Perhaps I am convicting myself of the most benighted ignorance by asking
some of your learned correspondents to elucidate for me a letter of
Bramhall's, which I extract from his works. It was written to his son
from Antwerp, and relates to the early years of our great Milton at
Cambridge, dated:
"Antwerpe, May 9/19, 1654.
"That lying abusive book [viz., the _Def. Pop. Ang._] was written
by Milton himself, one who was sometime Bishopp Chappell's pupil
in Christ Church in Cambridge, but turned away by him, as he well
deserved to have been, out of the University, and out of the
society of men. If Salmasius his friends knew as much of him as I,
they would make him go near to hang himself. But I desire not to
wound the nation through his sides, yet I have written to him long
since about it roundly. It seems he desires not to touch upon this
subject."--_Works_, vol. i. p. 94, Oxford, 1842.
That Milton was _rusticated_ from Cambridge, and besides flogged by Dr.
Chappell, there seems little reason to doubt, but it is equally clear
that the punishment was only a temporary one, as he again went into
residence, and took the degrees of bachelor and master of arts in due
course. Whence, then, this sweeping accusation of the great and good
Bramhall's, whose character is a sufficient safeguard that he at all
events _believed_ what he said? Aubrey relates the story of Milton's
being whipped by Dr. Chappell, and afterwards being "transferred to the
tuition of one Dr. Tovell, who dyed parson of Lutterworth."[2] Milton
himself (_Elegiarum Liber, Eleg. I. ad Carolum Deodatum_) speaks of his
residence in London, and alludes, rather gratefully, to his "exilium"
from Cambridge, which he heartily disliked. He also alludes to his being
flogged, as there seems a whole world of meaning in _Caeteraque_:
"Nec duri libet usque minas perferre magistri,
_Caeteraque ingenio non subeunda meo_.
Si sit hoc _exilium_ patrios adiisse penates,
Et vacuum curis otia grata sequi,
Non ego vel _profugi_ nomen, sortemve recuso,
Laetus et _exilii_ conditione fruor."--Ver. 15. &c.
[Footnote 2: Dr. Warton has given a long note on the word
_Caeteraque_ in his edition of Milton's _Poems_, 1791, p. 421. He
suggests that probably "Dr. Tovell" should read "Dr. _Tovey_,
parson of _Kegworth_, in Leicestershire."]
We then get a short sketch of his employments and amusements in London;
and his return to Cambridge is mentioned in the palinode to the last of
his elegies:
"Donec Socraticos umbrosa academia rivos
Praebuit, admissum dedocuitque jugum.
Protinus extinctis ex illo tempore flammis,
Cincta rigent multo pectora nostra gelu."
Having now cleared my way in as brief a manner as possible, I must
profess my utter disbelief in the enormities of Milton's life at
Cambridge. He was certainly flogged, but then he was only eighteen years
old at the time, and we know that flogging was permitted by the statutes
of many colleges, and was a favorite recreation amongst the deans,
tutors, and censors of the day. Bramhall's letter has indeed been a
marvellous stumbling-block in my way, ever since the appearance of the
last edition of his works; but I do hope that some of your learned
correspondents will dispel the clouds and shadows that surround me, and
prove that, at all events, Milton was not worse than his neighbours.
Dr. South and Cowley were never flogged at college, but certainly they
were often flogged at school, or they could not speak so feelingly on
the subject:
"Those 'plagosi Orbilii' (writes South), those executioners,
rather than instructors of youth; persons fitted to lay about them
in a coach or cart, or to discipline boys before a Spartan altar,
or rather upon it, than to have anything to do in a Christian
school. I would give these pedagogical _Jehus_, those furious
school-drivers, the same advice which the poet says Phoebus gave
his son Phaeton (just such another driver as themselves), that he
should _parcere stimulis_ (the stimulus in driving being of the
same use formerly that the lash is now). Stripes and blows are the
last and basest remedy, and scarce ever fit to be used but upon
such as carry their brains in their backs, and have souls so dull
and stupid as to serve for little else but to keep their bodies
from putrefaction."--_Sermon upon Proverbs, xxii. 6._
And Cowley, in describing the _Betula_ (Angl. birch-tree), how he does
paint from nature!
"Mollis et alba cutim, formosam vertice fundens
Caesariem, sed mens tetrica est, sed nulla nec arbor
Nec fera sylvarum crudelior incolit umbras:
Nam simul atque urbes concessum intrare domosque
Plagosum _Orbilium_ saevumque imitata _Draconem_
Illa furit, non ulla viris delicta, nec ullum
Indulgens ludum pueris; inscribere membra
Discentum, teneroque rubescere sanguine gaudet."
_Plantarum_, lib. vi. pag. 323. Londini, 1668.
That Milton's character was notorious or infamous at Cambridge has
never, to my knowledge, been proved; and there is in his favour this
most overwhelming testimony, that he never forfeited the esteem and
friendship of the great and good. Was Sir Henry Wotton writing to a man
of blighted and blasted reputation when he sent the kind and
complimentary letter prefixed to _Comus_? In that he not merely
eulogises the "Dorique delicacy" of Milton's songs and odes, but gives
him much kind and considerate advice upon the course he was to pursue in
his travels, as well as some introductions to his own friends, and
promises to keep up a regular correspondence with him during his
absence. Milton was very proud of this letter, and speaks of it in his
_Defensio Secunda_. Again, Milton's associates at Cambridge must have
known all about the misdemeanour (whatever it was) that caused his
rustication, and yet they permitted him to take a part in, and perhaps
to write the preface of, the ever memorable volume which contained the
first edition of _Lycidas_.
The person commemorated was Edward King, a Fellow of Christ's College,
Cambridge (Milton's own college); and I need not adduce Milton's
affecting allusions to their close and intimate friendship. It was for
another of the _Fellows_ of Christ's College that Milton at the age of
nineteen (the very year after his rustication) wrote the academic
exercise _Naturam non pati Senium_, found amongst his Latin poems. But I
will omit a great many arguments of a similar kind, and ask this
question, Why has Milton's college career escaped the lash of three of
the most sarcastic of writers, Cleveland, Butler, and South, who were
his contemporaries? Cleveland must have known him well, as he, as well
as Milton, had contributed some memorial verses to King, and party
feeling would perhaps have overcome collegiate associations. Nor could
their mutual connexion with _Golden Grove_ have saved him from the
aspersions of Butler. After the Restoration, Richard Lord Vaughan, Earl
of Carbery, appointed the author of _Hudibras_ to the stewardship of
Ludlow Castle; and his second wife was the Lady Alice Egerton, who, at
the age of thirteen, had acted the Lady in Milton's _Comus_. It was to
her likewise that Bishop Jeremy Taylor dedicated the third edition of
the third part of the _Life of Christ_, as he had dedicated the first
edition to Lord Carbery's former wife, whose funeral sermon he preached.
I do not remember that Cleveland or Butler have on any occasion
satirised Milton; but I do remember that Dr. South has done so, and I
cannot understand his silence on the matter if Milton's private
character had been notorious. Of course I do not believe the anonymous
invective ascribed to a son of Bishop Hall's. Dr. South was not the man
to "mince matters," and yet Milton's college life has escaped his
sarcasms. What his opinion of Milton was we may learn from his sermon
preached before King Charles II. upon Judges xix. 30.
"The Latin advocate (Mr. Milton) who, like a blind adder, has spit
so much poison upon the king's person and cause," &c.
"In praefat. ad defensionem pro populo Anglicano (as his Latin
is)."--Vol. ii. pp. 201-2. Dublin, 1720. fol.
Any one who can help me out of my difficulty will much oblige me, as
Bramhall's letter is a painful mystery, and truth of any kind is always
less distressing than vague and shadowy surmises.