn, and majestic. We may regret, that with all this stately elevation and severe purity of character, there was not mingled more of the sweetness and gentleness that ought to mark the Christian. But perfection was not the privilege of Milton, any more than of other men. It is enough for his eulogy to say, that with a genius such as has never been surpassed, and with attainments which have seldom been equaled, he combined the loftiest devotion, the most inflexible integrity, and the most severe self-command. He stands before us as the type of PURITANISM, in its noblest development, retaining all its stern virtue and passionate devotion, but without its coarseness, its intolerance, or its stoicism. |