name at Milton, near Abingdon in Oxfordshire. He was the son of John
Milton a money-scrivener, and born the 9th of December, 1608. The
family from which he descended had been long seated there, as appears
by the monuments still to be seen in the church of Milton, 'till one
of them, having taken the unfortunate side in the contests between the
houses of York and Lancaster, was deprived of all his estate, except
what he held by his wife[1]. Our author's grandfather, whose name was
John Milton, was under-ranger, or reaper of the forest of Shotover,
near Halton in Oxfordshire: but a man of Milton's genius needs not
have the circumstance of birth called in to render him illustrious; he
reflects the highest honour upon his family, which receives from him
more glory, than the longest descent of years can give. Milton was
both educated under a domestic tutor, and likewise at St. Paul's
school under Mr. Alexander Gill, where he made, by his indefatigable
application, an extraordinary progress in learning. From his 12th year
he generally sat up all night at his studies, which, accompanied with
frequent head-aches, proved very prejudicial to his eyes. In the year
1625 he was entered into Christ's College in Cambridge, under the
tuition of Mr. William Chappel, afterwards bishop of Ross in Ireland,
and even before that time, had distinguished himself by several Latin
and English poems[2]. After he had taken the degree of master of arts,
in 1632 he left the university, and for the space of five years lived
with his parents at their house at Horton, near Colebrook in
Buckinghamshire, where his father having acquired a competent fortune,
thought proper to retire, and spend the remainder of his days. In the
year 1634 he wrote his Masque of Comus, performed at Ludlow Castle,
before John, earl of Bridgwater, then president of Wales: It appears
from the edition of this Masque, published by Mr. Henry Lawes, that
the principal performers were, the Lord Barclay, Mr. Thomas Egerton,
the Lady Alice Egerton, and Mr. Lawes himself, who represented an
attendant spirit.
The Prologue, which we found in the General Dictionary, begins with
the following lines.
Our stedfast bard, to his own genius true,
Still bad his muse fit audience find, tho' few;
Scorning the judgment of a trifling age,
To choicer spirits he bequeath'd his page.
He too was scorned, and to Britannia's shame,
She scarce for half an age knew Milton's name;
But now his fame by every trumpet blown,
We on his deathless trophies raise our own.
Nor art, nor nature, could his genius bound:
Heaven, hell, earth, chaos, he survey'd around.
All things his eye, thro' wit's bright empire thrown,
Beheld, and made what it beheld his own.
In 1637 Our author published his Lycidas; in this poem he laments the
death of his friend Mr. Edward King, who was drowned in his passage
from Chester on the Irish seas in 1637; it was printed the year
following at Cambridge in 4to. in a collection of Latin and English
poems upon Mr. King's death, with whom he had contracted the strongest
friendship. The Latin epitaph informs us, that Mr. King was son of Sir
John King, secretary for Ireland to Queen Elizabeth, James I. and
Charles I. and that he was fellow in Christ's-College Cambridge, and
was drowned in the twenty-fifth year of his age. But this poem of
Lycidas does not altogether consist in elegiac strains of tenderness;
there is in it a mixture of satire and severe indignation; for in part
of it he takes occasion to rally the corruptions of the established
clergy, of whom he was no favourer; and first discovers his acrimony
against archbishop Laud; he threatens him with the loss of his head, a
fate which he afterwards met, thro' the fury of his enemies; at least,
says Dr. Newton, I can think of no sense so proper to be given to the
following verses in Lycidas;
Besides what the grim wolf, with privy paw,
Daily devours apace, and nothing said;
But that two-handed engine at the door,
Stands ready to smite once, and smite no more.
Upon the death of his mother, Milton obtained leave of his father to
travel, and having waited upon Sir Henry Wotton, formerly ambassador
at Venice, and then provost of Eaton College, to whom he communicated
his design, that gentleman wrote a letter to him, dated from the
College, April 18, 1638, and printed among the Reliquiæ Wottonianæ,
and in Dr. Newton's life of Milton. Immediately after the receipt of
this letter our author set out for France, accompanied only with one
man, who attended him thro' all his travels. At Paris Milton was
introduced to the famous Hugo Grotius, and thence went to Florence,
Siena, Rome, and Naples, in all which places he was entertained with
the utmost civility by persons of the first distinction.
When our author was at Naples he was introduced to the acquaintance of
Giovanni Baptista Manso, Marquis of Villa, a Neapolitan nobleman,
celebrated for his taste in the liberal arts, to whom Tasso addresses
his dialogue on friendship, and whom he likewise mentions in his
Gierusalemme liberata, with great honour. This nobleman shewed
extraordinary civilities to Milton, frequently visited him at his
lodgings, and accompanied him when he went to see the several
curiosities of the city. He was not content with giving our author
these exterior marks of respect only, but he honoured him by a Latin
distich in his praise, which is printed before Milton's Latin poems.
Milton no doubt was highly pleased with such extreme condescension and
esteem from a person of the Marquis of Villa's quality; and as an
evidence of his gratitude, he presented the Marquis at his departure
from Naples, his eclogue, entitled Mansus; which, says Dr. Newton, is
well worth reading among his Latin poems; so that it may be reckoned a
peculiar felicity in the Marquis of Villa's life to have been
celebrated both by Tasso and Milton, the greatest poets of their
nation. Having seen the finest parts of Italy, and conversed with men
of the first distinction, he was preparing to pass over into Sicily
and Greece, when the news from England, that a civil war was like to
lay his country in blood, diverted his purpose; for as by his
education and principles he was attached to the parliamentary
interest, he thought it a mark of abject cowardice, for a lover of his
country to take his pleasure abroad, while the friends of liberty were
contending at home for the rights of human nature. He resolved
therefore to return by way of Rome, tho' he was dissuaded from
pursuing that resolution by the merchants, who were informed by their
correspondents, that the English jesuits there were forming plots
against his life, in case he should return thither, on account of the
great freedom with which he had treated their religion, and the
boldness he discovered in demonstrating the absurdity of the Popish
tenets; for he by no means observed the rule recommended to him by Sir
Henry Wotton, of keeping his thoughts close, and his countenance open.
Milton was removed above dissimulation, he hated whatever had the
appearance of disguise, and being naturally a man of undaunted
courage, he was never afraid to assert his opinions, nor to vindicate
truth tho' violated by the suffrage of the majority.
Stedfast in his resolutions, he went to Rome a second time, and stayed
there two months more, neither concealing his name, nor declining any
disputations to which his antagonists in religious opinions invited
him; he escaped the secret machinations of the jesuits, and came safe
to Florence, where he was received by his friends with as much
tenderness as if he had returned to his own country. Here he remained
two months, as he had done in his former visit, excepting only an
excursion of a few days to Lucca, and then crossing the Appenine, and
passing thro' Bologna, and Ferrara, he arrived at Venice, in which
city he spent a month; and having shipped off the books he had
collected in his travels, he took his course thro' Verona, Milan, and
along the Lake Leman to Geneva. In this city he continued some time,
meeting there with people of his own principles, and contracted an
intimate friendship with Giovanni Deodati, the most learned professor
of Divinity, whose annotations on the bible are published in English;
and from thence returning to France the same way that he had gone
before, he arrived safe in England after an absence of fifteen months,
in which Milton had seen much of the world, read the characters of
famous men, examined the policy of different countries, and made more
extensive improvements than travellers of an inferior genius, and less
penetration, can be supposed to do in double the time. Soon after his
return he took a handsome house in Aldersgate-street, and undertook
the education of his sister's two sons, upon a plan of his own. In
this kind of scholastic solitude he continued some time, but he was
not so much immersed in academical studies, as to stand an indifferent
spectator of what was acted upon the public theatre of his country.
The nation was in great ferment in 1641, and the clamour against
episcopacy running very high, Milton who discovered how much inferior
in eloquence and learning the puritan teachers were to the bishops,
engaged warmly with the former in support of the common cause, and
exercised all the power of which he was capable, in endeavouring to
overthrow the prelatical establishment, and accordingly published five
tracts relating to church government; they were all printed at London
in 4to. The first was intitled, Reformation touching Church Discipline
in England, and the Causes that have hitherto hindered it: two books
written to a friend. The second was of Prelatical Episcopacy, and
whether it may be deducted from Apostolical Times, by virtue of those
Testimonies which are alledged to that purpose in some late treatises;
one whereof goes under the name of James Usher archbishop of Armagh.
The third was the Reason of Church Government urged against the
Prelacy, by Mr. John Milton, in two books. The fourth was
Animadversions upon the Remonstrants Defence against Smectymnuus; and
the fifth an Apology for a Pamphlet called, a Modest Confutation of
the Animadversions upon the Remonstrants against Smectymnuus; or as
the title page is in some copies, an Apology for Smectymnuus, with the
Reason of Church Government, by John Milton.
In the year 1643 Milton married the daughter of Richard Powel, Esq; of
Forrest-hill in Oxfordshire; who not long after obtaining leave of her
husband to pay a visit to her father in the country, but, upon
repeated messages to her, refusing to return, Milton seemed disposed
to marry another, and in 1644 published the Doctrine and Discipline of
Divorce; the Judgment of Martin Bucer concerning Divorce, and the year
following his Tetrachordon and Colasterion. Mr. Philips observes, and
would have his readers believe, that the reason of his wife's aversion
to return to him was the contrariety of their state principles. The
lady being educated in loyal notions, possibly imagined, that if ever
the regal power should flourish again, her being connected with a
person so obnoxious to the King, would hurt her father's interest;
this Mr. Philips alledges, but, with submission to his authority, I
dissent from his opinion. Had she been afraid of marrying a man of
Milton's principles, the reason was equally strong before as after
marriage, and her father must have seen it in that light; but the true
reason, or at least a more rational one, seems to be, that she had no
great affection for Milton's person.
Milton was a stern man, and as he was so much devoted to study, he was
perhaps too negligent in those endearments and tender intercourses of
love which a wife has a right to expect. No lady ever yet was fond of
a scholar, who could not join the lover with it; and he who expects to
secure the affections of his wife by the force of his understanding
only, will find himself miserably mistaken: indeed it is no wonder
that women who are formed for tenderness, and whose highest excellence
is delicacy, should pay no great reverence to a proud scholar, who
considers the endearments of his wife, and the caresses of his
children as pleasures unworthy of him. It is agreed by all the
biographers of Milton, that he was not very tender in his disposition;
he was rather boldly honourable, than delicately kind; and Mr. Dryden
seems to insinuate, that he was not much subject to love. "His rhimes,
says he, flow stiff from him, and that too at an age when love makes
every man a rhymster, tho' not a poet. There are, methinks, in
Milton's love-sonnets more of art than nature; he seems to have
considered the passion philosophically, rather than felt it
intimately."
In reading Milton's gallantry the breast will glow, but feel no
palpitations; we admire the poetry, but do not melt with tenderness;
and want of feeling in an author seldom fails to leave the reader
cold; but from whatever cause his aversion proceeded, she was at last
prevailed upon by her relations, who could foresee the dangers of a
matrimonial quarrel, to make a submission, and she was again received
with tenderness.
Mr. Philips has thus related the story.--'It was then generally
thought, says he, that Milton had a design of marrying one of Dr.
Davy's daughters, a very handsome and witty gentlewoman, but averse,
as it is said, to this motion; however the intelligence of this caused
justice Powel's family to let all engines at work to restore the
married woman to the station in which they a little before had planted
her. At last this device was pitched upon. There dwelt in the lane of
St. Martin's Le Grand, which was hard by, a relation of our author's,
one Blackborough, whom it was known he often visited, and upon this
occasion the visits were more narrowly observed, and possibly there
might be a combination between both parties, the friends on both sides
consenting in the same action, tho' in different behalfs. One time
above the rest, making his usual visits, his wife was ready in another
room; on a sudden he was surprized to see one, whom he thought never
to have seen more, making submission, and begging pardon on her knees
before him. He might probably at first make some shew of aversion, and
rejection, but partly his own generous nature, more inclinable to
reconciliation than to perseverance in anger and revenge, and partly
the strong intercession of friends on both sides, soon brought him to
an act of oblivion and a firm league of peace for the future; and it
was at length concluded that she should remain at a friend's house,
till he was settled in his new house in Barbican, and all things
prepared for her reception. The first fruits of her return to her
husband was a brave girl, born within a year after, tho', whether by
ill constitution, or want of care, she grew more and more decrepit.'
Mr. Fenton observes, that it is not to be doubted but the
abovementioned interview between Milton and his wife must wonderfully
affect him; and that perhaps the impressions it made on his
imagination contributed much to the painting of that pathetic scene in
Paradise Lost, b. 10. in which Eve addresses herself to Adam for
pardon and peace, now at his feet submissive in distress.
About the year 1644 our author wrote a small piece in one sheet 4to,
under this title, Education, to Mr. Samuel Hartly, reprinted at the
end of his Poems on several occasions; and in the same year he
published at London in 4to, his Areopagitica, or a speech of Mr. J.
Milton for the liberty of unlicensed printing, to the Parliament of
England.
In 1645 his Juvenile Poems were printed at London, and about this time
his zeal for the republican party had so far recommended him, that a
design was formed of making him adjutant-general in Sir William
Waller's army; but the new modelling the army proved an obstruction to
that advancement. Soon after the march of Fairfax and Cromwell with
the whole army through the city, in order to suppress the insurrection
which Brown and Massey were endeavouring to raise there, against the
army's proceedings, he left his great house in Barbican, for a smaller
in High Holborn, where he prosecuted his studies till after the King's
trial and death, when he published his Tenure of Kings and
Magistrates: His Observations on the Articles of peace between James
Earl of Ormond for King Charles I. on the one hand, and the Irish
Rebels and Papists on the other hand; and a letter sent by Ormond to
colonel Jones governor of Dublin; and a representation of the Scotch
Presbytery at Belfast in Ireland.
He was now admitted into the service of the Commonwealth, and was made
Latin Secretary to the Council of State, who resolved neither to write
nor receive letters but in the Latin tongue, which was common to all
states.
'And it were to be wished,' says Dr. Newton, 'that succeeding Princes
would follow their example, for in the opinion of very wise men, the
universality of the French language will make way for the universality
of the French Monarchy. Milton was perhaps the first instance of a
blind man's possessing the place of a secretary; which no doubt was a
great inconvenience to him in his business, tho' sometimes a political
use might be made of it, as men's natural infirmities are often
pleaded in excuse for their not doing what they have no great
inclination to do. Dr. Newton relates an instance of this. When
Cromwell, as we may collect from Whitlocke, for some reasons delayed
artfully to sign the treaty concluded with Sweden, and the Swedish
ambassador made frequent complaints of it, it was excused to him,
because Milton on account of his blindness, proceeded slower in
business, and had not yet put the articles of treaty into Latin. Upon
which the ambassador was greatly surprized that things of such
consequence should be entrusted to a blind man; for he must
necessarily employ an amanuensis, and that amanuensis might divulge
the articles; and said, it was very wonderful there should be only one
man in England who could write Latin, and he a blind one.'
Thus we have seen Milton raised to the dignity of Latin Secretary. It
is somewhat strange, that in times of general confusion, when a man of
parts has the fairest opportunity to play off his abilities to
advantage, that Milton did not rise sooner, nor to a greater
elevation; he was employed by those in authority only as a writer,
which conferred no power upon him, and kept him in a kind of
obscurity, who had from nature all that was proper for the field as
well as the cabinet; for we are assured that Milton was a man of
confirmed courage.
In 1651 our author published his Pro Populo Anglicano Defensio, for
which he was rewarded by the Commonwealth with a present of a thousand
pounds, and had a considerable hand in correcting and polishing a
piece written by his nephew Mr. John Philips, and printed at London
1652, under this title, Joannis Philippi Angli Responsio ad Apologiam
Anonymi cujusdam Tenebrionis pro Rege & Populo Anglicano
infantissimam. During the writing and publishing this book, he lodged
at one Thomson's, next door to the Bull-head tavern Charing-Cross; but
he soon removed to a Garden-house in Petty-France, next door to lord
Scudamore's, where he remained from the year 1652 till within a few
weeks of the Restoration. In this house, his first wife dying in
child-bed, 1652, he married a second, Catherine, the daughter of
Captain Woodcock of Hackney, who died of a consumption in three months
after she had been brought to bed of a daughter. This second marriage
was about two or three years after he had been wholly deprived of his
sight; for by reason of his continual studies, and the head-ach[e], to
which he was subject from his youth, and his perpetual tampering with
physic, his eyes had been decaying for twelve years before.
In 1654 he published his Defensio Secunda; and the year following his
Defensio pro Se. Being now at ease from his state adversaries, and
political controversies, he had leisure again to prosecute his own
studies, and private designs, particularly his History of Britain, and
his new Thesaurus Linguæ Latinæ according to the method of Robert
Stevens, the manuscript of which contained three large volumes in
folio, and has been made use of by the editors of the Cambridge
Dictionary, printed 4to, 1693.
In 1658 he published Sir Walter Raleigh's Cabinet Council; and in 1659
a Treatise of the Civil Power in Ecclesiastical Causes, Lond. 12mo.
and Considerations touching the likeliest Means to remove Hirelings
out of the Church; wherein are also Discourses of Tithes, Church-fees,
Church-Revenues, and whether any Maintenance of Ministers can be
settled in Law, Lond. 1659, 12mo.
Upon the dissolution of the Parliament by the army, after Richard
Cromwell had been obliged to resign the Protectorship, Milton wrote a
letter, in which he lays down the model of a commonwealth; not such as
he judged the best, but what might be the readiest settled at that
time, to prevent the restoration of kingly government and domestic
disorders till a more favourable season, and better dispositions for
erecting a perfect democracy. He drew up likewise another piece to the
same purpose, which seems to have been addressed to general Monk; and
he published in February 1659, his ready and easy way to establish a
free Commonwealth. Soon after this he published his brief notes upon a
late sermon, entitled, the Fear of God and the King, printed in 4to,
Lond. 1660. Just before the restoration he was removed from his office
of Latin secretary, and concealed himself till the act of oblivion was
published; by the advice of his friends he absconded till the event of
public affairs should direct him what course to take, for this purpose
he retired to a friend's house in Bartholomew-Close, near
West-Smithfield, till the general amnesty was declared.
The act of oblivion, says Mr. Phillips, proving as favourable to him,
as could be hoped or expected, through the intercession of some that
stood his friends both in Council and Parliament; particularly in the
House of Commons, Mr. Andrew Marvel member for Hull, and who has
prefixed a copy of verses before his Paradise Lost, acted vigorously
in his behalf, and made a considerable party for him, so that together
with John Goodwin of Coleman-Street, he was only so far excepted as
not to bear any office in the Commonwealth; but as this is one of the
most important circumstances in the life of our author, we shall give
an account of it at large, from Mr. Richardson, in his life of Milton,
prefixed to his Explanatory Notes, and Remarks on Paradise Lost.
His words are