on the throne of England. This was Charles I the son of James VI
and I. The spacious days of Queen Elizabeth were over and gone,
and the temper of the people was changing. Elizabeth had been a
tyrant but the people of England had yielded to her tyranny.
James, too, was a tyrant, but the people struggled with him, and
in the struggle they grew stronger. In the days of Elizabeth the
religion of England was still unsettled. James decided that the
religion of England must be Episcopal, but as the reign of James
went on, England became more and more Puritan and the breach
between King and people grew wide, for James was no Puritan nor
was Charles after him.
As the temper of the people changed, the literature changed too.
As England grew Puritan, the people began to look askance at the
theater, for the Puritans had always been its enemies. Puritan
ideas drew the great mass of thinking people.
For one reason or another the plays that were written became by
degrees poorer and poorer. They were coarse too, many of them so
much so that we do not care to read them now. But people wrote
such stories as the play-goers of those days liked, and from them
we can judge how low the taste of England had fallen. However,
there were people in England in those days who revolted against
this taste, and in 1642, when the great struggle between King
Parliament had begun, all theaters were closed by order of
Parliament. So for a time the life of English drama paused.
But while dramatic poetry declined, lyric poetry flourished.
Lyric comes from the Greek word lura, a lyre, and all lyric
poetry was at one time meant to be sung. Now we use the word for
any short poem whether meant to be sung or not. In the times of
James and Charles there were many lyric poets. Especially in the
time of Charles it was natural that poets should write lyrics
rather than longer poems. For a time of strong action, of fierce
struggle was beginning, and amid the clash of arms men had no
leisure to sit in the study and ponder long and quietly. But
life brought with it many sharp and quick moments, and these
could be best expressed in lyric poetry. And as was natural when
religion was more and more being mixed with politics, when life
was forcing people to think about religion whether they would or
not, many of these lyric poets were religious poets. Indeed this
is the great time of English religious poetry. So these lyric
poets were divided into two classes, the religious poets and the
court poets, gay cavaliers these last who sang love-songs, love-
songs, too, in which we often seem to hear the clash of swords.
For if these brave and careless cavaliers loved gayly, they
fought and died as gayly as they loved.
Later on when you come to read more in English literature, you
will learn to know many of these poets. In this book we have not
room to tell about them or even to mention their names. Their
stories are bound up with the stories of the times, and many of
them fought and suffered for their king. But I will give you one
or two poems which may make you want to know more about the
writers of them.
Here are two written by Richard Lovelace, the very model of a gay
cavalier. While he was at Oxford, King Charles saw him and made
him M.A. or Master of Arts, not for his learning, but because of
his beautiful face. He went to court and made love and sang
songs gayly. He went to battle and fought and sang as gayly, he
went to prison and still sang. To the cause of his King he clung
through all, and when Charles was dead and Cromwell ruled with
his stern hand, and song was hushed in England, he died miserably
in a poor London alley.
The first of these songs was written by Lovelace while he was in
prison for having presented a petition to the House of Commons
asking that King Charles might be restored to the throne.
TO ALTHEA FROM PRISON
"When love with unconfinéd wings
Hovers within my gates,
And my divine Althea brings
To whisper at the grates;
When I lye tangled in her haire,
And fettered to her eye,
The gods, that wanton in the aire,
Know no such liberty.
. . . . .
"When (like committed linnets) I
With shriller throat shall sing
The sweetness, mercy, majesty,
And glories of my King.
When I shall voyce aloud, how good
He is, how great should be,
Enlargéd winds, that curle the flood,
Know no such liberty.
"Stone walls do not a prison make,
Nor iron bars a cage;
Mindes innocent and quiet take
That for an hermitage;
If I have freedome in my love,
And in my soule am free,
Angels alone that soar above
Enjoy such liberty."
TO LUCASTA GOING TO THE WARRES
"Tell me not (sweet) I am unkinde,
That from the nunnerie
Of thy chaste heart and quiet minde
To warre and armes I flie.
"True: a new Mistresse now I chase,
The first foe in the field,
And with a stronger faith embrace
A sword, a horse, a shield.
"Yet this inconstancy is such
As you, too, shall adore;
I could not love thee, dear, so much,
Lov'd I not Honour more."
James Graham, Marquis of Montrose, was another cavalier poet
whose fine, sad story you will read in history. He loved his
King and fought and suffered for him, and when he heard that he
was dead he drew his sword and wrote a poem with its point:
"Great, Good, and Just, could I but rate
My grief, and thy too rigid fate,
I'd weep the world in such a strain
As it should deluge once again:
But since thy loud-tongued blood demands supplies
More from Briareus' hands than Argus' eyes,
I'll sing thy obsequies with trumpet sounds
And write thine epitaph in blood and wounds."
He wrote, too, a famous song known as Montrose's Love-song. Here
it is:--
"My dear and only love, I pray
This noble world of thee,
Be governed by no other sway
But purest monarchie.
"For if confusion have a part
Which vertuous souls abhore,
And hold a synod in thy heart,
I'll never love thee more.
"Like Alexander I will reign,
And I will reign alone,
My thoughts shall evermore disdain
A rival on my throne.
"He either fears his fate too much
Or his deserts are small,
That puts it not unto the touch,
To win or lose it all.
"But I must rule and govern still,
And always give the law,
And have each subject at my will,
And all to stand in awe.
"But 'gainst my battery if I find
Thou shun'st the prize so sore,
As that thou set'st me up a blind
I'll never love thee more.
"If in the Empire of thy heart,
Where I should solely be,
Another do pretend a part,
And dares to vie with me:
"Or if committees thou erect,
And goes on such a score,
I'll sing and laugh at thy neglect,
and never love thee more.
"But if thou wilt be constant then,
And faithful to thy word,
I'll make thee glorious with my pen
And famous by my sword.
"I'll serve thee in such noble ways
Was never heard before,
I'll crown and deck thee all with bays
And love thee more and more."
In these few cavalier songs we can see the spirit of the times.
There is gay carelessness of death, strong courage in misfortune,
passionate loyalty. There is, too, the proud spirit of the
tyrant, which is gentle and loving when obeyed, harsh and cruel
if disobeyed.
There is another song by a cavalier poet which I should like to
give you. It is a love-song, too, but it does not tell of these
stormy times, or ring with the noise of battle. Rather it takes
us away to a peaceful summer morning before the sun is up, when
everything is still, when the dew trembles on every blade of
grass, and the air is fresh and cool, and sweet with summer
scents. And in this cool freshness we hear the song of the lark:
"The lark now leaves his wat'ry nest,
And, climbing, shakes his dewy wings;
He takes this window for the east;
And to implore your light, he sings;
'Awake, awake! the Morn will never rise,
Till she can dress her beauty at your eyes.'
"The merchant bow unto the seaman's star,
The ploughman from the Sun his season takes;
But still the lover wonders what they are,
Who look for day before his mistress wakes.
'Awake, awake! break thro' your veils of lawn!
Then draw your curtains, and begin the dawn.'"
That was written by William Davenant, poet-laureate. It is one
our most beautiful songs, and he is remembered by it far more
than by his long epic poem called Gondibert which few people now
read. But I think you will agree with me that his name is worthy
of being remembered for that one song alone.
Chapter LV HERBERT--THE PARSON POET
HAVING told you a little about the songs of the cavaliers I must
now tell you something about the religious poets who were a
feature of the age. Of all our religious poets, of this time at
least, George Herbert is the greatest. He was born in 1593 near
the town of Montgomery, and was the son of a noble family, but
his father died when he was little more than three, leaving his
mother to bring up George with his nine brothers and sisters.
George Herbert's mother was a good and beautiful woman, and she
loved her children so well that the poet said afterwards she had
been twice a mother to him.
At twelve he was sent to Westminster school where we are told
"the beauties of his pretty behaviour shined" so that he seemed
"to become the care of Heaven and of a particular good angel to
guard and guide him."*
*Izaak Walton.
At fifteen he went to Trinity College, Cambridge. And now,
although separated from his "dear and careful Mother"* he did not
forget her or all that she had taught him. Already he was a
poet. We find him sending verses as a New Year gift to his
mother and writing to her that "my poor abilities in poetry shall
be all and ever consecrated to God's glory."
*The same.
As the years went on Herbert worked hard and became a gently
good, as well as a learned man, and in time he was given the post
of Public Orator at the University. This post brought him into
touch with the court and with the King. Of this George Herbert
was glad, for although he was a good and saintly man, he longed
to be a courtier. Often now he went to court hoping for some
great post. But James I died in 1625 and with him died George
Herbert's hope of rising to be great in the world.
For a time, then, he left court and went into the country, and
there he passed through a great struggle with himself. The
question he had to settle was "whether he should return to the
painted pleasure of a court life" or become a priest.
In the end he decided to become a priest, and when a friend tried
to dissuade him from the calling as one too much below his birth,
he answered: "It hath been judged formerly, that the domestic
servants of the King of Heaven should be one of the noblest
families on earth. And though the iniquity of late times have
made clergymen meanly valued, and the sacred name of priest
contemptible, yet I will labor to make it honorable. . . . And I
will labor to be like my Saviour, by making humility lovely in
the eyes of all men, and by following the merciful and meek
example of my dear Jesus."
But before Herbert was fully ordained a great change came into
his life. The Church of England was now Protestant and priests
were allowed to marry, and George Herbert married. The story of
how he met his wife is pretty.
Herbert was such a cheerful and good man that he had many
friends. It was said, indeed, that he had no enemy. Among his
many friends was one named Danvers, who loved him so much that he
said nothing would make him so happy as that George should marry
one of his nine daughters. But specially he wished him to marry
his daughter Jane, for he loved her best, and would think of no
more happy fate for her than to be the wife of such a man as
George Herbert. He talked of George so much to Jane that she
loved him without having seen him. George too heard of Jane and
wished to meet her. And at last after a long time they met.
Each had heard so much about the other that they seemed to know
one another already, and like the prince and princess in a fairy
tale, they loved at once, and three days later they were married.
Soon after this, George Herbert was offered the living of
Bemerton near Salisbury. But although he had already made up his
mind to become a priest he was as yet only a deacon. This sudden
offer made him fearful. He began again to question himself and
wonder if he was good enough for such a high calling. For a
month he fasted and prayed over it. But in the end Laud, Bishop
of London, assured him "that the refusal of it was a sin." So
Herbert put off his sword and gay silken clothes, and putting on
the long dark robe of a priest turned his back for ever to
thoughts of a court life. "I now look back upon my aspiring
thoughts," he said, "and think myself more happy than if I had
attained what I so ambitiously thirsted for. I can now behold
the court with an impartial eye, and see plainly that it is made
up of fraud and titles and flattery, and many other such empty,
imaginary, painted pleasures." And having turned his back on all
gayety, he began the life which earned for him the name of
"saintly George Herbert." He taught his people, preached to
them, and prayed with them so lovingly that they loved him in
return. "Some of the meaner sort of his parish did so love and
reverence Mr. Herbert that they would let their plough rest when
Mr. Herbert's saint's bell rang to prayers, that they might also
offer their devotions to God with him; and would then return back
to their plough. And his most holy life was such, that it begot
such reverence to God and to him, that they thought themselves
the happier when they carried Mr. Herbert's blessing back with
them to their labour."*
*Walton.
But he did not only preach, he practised too. I must tell you
just one story to show you how he practiced. Herbert was very
fond of music; he sang, and played too, upon the lute and viol.
One day as he was walking into Salisbury to play with some
friends "he saw a poor man with a poorer horse, which was fallen
under his load. They were both in distress and needed present
help. This Mr. Herbert perceiving put off his canonical coat,
and helped the poor man to unload, and after to load his horse.
The poor man blest him for it, and he blest the poor man, and was
so like the Good Samaritan that he gave him money to refresh both
himself and his horse, and told him, that if he loved himself, he
should be merciful to his beast. Thus he left the poor man.
"And at his coming to his musical friends at Salisbury, they
began to wonder that Mr. George Herbert, which used to be so trim
and clean, came into that company so soiled and discomposed. But
he told them the occasion. And when one of the company told him,
he had disparaged himself by so dirty an employment, his answer
was: that the thought of what he had done would prove music to
him at midnight, and the omission of it would have upbraided and
made discord in his conscience whensoever he should pass by that
place. 'For if I be bound to pray for all that be in distress, I
am sure that I am bound, so far as it is in my power, to practice
what I pray for. And though I do not wish for the like occasion
every day, yet let me tell you, I would not willingly pass one
day of my life without comforting a sad soul or shewing mercy.
And I praise God for this occasion.
"'And now let's tune our instruments.'"*
*Walton.
This story reminds us that besides being a parson Herbert was a
courtier and a fine gentleman. His courtly friends were
surprised that he should lower himself by helping a poor man with
his own hands. But that is just one thing that we have to
remember about Herbert, he had nothing of the puritan in him, he
was a cavalier, a courtier, yet he showed the world that it was
possible to be these and still be a good man. He did not believe
that any honest work was a "dirty employment." In one of his
poems he says:
"Teach me my God and King,
In all things Thee to see,
And what I do in anything
To do it as for Thee.
. . . . .
"All may of Thee Partake:
Nothing can be so mean
Which with his tincture (for Thy sake)
Will not grow bright and clean.
"A Servant with this clause
Makes drudgery divine;
Who sweeps a room as for Thy laws
Makes that and th' action fine.
"This is the famous stone
That turneth all to gold;
For that which God doth touch and own
Cannot for less be told."*
*Counted.
I have told you the story about Herbert and the poor man in the
words of Izaak Walton, the first writer of a life of George
Herbert. I hope some day you will read that life and also the
other books Walton wrote, for although we have not room for him
in this book, his books are one of the delights of our literature
which await you.
In all Herbert's work among his people, his wife was his
companion and help, and the people loved her as much as they
loved their parson. "Love followed her," says Walton, "in all
places as inseparably as shadows follow substances in sunshine."
Besides living thus for his people Herbert almost rebuilt the
church and rectory both of which he found very ruined. And when
he had made an end of rebuilding he carved these words upon the
chimney in the hall of the Rectory:
"If thou chance for to find
A new house to thy mind,
And built without thy cost;
Be good to the poor,
As God gives thee Store
And then my labor's not lost."
His life, one would think, was busy enough, and full enough, yet
amid it all he found time to write. Besides many poems he wrote
for his own guidance a book called The Country Parson. It is a
book, says Walton, "so full of plain, prudent, and useful rules
that that country parson that can spare 12d. and yet wants it is
scarce excusable."
But Herbert's happy, useful days at Bemerton were all too short.
In 1632, before he had held his living three years, he died, and
was buried by his sorrowing people beneath the altar of his own
little church.
It was not until after his death that his poems were published.
On his death-bed he left the book in which he had written them to
a friend. "Desire him to read it," he said, "and if he can think
it may turn to the advantage of any dejected poor soul, let it be
made public. If not let him burn it."
The book was published under the name of The Temple. All the
poems are short except the first, called The Church Porch. From
that I will quote a few lines. It begins:
"Thou whose sweet youth and early hopes enchance
Thy rate and price, and mark thee for a treasure,
Hearken unto a Verser, who may chance
Ryme thee to good, and make a bait of pleasure.
A verse may find him who a sermon flies,
And turn delight into a sacrifice.
. . . . . . .
"Lie not, but let thy heart be true to God,
Thy mouth to it, thy actions to them both:
Cowards tell lies, and those that fear the rod;
The stormy-working soul spits lies and froth
Dare to be true: nothing can need a lie;
A fault which needs it most, grows two thereby.
. . . . . . .
"Art thou a magistrate? then be severe:
If studious, copy fair what Time hath blurr'd,
Redeem truth from his jaws: if soldier,
Chase brave employment with a naked sword
Throughout the world. Fool not; for all may have,
If they dare try, a glorious life, or grave.
. . . . . . .
"Do all things like a man, not sneakingly;
Think the King sees thee still; for his King does.
Simpring is but a lay-hypocrisy;
Give it a corner and the clue undoes.
Who fears to do ill set himself to task,
Who fears to do well sure should wear a mask."
There is all the strong courage in these lines of the courtier-
parson. They make us remember that before he put on his priest's
robe he wore a sword. They are full of the fearless goodness
that was the mark of his gentle soul. And now, to end the
chapter, I will give you another little poem full of beauty and
tenderness. It is called The Pulley. Herbert often gave quaint
names to his poems, names which at first sight seem to have
little meaning. Perhaps you may be able to find out why this is
called The Pulley.
"When God at first made man,
Having a glass of blessings standing by,
'Let us,' said He, 'pour on him all we can;
Let the world's riches which disperséd lie,
Contract into a span.'
"So strength first made way,
Then beauty flowed, then wisdom, honour, pleasure;
When almost all was out, God made a stay,
Perceiving that, alone of all His treasure,
Rest in the bottom lay.
"'For if I should,' said He,
'Bestow this jewel on My creature,
He would adore My gifts instead of Me,
And rest in Nature, not the God of Nature:
So both should losers be.
"'Yet let him keep the rest,
But keep them with repining restlessness;
Let him be rich and weary, that at least,
If goodness lead him not, yet weariness
May toss him to my breast.'"
Chapter LVI HERRICK AND MARVELL--OF BLOSSOMS AND BOWERS
ANOTHER poet of this age, Robert Herrick, in himself joined the
two styles of poetry of which we have been speaking, for he was
both a love poet and a religious poet.
He was born in 1591 and was the son of an old, well-to-do family,
his father being a London goldsmith. But, like Herbert, he lost
his father when he was but a tiny child. Like Herbert again he
went to Westminster School and later Cambridge. But before he
went to Cambridge he was apprenticed to his uncle, who was a
goldsmith, as his brother, Herrick's father, had been. Robert,
however, never finished his apprenticeship. He found out, we may
suppose, that he had no liking for the jeweler's craft, that his
hand was meant to create jewels of another kind. So he left his
uncle's workshop and went to Cambridge, although he was already
much beyond the usual age at which boys then went to college.
Like Herbert he went to college meaning to study for the Church.
But according to our present-day ideas he seems little fitted to
have been a priest. For although we know little more than a few
bare facts about Herrick's life, when we have read his poems and
looked at his portrait we can draw for ourselves a clear picture
of the man, and the picture will not fit in with our ideas of
priesthood.
In some ways therefore, as we have seen, though there was an
outward likeness between the lives of Herbert and of Herrick, it
was only an outwards likeness. Herbert was tender and kindly,
the very model of a Christian gentleman. Herrick was a jolly old
Pagan, full of a rollicking joy in life. Even in appearance
these two poets were different. Herbert was tall and thin with a
quiet face and eyes which were truly "homes of silent prayer."
In Herrick's face is something gross, his great Roman nose and
thick curly hair seem to suit his pleasure-loving nature. There
is nothing spiritual about him.
After Herrick left college we know little of his life for eight
or nine years. He lived in London, met Ben Jonson and all the
other poets and writers who flocked about great Ben. He went to
court no doubt, and all the time he wrote poems. It was a gay
and cheerful life which, when at length he was given the living
of Dean Prior in Devonshire, he found it hard to leave.
It was then that he wrote his farewell to poetry. He says:--
"I, my desires screw from thee, and direct
Them and my thought to that sublim'd respect
And conscience unto priesthood."
It was hard to go. But yet he pretends at least to be resigned,
and he ends by saying:--
"The crown of duty is our duty: Well--
Doing's the fruit of doing well. Farewell."
For eighteen years Herrick lived in his Devonshire home, and we
know little of these years. But he thought sadly at times of the
gay days that were gone. "Ah, Ben!" he writes to Jonson,
"Say how, or when
Shall we thy guests
Meet at those lyric feasts
Made at the Sun,
The Dog, the Triple Tun?
Where we such clusters had,
As made us nobly wild, not mad;
And yet each verse of thine
Out-did the meat, out-did the frolic wine."
Yet he was not without comforts and companions in his country
parsonage. His good and faithful servant Prue kept house for
him, and he surrounded himself with pets. He had a pet lamb, a
dog, a cat, and even a pet pig which he taught to drink out of a
mug.
"Though Clock,
To tell how night draws hence, I've none,
A Cock
I have, to sing how day draws on.
I have
A maid (my Prue) by good luck sent,
To save
That little, Fates me gave or lent.
A Hen
I keep, which, creeking* day by day,
Tells when
She goes her long white egg to lay.
A Goose
I have, which, with a jealous ear,
Lets loose
Her tongue, to tell what danger's near.
A Lamb
I keep, tame, with my morsels fed,
Whose Dam
An orphan left him, lately dead.
A Cat
I keep, that plays about my house,
Grown fat
With eating many a miching** mouse.
To these
A Tracy*** I do keep, whereby
I please
The more my rural privacy,
Which are
But toys to give my heart some ease;
Where care
None is, slight things do lightly please."
*Clucking.
**Thieving.
***His spaniel.
But Herrick did not love his country home and parish or his
people. We are told that the gentry round about loved him "for
his florid and witty discourses." But his people do not seem to
have loved these same discourses, for we are also told that one
day in anger he threw his sermon from the pulpit at them because
they did not listen attentively. He says:--
"More discontents I never had,
Since I was born, than here,
Where I have been, and still am sad,
In this dull Devonshire."
Yet though Herrick hated Devonshire, or at least said so, it was
this same wild country that called forth some of his finest
poems. He himself knew that, for in the next lines he goes on to
say:--
"Yet justly, too, I must confess
I ne'er invented such
Ennobled numbers for the press,
Than where I loathed so much."
Yet it is not the ruggedness of the Devon land we feel in
Herrick's poems. We feel rather the beauty of flowers, the
warmth of sun, the softness of spring winds, and see the greening
trees, the morning dews, the soft rains. It is as if he had not
let his eyes wander over the wild Devonshire moorlands, but had
confined them to his own lovely garden and orchard meadow, for he
speaks of the "dew-bespangled herb and tree," the "damasked
meadows," the "silver shedding brooks." Hardly any English poet
has written so tenderly of flowers as Herrick. One of the best
known of these flower poems is To Daffodils.
"Fair Daffodils, we weep to see
You haste away so soon;
As yet the early-rising sun
Has not attain'd his noon.
Stay, stay,
Until the hasting day
Has run
But to the Even-song;
And, having pray'd together, we
Will go with you along.
We have short time to stay, as you,
We have as short a spring;
As quick a growth to meet decay,
As you, or anything.
We die
As your hours do, and dry
Away,
Like to the summer's rain;
Or as the pearls of morning's dew,
Ne'er to be found again."
And here is part of a song for May morning:--
"Get up, get up for shame, the blooming morn
Upon her wings presents the god unshorn.
See how Aurora throws her fair
Fresh-quilted colours through the air:
Get up, sweet slug-a-bed, and see
The dew bespangling herb and tree,
Each flower has wept and bow'd toward the east
Above an hour since; yet you not dress'd;
Nay! not so much as out of bed?
When all the birds have matins said
And sung their thankful hymns, 'tis sin,
Nay, profanation to keep in,
Whenas a thousand virgins on this day
Spring, sooner than the lark to fetch in May.
Rise and put on your foliage, and be seen
To come forth, like the Spring-time, fresh and green
And sweet as Flora. Take no care
For jewels for your gown or hair;
Fear not; the leaves will strew
Gems in abundance upon you:
Besides, the childhood of the day has kept,
Against you come, some orient pearls unwept;
Come and receive them while the light
Hangs on the dew-locks of the night:
And Titan on the eastern hill
Retires himself, or else stands still
Till you come forth. Wash, dress, be brief in praying;
Few beads are best when once we go a-Maying."
Another well-known poem of Herrick's is:--
"Gather ye rosebuds while ye may,
Old Time is still a-flying:
And this same flower that smiles to-day,
To-morrow will be dying.
The glorious lamp of Heaven, the Sun,
The higher he's a-getting,
The sooner will his race be run,
And nearer he's to setting.
That age is best, which is the first,
When Youth and Blood are warmer:
But being spent, the worse, and worst
Times still succeed the former.
Then be not coy, but use your time,
And while ye may, go marry;
For having lost but once your prime,
You may for ever tarry."
Herrick only published one book. He called it The Hesperides, or
the works both Human and Divine. The "divine" part although
published in the same book, has a separate name, being called his
Noble Numbers. The Hesperides, from whom he took the name of his
book, were lovely maidens who dwelt in a beautiful garden far
away on the verge of the ocean. The maidens sang beautifully, so
Herrick took their name for his book, for it might well be that
the songs they sang were such as his. This garden of the
Hesperides was sometimes thought to be the same as the fabled
island of Atlantis of which we have already heard. And it was
here that, guarded by a dreadful dragon, grew the golden apples
which Earth gave to Hera on her marriage with Zeus.
The Hesperides is a collection of more than a thousand short
poems, a few of which you have already read in this chapter.
They are not connected with each other, but tell of all manner of
things.
Herrick was a religious poet too, and here is something that he
wrote for children in his Noble Numbers. It is called To his
Saviour, a Child: A Present by a Child.
"Go, pretty child, and bear this flower
Unto thy little Saviour;
And tell him, by that bud now blown,
He is the Rose of Sharon known.
When thou hast said so, stick it there
Upon his bib or stomacher;
And tell Him, for good hansel too,
That thou hast brought a whistle new,
Made of a clear, straight oaten reed,
To charm his cries at time of need.
Tell Him, for coral, thou hast none,
But if thou hadst, He should have one;
But poor thou art, and known to be
Even as moneyless as He.
Lastly, if thou canst win a kiss
From those mellifluous lips of His;
Then never take a second one,
To spoil the first impression."
Herrick wrote also several graces for children. Here is one:--
"What God gives, and what we take
'Tis a gift for Christ His sake:
Be the meal of beans and peas,
God be thanked for those and these:
Have we flesh, or have we fish,
All are fragments from His dish.
He His Church save, and the king;
And our peace here, like a Spring,
Make it ever flourishing."
While Herrick lived his quiet, dull life and wrote poetry in the
depths of Devonshire, the country was being torn asunder and
tossed from horror to horror by the great Civil War. Men took
sides and fought for Parliament or for King. Year by year the
quarrel grew. What was begun at Edgehill ended at Naseby where
the King's cause was utterly lost. Then, although Herrick took
no part in the fighting, he suffered with the vanquished, for he
was a Royalist at heart. He was turned out of his living to make
room for a Parliament man. He left this parish without regret.
"Deanbourne, farewell; I never look to see
Deane, or thy warty incivility.
Thy rocky bottom, that doth tear thy streams,
And makes them frantic, ev'n to all extremes;
To my content, I never should behold,
Were thy streams silver, or thy rocks all gold.
Rocky thou art, and rocky we discover
Thy men: and rocky are thy ways all over.
O men, O manners, now and ever known
To be a rocky generation:
A people currish; churlish as the seas;
And rude, almost, as rudest savages:
With whom I did, and may re-sojourn when
Rocks turn to rivers, rivers turn to men."
Hastening to London, he threw off his sober priest's robe, and
once more putting on the gay dress worn by the gentlemen of his
day he forgot the troubles and the duties of a country parson.
Rejoicing in his freedom he cried:--
"London my home is: though by hard fate sent
Into a long and irksome banishment;
Yet since called back; henceforward let me be,
O native country, repossess'd by thee."
He had no money, but he had many wealthy friends, so he lived, we
may believe, merrily enough for the next fifteen years. It was
during these years that the Hesperides was first published,
although for a long time before many people had known his poems,
for they had been handed about among his friends in manuscript.
So the years passed for Herrick we hardly know how. In the great
world Cromwell died and Charles II returned to England to claim
the throne of his fathers. Then it would seem that Herrick had
not found all the joy he had hoped for in London, for two years
later, although rocks had not turned to rivers, nor rivers to
men, he went back to his "loathed Devonshire."
After that, all that we know of him is that at Dean Prior "Robert
Herrick vicker was buried ye 15th day of October 1674." Thus in
twilight ends the life of the greatest lyric poet of the
seventeenth century.
All the lyric poets of whom I have told you were Royalists, but
the Puritans too had their poets, and before ending this chapter
I would like to tell you a little of Andrew Marvell, a
Parliamentary poet.
If Herrick was a lover of flowers, Marvell was a lover of
gardens, woods and meadows. The garden poet he has been called.
He felt himself in touch with Nature:--
"Thus I, easy philosopher,
Among the birds and trees confer,
And little now to make me wants,
Or of the fowls or of the plants:
Give me but wings as they, and I
Straight floating in the air shall fly;
Or turn me but, and you shall see
I was but an inverted tree."*
*Appleton House, to the Lord Fairfax.
Yet although Marvell loved Nature, he did not live, like Herrick,
far from the stir of war, but took his part in the strife of the
times. He was an important man in his day. He was known to
Cromwell and was a friend of Milton, a poet much greater than
himself. He was a member of Parliament, and wrote much prose,
but the quarrels in the cause of which it was written are matters
of bygone days, and although some of it is still interesting, it
is for his poetry rather that we remember and love him. Although
Marvell was a Parliamentarian, he did not love Cromwell blindly,
and he could admire what was fine in King Charles. He could say
of Cromwell:--
"Though his Government did a tyrant resemble,
He made England great, and his enemies tremble."*
*A dialogue between two Horses.
And no one perhaps wrote with more grave sorrow of the death of
Charles than did Marvell, and that too in a poem which, strangely
enough, was written in honor of Cromwell.
"He nothing common did, or mean,
Upon that memorable scene,
But with his keener eye
The axe's edge did try:
Nor called the gods with vulgar spite
To vindicate his helpless right,
But bowed his comely head,
Down, as upon a bed."*
*An Horatian ode upon Cromwell's return from Ireland.
At Cromwell's death he wrote:--
"Thee, many ages hence, in martial verse
Shall the English soldier, ere he charge, rehearse;
Singing of thee, inflame himself to fight
And, with the name of Cromwell, armies fright."*
*Upon the Death of the Lord Protector.
But all Marvell's writings were not political, and one of his
prettiest poems was written about a girl mourning for a lost pet.
"The wanton troopers riding by
Have shot my fawn, and it will die.
Ungentle men! they cannot thrive
who killed thee. Thou ne'er didst alive
Them any harm: alas! nor could
Thy death yet do them any good.
. . . . .
With sweetest milk and sugar, first
I it at my own fingers nurs'd;
And as it grew, so every day
It wax'd more sweet and white than they.
It had so sweet a breath! And oft
I blushed to see its foot so soft,
And white (shall I say than my hand?)
Nay, any lady's of the land.
It is a wondrous thing how fleet
'Twas on those little silver feet;
With what a pretty skipping grace
It oft would challenge me to race;
And when 't had left me far away,
'Twould stay, and run again, and stay;
For it was nimbler much than hinds,
And trod as if on the four winds.
I have a garden of my own,
But so with roses overgrown
And lilies, that you would it guess
To be a little wilderness;
And all the spring-time of the year
It only loved to be there.
Among the lilies, I
Have sought it oft, where it should lie
Yet could not, till itself would rise,
Find it, although before mine eyes;
For in the flaxen lilies' shade,
It like a bank of lilies laid.
Upon the roses it would feed,
Until its lips even seemed to bleed;
And then to me 'twould boldly trip
And plant those roses on my lip.
. . . . .
Now my sweet fawn in vanish'd to
Whither the swans and turtles go;
In fair Elysium to endure,
With milk-white lambs and ermines pure,
O do not run too fast: for I
Will but bespeak thy grave, and die."
After the Restoration Marvell wrote satires, a kind of poem of
which you had an early and mild example in the fable of the two
mice by Surrey, a kind of poem of which we will soon hear much
more. In these satires Marvell poured out all the wrath of a
Puritan upon the evils of his day. Marvell's satires were so
witty and so outspoken that once or twice he was in danger of
punishment because of them. But once at least the King himself
saved a book of his from being destroyed, for by every one "from
the King down to the tradesman his books were read with great
pleasure."* Yet he had many enemies, and when he died suddenly
in August, 1678, many people though that he had been poisoned.
He was the last, we may say, of the seventeenth-century lyric
poets.
*Burnet.
Besides the lyric writers there were many prose writers in the
seventeenth century who are among the men to be remembered. But
their books, although some day you will love them, would not
interest you yet. They tell no story, they are long, they have
not, like poetry, a lilt or rhythm to carry one on. It would be
an effort to read them. If I tried to explain to you wherein the
charm of them lies I fear the charm would fly, for it is
impossible to imprison the sunbeam or find the foundations of the
rainbow. It is better therefore to leave these books until the
years to come in which it will be no effort to read them, but a
joy.
Chapter LVII MILTON--SIGHT AND GROWTH
"THERE is but one Milton,"* there is, too, but one Shakespeare,
yet John Milton, far more than William Shakespeare, stands a
lonely figure in our literature. Shakespeare was a dramatist
among dramatists. We can see how there were those who led up to
him, and others again who led away from him. From each he
differs in being greater, he outshines them all. Shakespeare was
a man among men. He loved and sinned with men, he was homely and
kindly, and we can take him to our hearts. Milton both in his
life and work was cold and lonely. He was a master without
scholars, a leader without followers. Him we can admire, but
cannot love with an understanding love. Yet although we love
Shakespeare we can find throughout all his works hardly a line
upon which we can place a finger and say here Shakespeare speaks
of himself, here he shows what he himself thought and felt.
Shakespeare understood human nature so well that he could see
through another's eyes and so forget himself. But over and over
again in Milton's work we see himself. Over and over again we
can say here Milton speaks of himself, here he shows us his own
heart, his own pain. He is one of the most self-ful of all
poets. He has none of the dramatic power of Shakespeare, he
cannot look through another's eyes, so he sees things only from
one standpoint and that his own. He stands far apart from us,
and is almost inhumanly cold. That is the reason why so many of
us find him hard to love.
*Professor Raleigh.
When, on a bleak December day in 1606, more than three hundred
years ago, Milton was born, Elizabeth was dead, and James of
Scotland sat upon the throne, but many of the great Elizabethans
still lived. Shakespeare was still writing, still acting,
although he had become a man of wealth and importance and the
owner of New Place. Ben Jonson was at the very height of his
fame, the favorite alike of Court and Commons. Bacon was just
rising to power and greatness, his Novum Organum still to come.
Raleigh, in prison, was eating his heart out in the desire for
freedom, trying to while away the dreary hours with chemical
experiments, his great history not yet begun. Of the crowd of
lyric writers some were boys at college, some but children in the
nursery, and some still unborn. Yet in spite of the many writers
who lived at or about the same time, Milton stands alone in our
literature.
John Milton was the son of a London scrivener, that is, a kind of
lawyer. He was well-to-do and a Puritan. Milton's home,
however, must have been brighter than many a Puritan home, for
his father loved music, and not only played well, but also
composed. He taught his son to play too, and all through his
life Milton loved music.
John was a pretty little boy with long golden brown hair, a fair
face and dark gray eyes. But to many a strict Puritan, beauty
was an abomination, and we are told that one of Milton's
schoolmasters "was a Puritan in Essex who cut his hair short."
No doubt to him a boy with long hair was unseemly. John was the
eldest and much beloved son of his father, who perhaps petted and
spoiled him. He was clever as well as pretty, and already at the
age of ten he was looked upon by his family as a poet. He was
very studious, for besides going to St. Paul's School he had a
private tutor. Even with that he was not satisfied, but studied
alone far into the night. "When he went to schoole, when he was
very young," we are told, "he studied hard and sate up very late:
commonly till twelve or one at night. And his father ordered the
mayde to sitt up for him. And in those years he composed many
copies of verses, which might well become a riper age."* We can
imagine to ourselves the silence of the house, when all the
Puritan household had been long abed. We can picture the warm
quiet room where sits the little fair-haired boy poring over his
books by the light of flickering candles, while in the shadow a
stern-faced white-capped Puritan woman waits. She sits very
straight in her chair, her worn hands are folded, her eyes heavy
with sleep. Sometimes she nods. Then with a start she shakes
herself wide awake again, murmuring softly that it is no hour for
any Christian body to be out o' bed, wondering that her master
should allow so young a child to keep so long over his books.
Still she has her orders, so with a patient sigh she folds her
hands again and waits. Thus early did Milton begin to shape his
own course and to live a life apart from others.
*Aubrey.
At sixteen Milton went to Christ's College, Cambridge. And here
he earned for himself the name of the Lady of Christ's, both
because of his beautiful face and slender figure, and because he
stood haughtily aloof from amusements which seemed to him coarse
or bad. In going to Cambridge, Milton had meant to study for the
Church. But all through life he stood for liberty. "He thought
that man was made only for rebellion," said a later writer.* As
a child he had gone his own way, and as he grew older he found it
harder and harder to agree with all that the Church taught--"till
coming to some maturity of years, and perceiving what tyranny had
invaded in the Church, that he who would take orders must
subscribe slaves, and take an oath withal. . . . I thought it
better to prefer a blameless silence before the sacred office of
speaking, bought and begun with servitude and forswearing." Thus
was he, he says, "church-outed by the Prelates."* Milton could
not, with a free conscience, become a clergyman, so having taken
his degree he went home to his father, who now lived in the
country at Horton. He left Cambridge without regrets. No thrill
of pleasure seemed to have warmed his heart in after days when he
looked back upon the young years spent beside the Cam.
*The Reason of Church Government, book II.
Milton went home to his father's house without any settled plan
of life. He had not made up his mind what he was to be, he was
only sure that he could not be a clergyman. His father was well
off, but not wealthy. He had no great estates to manage, and he
must have wished his eldest son to do and be something in the
world, yet he did not urge it upon him. Milton himself, however,
was not quite at rest, as his sonnet On his being arrived to the
age of twenty-three shows:--
"How soon hath Time, the subtle thief of youth,
Stolen on his wing my three-and-twentieth year:
My hasting days fly on with full career,
But my late Spring no bud or blossom show'th.
Perhaps my semblance might deceive the truth,
That I to manhood am arriv'd so near,
And inward ripeness doth much less appear,
That some more timely happy spirits endu'th.
Yet be it less or more, or soon or slow,
It shall be still in strictest measure even
To that same lot, however mean, or high,
Toward which Time leads me; and the Will of Heaven;
All is, if I have grace to use it so,
As ever in my great Task-Master's eye."
Yet dissatisfied as he sometimes was, he was very sure of
himself, and for five years he let his wings grow, as he himself
said. But these years were not altogether lost, for if both day
and night Milton roamed the meadows about his home in seeming
idleness, he was drinking in all the beauty of earth and sky,
flower and field, storing his memory with sights and sounds that
were to be a treasure to him in after days. He studied hard,
too, ranging at will through Greek and Latin literature. "No
delay, no rest, no care or thought almost of anything holds me
aside until I reach the end I am making for, and round off, as it
were, some great period of my studies," he says to a friend. And
as the outcome of these five fallow years Milton has left us some
of his most beautiful poems. They have not the stately grandeur
of his later works, but they are natural and easy, and at times
full of a joyousness which we never find in him again. And
before we can admire his great poem which he wrote later, we may
love the beauty of L'Allegro, Il Penseroso, and Lycidas, which he
wrote now.
L'Allegro and Il Penseroso are two poems which picture two moods
in which the poet looks at life. They are two moods which come
to every one, the mirthful and the sad. L'Allegro pictures the
happy mood. Here the man "who has, in his heart, cause for
contentment" sings. And the poem fairly dances with delight of
being as it follows the day from dawn till evening shadows fall.
It begins by bidding "loathed Melancholy" begone "'Mongst horrid
shapes, and shrieks, and sights unholy," and by bidding come
"heart-easing Mirth."
"Haste, thee, nymph, and bring with thee
Jest and youthful Jollity,
Quips and cranks, and wanton wiles,
Nods and becks, and wretchéd smiles.
Such as hang on Hebe's cheek,
And love to live in dimple sleek;
Sport that wrinkled Care derides,
And Laughter holding both his sides.
Come, and trip it as ye go
On the light fantastic toe.
. . . . .
To hear the lark begin his flight,
And singing startle the dull night,
From his watch-tower in the skies,
Till the dappled dawn doth rise."
These are a few lines from the opening of the poem which you must
read for yourselves, for if I quoted all that is beautiful in it
I should quote the whole.
Il Penseroso pictures the thoughtful mood, or mood of gentle
Melancholy. Here Mirth is banished, "Hence fair deluding joys,
the brood of Folly, and hail divinest Melancholy." The poem
moves with more stately measure, "with even step, and musing
gait," from evening through the moonlit night till morn. It ends
with the poet's desire to live a peaceful studious life.
"But let my due feet never fail
To walk the studious cloisters pale;
And love the high embowéd roof,
With antique pillars massy proof,
And storied windows richly dight,
Casting a dim religious light.
There let the pealing organ blow
To the full-voic'd choir below,
In service high, and anthem clear,
As may with sweetness through mine ear,
Dissolve me into ecstacies,
And bring all Heaven before mine eyes."
In Lycidas Milton mourns the death of a friend who was drowned
while crossing the Irish Channel. He took the name from an
Italian poem, which told of the sad death of another Lycidas.
The verse moves with even more stately measure than Il Penseroso.
"Bitter constraint, and sad occasion dear,
Compels me to disturb your season due:
For Lycidas is dead, dead ere his prime,
Young Lycidas, and hath not left his peer:
Who would not sing for Lycidas? he knew
Himself to sing, and build the lofty rhyme.
. . . . . .
Fame is the spur that the clear spirit doth raise,
(That last infirmity of noble minds)
To scorn delights, and live laborious days;
But the fair guerdon when we hope to find,
And think to burst out into sudden blaze,
Comes the blind Fury with th' abhorréd shears,
And slits the thin-spun life."
It was during these early years spent at Horton, too, that Milton
wrote his masque of Comus. It is strange to find a Puritan poet
writing a masque, for Puritans looked darkly on all acting. It
is strange to find that, in spite of the Puritan dislike to
acting, the last and, perhaps, the best masque in our language
should be written by a Puritan, and that not ten years before all
the theaters in the land were closed by Puritan orders. But
although, in many ways, Milton was sternly Puritan, these were
only the better ways. He had no hatred of beauty, "God has
instilled into me a vehement love of the beautiful," he says.
The masque of Comus was written for a great entertainment given
by the Earl of Bridgewater, at Ludlow Castle, and three of his
children took part in it. In a darksome wood, so the story runs,
the enchanter, Comus, lived with his rabble rout, half brute,
half man. For to all who passed through the wood Comus offered a
glass from which, if any drank, --
"Their human countenance,
Th' express resemblance of the gods, is changed
Into some brutish form of wolf, or bear,
Or ounce, or tiger, hog, or bearded goat,
All other parts remaining as they were."
And they, forgetting their home and friends, henceforth live
riotously with Comus.
Through this wood a Lady and her two brothers pass, and on the
way the Lady is separated from her brothers and loses her way.
As she wanders about she is discovered by Comus who, disguising
himself as a shepherd, offers her shelter in his "low but loyal
cottage." The Lady, innocent and trusting, follows him. But
instead of leading her to a cottage he leads her to his palace.
There the Lady is placed in an enchanted chair from which she
cannot rise, and Comus tempts her to drink from his magic glass.
The Lady refuses, and with his magic wand Comus turns her to
seeming stone.
Meanwhile the brothers have met a Guardian Spirit, also disguised
as a shepherd, and he warns them of their sister's danger.
Guided by him they set out to find her. Reaching the palace,
they rush in, sword in hand. They dash the magic glass to the
ground and break it in pieces and put Comus and his rabble to
flight. But though the Lady is thus saved she remains motionless
and stony in her chair.
"What, have ye let the false enchanter scape?" the Guardian
Spirit cries. "Oh, ye mistook, ye should have snatched his wand
and bound him fast." Without his rod reversed and backward-
muttered incantation they cannot free the Lady. Yet there is
another means. Sabrina, the nymph of the Severn, may save her.
So the Spirit calls upon her for aid.
"Sabrina fair,
Listen where thou art sitting
Under the glassy, cool, translucent wave,
In twisted braids of lilies knitting
The loose train of thy amber-dropping hair,
Listen for dear honour's sake,
Goddess of the silver lake,
Listen and save."
Sabrina comes, and sprinkling water on the Lady, breaks the
charm.
"Brightest Lady, look on me;
Thus I sprinkle on thy breast
Drops that from my fountain pure
I have kept of precious cure,
Thrice upon thy fingers' tip,
Thrice upon thy rubied lip;
Next this marble venomed seat,
Smeared with gums of glutinous heat,
I touch with chaste palms moist and cold:
Now the spell hath lost its hold."
The Lady is free and, greatly rejoicing, the Guardian Spirit
leads her, with her brothers, safe to their father's home.
All these poems of which I have told you, Milton wrote during the
quiet years spent at Horton. But at length these days came to an
end. He began to feel his life in the country cramped and
narrow. He longed to go out into the great wide world and see
something of all the beauties and wonder of it. Italy, which had
called so many of our poets, called him. Once more his kindly
father let him do as he would. He gave him money, provided him
with a servant, and sent him forth on his travels. For more than
a year Milton wandered, chiefly among the sunny cities of Italy.
He meant to stray still further to Sicily and Greece, but news
from home called him back, "The sad news of Civil War." "I
thought it base," he said, "that while my fellow-countrymen were
fighting at home for liberty, I should be traveling abroad at
ease."
When Milton returned home he did not go back to Horton, but set
up house in London. Here he began to teach his two nephews, his
sister's children, who were boys of nine and ten. Their father
had died, their mother married again, and Milton not only taught
the boys, but took them to live with him. He found pleasure, it
would seem, in teaching, for soon his little class grew, and he
began to teach other boys, the sons of friends.
Milton was a good master, but a severe one. The boys were kept
long hours at their lessons, and we are told that in a year's
time they could read a Latin author at sight, and within three
years they went through the best Latin and Greek poets. But "as
he was severe on one hand, so he was most familiar and free in
his conversation to those to whom most sour in his way of
education." He himself showed the example of "hard study and
spare diet,"** for besides teaching the boys he worked and wrote
steadily, study being ever the "grand affair of his life."**
Only now and again he went to see "young sparks" of his
acquaintance, "and now and then to keep a gawdy-day."** It is
scarce to be imagined that a gawdy-day in which John Milton took
part could have been very riotous.
*Aubrey.
**Philips.
Then after Milton had been leading this severe quiet life for
about four years, a strange thing happened. One day he set off
on a journey. He told no one why he went. Every one thought it
was but a pleasure jaunt. He was away about a month, then "home
he returns a married man that went out a bachelor."* We can
imagine how surprised the little boys would be to find that their
grave teacher of thirty-four had brought home a wife, a wife,
too, who was little more than a girl a few years older than
themselves. And as it was a surprise to them it is still a
surprise to all who read and write about Milton's life to this
day. With the new wife came several of her friends, and so the
quiet house was made gay with feasting and merriment for a few
days; for strange to say, Milton, the stern Puritan, had married
a Royalist lady, the daughter of a cavalier. After these few
merry days the gay friends left, and the young bride remained
behind with her grave and learned husband, in her new quiet home.
But to poor little Mary Milton, used to a great house and much
merry coming and going, the life she now led seemed dull beyond
bearing. She was not clever; indeed, she was rather stupid, so
after having led a "philosophical life" for about a month, she
begged to be allowed to go back to her mother.
*Philips.
Milton let he go on the understanding that she should return to
him in a month or two. But the time appointed came and went
without any sign of a returning wife. Milton wrote to her and
got no answer. Several times he wrote, and still no answer.
Then he sent a messenger. But the messenger returned without an
answer, or at least without a pleasing one. He had indeed been
"dismissed with some sort of contempt."
It would seem the cavalier family regretted having given a
daughter in marriage to the Puritan poet. The poet, on his side,
now resolved to cast out forever from his heart and home his
truant wife. He set himself harder than before to the task of
writing and teaching. He hid his aching heart and hurt pride as
best he might beneath a calm and stern bearing. But life had
changed for him. Up to this time all had gone as he wished.
Ever since, when a boy of twelve, he had sat till midnight over
his books with a patient waiting-maid beside him, those around
had smoothed his path in life for him. His will had been law
until a girl of seventeen defied him.
Time went on, the King's cause was all but hopeless. Many a
cavalier had lost all in his defense, among them those of Mary
Milton's family. Driven from their home, knowing hardly where to
turn for shelter, they bethought them of Mary's slighted husband.
He was on the winning side, and a man of growing importance.
Beneath his roof Mary at least would be safe.
The poor little runaway wife, we may believe, was afraid to face
her angry husband. But helped both by his friends and her own a
meeting was arranged. Milton had a friend to whose house he
often went, and in this house his wife was hid one day when the
poet came to pay a visit. While Milton waited for his friend he
was surprised, for when the door opened there came from the
adjoining room, not his friend, but "one whom he thought to have
never seen more." Mary his wife came to him, and sinking upon
her knees before him begged to be forgiven. Long after, in his
great poem, Milton seems to describe the scene when he makes Adam
cry out to Eve after the Fall, "Out of my sight, thou serpent!
That name best befits thee."
"But Eve,
Not so repulsed, with tears that ceased not flowing,
And tresses all disordered, at his feet
Fell humble, and, embracing them, besought
His peace; and thus proceeded in her plaint:
'Forsake me not thus, Adam! Witness, Heaven,
What love sincere, and reverence in my heart
I bear thee, and unweeting have offended,
Unhappily deceived! Thy suppliant
I beg, and clasp thy knees. Bereave me not,
Whereon I live, thy gentle looks, thy aid,
Thy counsel in this uttermost distress,
My only strength and stay. Forlorn of thee,
Whither shall I betake me? where subsist?
While yet we live, scarce one short hour perhaps,
Between us two let there be peace.'
. . . . . . .
She ended weeping; and her lowly plight,
Immovable till peace obtained from fault
Acknowledged and deplored, in Adam wrought
Commiseration. Soon his heart relented
Towards her, his life so late and sole delight,
Now at his feet submissive in distress,
Creature so fair his reconcilement seeking,
His counsel, whom she had displeased, his aid;
As one disarmed, his anger all he lost,
And thus with peaceful words upraised her soon."
Milton thus took back to his home his wandering wife and not her
only, but also her father, mother, and homeless brothers and
sisters. So although he had moved to a larger house, it was now
full to overflowing, for besides all this Royalist family he had
living with him his pupils and his own old father.
Chapter LVIII MILTON--DARKNESS AND DEATH
AND now for twenty years the pen of Milton was used, not for
poetry, but for prose. The poet became a politician. Victory
was still uncertain, and Milton poured out book after book in
support of the Puritan cause. These books are full of wrath and
scorn and all the bitter passion of the time. They have hardly a
place in true literature, so we may pass them over glad that
Milton found it possible to spend his bitterness in prose and
leave his poetry what it is.
One only of his prose works is still remembered and still read
for its splendid English. That is Areopagitica, a passionate
appeal for a free press. Milton desired that a man should have
not only freedom of thought, but freedom to write down and print
and publish these thoughts. But the rulers of England, ever
since printing had been introduced, had thought otherwise, and by
law no book could be printed until it had been licensed, and no
man might set up a printing press without permission from
Government. To Milton this was tyranny. "As good almost kill a
man as kill a good book," he said, and again "Give me the liberty
to know, to utter, and to argue freely according to my conscience
above all liberties." He held the licensing law in contempt, and
to show his contempt he published Areopagitica without a license
and without giving the printer's or bookseller's name. It was
not the first time Milton had done this, and his enemies tried to
use it against him to bring him into trouble. But he had become
by this time too important a man, and nothing came of it.
Time went on, the bitter struggle between King and people came to
an end. The people triumphed, and the King laid his head upon
the block. Britain was without ruler other than Parliament. It
was then, one March day in 1649, that a few grave-faced, somber-
clad men knocked at the door of Milton's house. We can imagine
them tramping into the poet's low-roofed study, their heavy shoes
resounding on the bare floor, their sad faces shaded with their
tall black hats. And there, in sing-song voices, they tell the
astonished man that they come from Parliament to ask him to be
Secretary for Foreign Tongues.
Milton was astonished, but he accepted the post. And now his
life became a very busy one. It had been decided that all
letters to foreign powers should be written in Latin, but many
Governments wrote to England in their own languages. Milton had
to translate these letters, answer them in Latin, and also write
little books or pamphlets in answer to those which were written
against the Government.
It was while he was busy with this, while he was pouring out
bitter abuse upon his enemies or upon the enemies of his party,
that his great misfortune fell upon him. He became blind. He
had had many warnings. He had been told to be careful of his
eyes, for the sight of one had long been gone. But in spite of
all warnings he still worked on, and at length became quite
blind.
His enemies jeered at him, and said it was a judgment upon him
for his wicked writing. But never for a moment did Milton's
spirit quail. He had always been sure of himself, sure of his
mission in life, sufficient for himself. And now that the horror
of darkness shut him off from others, shut him still more into
himself, his heart did not fail him. Blind at forty-three, he
wrote:--
"When I consider how my light is spent,
Ere half my days, in this dark world and wide,
And that one talent which is death to hide,
Lodg'd with me useless, though my soul more bent
To serve therewith my Maker, and present
My true account, lest He, returning, chide;
'Doth God exact day labour, light denied?'
I fondly ask: but Patience, to prevent
That murmur, soon replies, 'God doth not need
Either man's work, or His own gifts; who best
Bear His mild yoke, they serve Him best: His state
Is kingly; thousands at His bidding speed,
And post o'er land and ocean without rest;
They also serve who only stand and wait.'"
Milton meant to take up this new burden patiently, but at forty-
three, with all the vigor of life still stirring in him, he could
not meekly fold his hands to stand and wait. Indeed, his
greatest work was still to come. Blind though he was, he did not
give up his post of Latin Secretary. He still remained Chief
Secretary, and others worked under him, among them Andrew
Marvell, the poet. He still gave all his brain and learning to
the service of his country, while others supplied his lacking
eyesight. But now in the same year Fate dealt him another blow.
His wife died. Perhaps there had never been any great love or
understanding between these two, for Milton's understanding of
all women was unhappy. But now, when he had most need of a
woman's kindly help and sympathy, she went from him leaving to
his blind care three motherless girls, the eldest of whom was
only six years old.
We know little of Milton's home life during the next years. But
it cannot have been a happy one. His children ran wild. He
tried to teach them in some sort. He was dependent now on others
to read to him, and he made his daughters take their share of
this. He succeeded in teaching them to read in several
languages, but they understood not a word of what they read, so
it was no wonder that they looked upon it as a wearisome task.
They grew up with neither love for nor understanding of their
stern blind father. To them he was not the great poet whose name
should be one of the triumphs of English Literature. He was
merely a severe father and hard taskmaster.
Four years after his first wife died Milton married again. This
lady he never saw, but she was gentle and kind, and he loved her.
For fifteen months she wrought peace and order in his home, then
she too died, leaving her husband more lonely than before. He
mourned her loss in poetic words. He dreamed she came to him one
night:--
"Came vested all in white, pure as her mind;
Her face was veil'd; yet to my fancied sight
Love, sweetness, goodness, in her person shin'd
So clear, as in no face with more delight.
But O, as to embrace me she inclin'd,
I wak'd; she fled; and day brought back my night."
With this sonnet (for those lines are part of the last sonnet
Milton ever wrote) it would seem as if a new period began with
Milton, his second period of poetry writing. Who knows but that
it was the sharp sorrow of his loss which sent him back to
poetry. For throughout Milton's life we can see that it was
always something outside himself which made him write poetry. He
did not sing like the birds because he must, but because he was
asked to sing by some person, or made to sing by some
circumstance.
However that may be, it was now that Milton began his greatest
work, Paradise Lost. Twenty years before the thought had come to
him that he would write a grand epic. We have scarcely spoken of
an epic since that first of all our epics, the Story of Beowulf.
And although others had written epics, Milton is to be remembered
as the writer of the great English epic. At first he thought of
taking Arthur for his hero, but as more and more he saw what a
mass of fable had gathered round Arthur, as more and more he saw
how plain a hero Arthur seemed, stripped of that fable, his mind
turned from the subject. And when, at last, after twenty years
of almost unbroken silence as a poet, he once more let his organ
voice be heard, it was not a man he spoke of, but Man. He told
the story which Caedmon a thousand years before had told of the
war in heaven, of the temptation and fall of man, and of how Adam
and Eve were driven out of the happy garden.
"Of man's first disobedience, and the fruit
Of that forbidden tree, whose mortal taste
Brought death into the world, and all our woe,
With loss of Eden, till one greater Man
Restore us, and regain the blissful seat,
Sing, Heavenly Muse."
You will remember, or if you look back to Chapter XIII you can
read again about the old poet Caedmon and what he wrote. It was
in 1655 that Junius published the so-called Caedmon Manuscript,
and Milton, who was so great a student, no doubt heard of it and
found some one to read it to him. And perhaps these poems helped
to decide him in his choice, although many years before he had
thought of writing on the subject.
Perhaps when you are older it may interest you to read the poems
of Milton and the poems of Caedmon together. Then you will see
how far ahead of the old poet Milton is in smooth beauty of
verse, how far behind him sometimes in tender knowledge of man
and woman. But I do not think you can hope to read Paradise Lost
with true pleasure yet a while. It is a long poem in blank
verse, much of it will seem dull to you, and you will find it
hard to be interested in Adam and Eve. For Milton set himself a
task of enormous difficulty when he tried to interest common men
and women in people who were without sin, who knew not good nor
evil. Yet if conceit, if self-assurance, if the want of the
larger charity which helps us to understand another's faults, are
sins, then Adam sinned long before he left Milton's Paradise. In
fact, Adam is often a bore, and at times he proves himself no
gentleman in the highest and best meaning of the word.
But in spite of Adam, in spite of everything that can be said
against it, Paradise Lost remains a splendid poem. Never,
perhaps, has the English language been used more nobly, never has
blank verse taken on such stately measure. Milton does not make
pictures for us, like some poets, like Spenser, for instance; he
sings to us. He sings to us, not like the gay minstrel with his
lute, but in stately measured tones, which remind us most of
solemn organ chords. His voice comes to us, too, out of a poet's
country through which, if we would find our way, we must put our
hand in his and let him guide us while he sings. And only when
we come to love "the best words in the best order" can we truly
enjoy Milton's Paradise Lost.
Milton fails at times to interest us in Adam, but he does
interest us in the Bad Angel Satan, and it has been said over and
over again that Satan is his true hero. And with such a man as
Milton this was hardly to be wondered at. All his life had been
a cry for liberty--liberty even when it bordered on rebellion.
And so he could not fail to make his arch rebel grand, and even
in his last degradation we somehow pity him, while feeling that
he is almost too high for pity. Listen to Satan's cry of sorrow
and defiance when he finds himself cast out from Heaven:--
"'Is this the region, this the soil, the clime,'
Said then the lost Archangel, 'this the seat
That we must change for heaven?--this mournful gloom
For that celestial light? Be it so, since he
Who now is sovran can dispose and bid
What shall be right; farthest from his is best,
Whom reason hath equalled, force hath made supreme
Above his equals. Farewell, happy fields,
Where joy for ever dwells! Hail, horrors! hail,
Infernal world! and thou, profoundest Hell
Receive thy new possessor--one who brings
A mind not to be changed by place or time,
The mind is its own place, and in itself
Can make a Heaven of Hell, a Hell of Heaven.
What matter where, if I be still the same,
And what I should be, all but less than he
Whom thunder hath made greater? Here at least
We shall be free the Almighty hath not built
Here for his envy, will not drive us hence;
Here we may reign secure; and, in my choice,
To reign is worth ambition, though in Hell:
Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven.'"
Then in contrast to this outburst of regal defiance, read the
last beautiful lines of the poem and see in what softened mood of
submission Milton pictures our first parents as they leave the
Happy Garden:--
"In either hand the hastening Angel caught
Our lingering parents, and to the eastern gate
Led them direct, and down the cliff as fast
To the subjected plain--then disappeared.
They, looking back, all the eastern side beheld
Of Paradise, so late their happy seat,
Waved over by that flaming brand; the gate
With dreadful faces thronged and fiery arms.
Some natural tears they dropped, but wiped them soon;
The world was all before them, where to choose
Their place of rest, and Providence their guide.
They, hand in hand, with wandering steps and slow,
Through Eden took their solitary way."
Milton worked slowly at this grand poem. Being blind he had now
to depend on others to write out what poetry he made in his own
mind, so it was written "in a parcel of ten, twenty, or thirty
verses at a time by whatever hand came next." We are told that
when he was dictating sometimes he sat leaning back sideways in
an easy-chair, with his leg flung over the arm. Sometimes he
dictated from his bed, and if in the middle of the night lines
came to him, whatever time it was he would ring for one of his
daughters to write them down for him, lest the thought should be
lost ere morning.
We are told, too, that he wrote very little in summer. For he
said himself that it was in winter and spring that his poetic
fancy seemed to come best to him, and that what he wrote at other
times did not please him. "So that in all the years he was about
this poem, he may be said to have spent but half his time
therein."*
*Philips.
But now, while Milton's mind was full of splendid images, while
in spite of the discomfort and lonliness of his misruled home, he
was adding line to line of splendid sounding English, great
changes came over the land.
Oliver Cromwell died. To him succeeded his son Richard. But his
weak hands could not hold the scepter. He could not bind
together a rebel people as great Oliver had done. In a few
months he gave up the task, and little more than a year later the
people who had wept at the death of the great Protector, were
madly rejoicing at the return of a despot.
With a Stuart king upon the throne, there was no safety for the
rebel poet who had used all the power of his wit and learning
against the Royal cause. Pity for his blindness might not save
him. So listening to the warnings of his friends, he fled into
hiding somewhere in the city of London, "a place of retirement
and abscondence."
But after a time the danger passed, and Milton crept forth from
his hiding-place. It was perhaps pity for his blind
helplessness, perhaps contempt for his powerlessness, that saved
him, who can tell? His books were burned by the common hangman,
and he found himself in prison for a short time, but he was soon
released. While others were dying for their cause, the blind
poet whose trumpet call had been Liberty! Liberty! was
contemptuously allowed to live.
Now indeed had Milton fallen on dark and evil days. He had
escaped with his life and was free. But all that he had worked
for during the past twenty years he saw shattered as at one blow.
He saw his friends suffering imprisonment and death, himself
forsaken and beggared. He found no sympathy at home. His
daughters, who had not loved their father in his days of wealth
and ease, loved him still less in poverty. They sold his books,
cheated him with the housekeeping money, and in every way added
to his unhappiness. At length, as a way out of the misery and
confusion of his home, Milton married for the third time.
The new wife was a placid, kindly woman. She managed the house,
managed too the wild, unruly girls as no one had managed them
before. She saw the folly of keeping them, wholly untamed and
half-educated as they were, at home, and persuaded her husband to
let them learn something by which they might earn a living. So
they went out into the world "to learn some curious and ingenious
sorts of manufacture, that are proper for women to learn,
particularly embroideries in gold and silver."
Thus for the last few years of his life Milton was surrounded by
peace and content such as he had never before known. All through
life he had never had any one to love him deeply except his
father and his mother, whose love for him was perhaps not all
wise. Those who had loved him in part had feared him too, and
the fear outdid the love. But now in the evening of his days, if
no perfect love came to him, he found at least kindly
understanding. His wife admired him and cared for him. She had
a fair face and pretty voice, and it is pleasant to picture the
gray-haired poet sitting at his organ playing while his wife
sings. He cannot see the sun gleam and play in her golden hair,
or the quick color come and go in her fair face, but at least he
can take joy in the sound of her sweet fresh voice.
It was soon after this third marriage that Paradise Lost was
finished and published. And even in those wild Restoration days,
when laughter and pleasure alone were sought, men acknowledged
the beauty and grandeur of this grave poem. "This man cuts us
all out, and the ancients too," said Dryden, another and younger
poet.
People now came to visit the author of Paradise Lost, as before
they had come to visit great Cromwell's secretary. We have a
pleasant picture of him sitting in his garden at the door of his
house on sunny days to enjoy the fresh air, for of the many
houses in which Milton lived not one was without a garden.
There, even when the sun did not shine, wrapt in a great coat of
coarse gray cloth, he received his visitors. Or when the weather
was colder he sat in an upstairs room hung with rusty green. He
wore no sword, as it was the fashion in those days to do, and his
clothes were black. His long, light gray hair fell in waves
round his pale but not colorless face, and the sad gray eyes with
which he seemed to look upon his visitors were still clear and
beautiful.
Life had now come for Milton to a peaceful evening time, but his
work was not yet finished. He had two great poems still to
write.
One was Paradise Regained. In this he shows how man's lost
happiness was found again in Christ. Here is a second
temptation, the temptation in the wilderness, but this time Satan
is defeated, Christ is victorious.
The second poem was Samson Agonistes, which tells the tragic
story of Samson in his blindness. And no one reading it can fail
to see that it is the story too of Milton in his blindness. It
is Milton himself who speaks when he makes Samson exclaim:--
"O loss of sight, of thee I most complain!
Blind among enemies: O worse than chains,
Dungeon, or beggary, or decrepit age!
Light, the prime work of God, to me is extinct,
And all her various objects of delight
Annulled, which might in part my grief have eased.
Inferior to the vilest now become
Of man or worm: the vilest here excel me,
They creep, yet see; I, dark in light, exposed
To daily fraud, contempt, abuse, and wrong,
Within doors, or without, still as a fool,
In power of others, never in my own;--
O dark, dark, dark, amid the blaze of noon,
Irrecoverably dark, total eclipse
Without all hope of day!"
This was Milton's last poem. He lived still four years longer
and still wrote. But his singing days were over, and what he now
wrote was in prose. His life's work was done, and one dark
November evening in 1674 he peacefully died.
"Thy soul was like a Star, and dwelt apart:
Thou hadst a voice whose sound was like the sea:
Pure as the naked heavens, majestic, free,
So didst thou travel on life's common way."*
*Wordsworth.
Chapter LIX BUNYAN--"THE PILGRIM'S PROGRESS"
THE second great Puritan writer of England was John Bunyan. He
was born in 1628, more than twenty years after Milton. His
father was a tinker. A tinker! The word makes us think of
ragged, weather-worn men and women who wander about the
countryside. They carry bundles of old umbrellas, and sometimes
a battered kettle or two. They live, who knows how? they sleep,
who knows where? Sometimes in our walks we come across a charred
round patch upon the grass in some quiet nook by the roadside,
and we know the tinkers have been there, and can imagine all
sorts of stories about them. Or sometimes, better still, we find
them really there by the roadside boiling a mysterious three-
legged black kettle over a fire of sticks.
But John Bunyan's father was not this kind of tinker. He did not
wander about the countryside, but lived at the little village of
Elstow, about a mile from the town of Bedford, as his father had
before him. He was a poor and honest workman who mended his
neighbors' kettles and pans, and did his best to keep his family
in decent comfort.
One thing which shows this is that little John was sent to
school. In those days learning, even learning to read and write,
was not the just due of every one. It was only for the well-to-
do. "But yet," says Bunyan himself, "notwithstanding the
meanness and inconsiderableness of my parents, it pleased God to
put it into their hearts to put me to school, to learn me both to
read and write."
Bunyan was born when the struggle between King and people was
beginning to be felt, and was a great boy of fourteen when at
last the armies of King and Parliament met on the battlefield of
Edgehill. To many this struggle was a struggle for freedom in
religion. From end to end of our island the question of religion
was the burning question of the day. Religion had wrought itself
into the lives of people. In those days of few books the Bible
was the one book which might be found in almost every house. The
people carried it in their hands, and its words were ever on
their lips. But the religion which came to be the religion of
more than half the people of England was a stern one. They
forgot the Testament of Love, they remembered only the Testament
of Wrath. They made the narrow way narrower, and they believed
that any who strayed from it would be punished terribly and
eternally. It was into this stern world that little John Bunyan
was born, and just as a stern religious struggle was going on in
England so a stern religious struggle went on within his little
heart. He heard people round him talk of sins and death, of a
dreadful day of judgment, of wrath to come. These things laid
hold of his childish mind and he began to believe that in the
sight of God he must be a desperate sinner. Dreadful dreams came
to him at night. He dreamed that the Evil One was trying to
carry him off to a darksome place there to be "bound down with
the chains and bonds of darkness, unto the judgment of the great
day." Such dreams made night terrible to him.
Bunyan tells us that he swore and told lies and that he was the
ringleader in all the wickedness of the village. But perhaps he
was not so bad as he would have us believe, for he was always
very severe in his judgments of himself. Perhaps he was not
worse than many other boys who did not feel that they had sinned
beyond all forgiveness. And in spite of his awful thoughts and
terrifying dreams Bunyan still went on being a naughty boy; he
still told lies and swore.
At length he left school and became a tinker like his father.
But all England was being drawn into war, and so Bunyan, when
about seventeen, became a soldier.
Strange to say we do not know upon which side he fought. Some
people think that because his father belonged to the Church of
England that he must have fought on the King's side. But that is
nothing to go by, for many people belonged to that Church for old
custom's sake who had no opinions one way or another, and who
took no side until forced by the war to do so. It seems much
more likely that Bunyan, so Puritan in all his ways of thought,
should fight for the Puritan side. But we do not know. He was
not long a soldier, we do not know quite how long, it was perhaps
only a few months. But during these few months his life was
saved by, what seemed to him afterwards to have been a miracle.
"When I was a soldier," he says, "I, with others, were drawn out
to go to such a place to besiege it. But when I was just ready
to go one of the company desired to go in my room. To which,
when I had consented, he took my place. And coming to the siege,
as he stood sentinel, he was shot in the head with a musket
bullet, and died.
"Here, as I said, were judgments and mercy, but neither of them
did awaken my soul to righteousness. Wherefore I sinned still,
and grew more and more rebellious against God."
So whether Bunyan served in the Royal army, where he might have
heard oaths, or in the Parliamentarian, where he might have heard
godly songs and prayers, he still went on his way as before.
Some time after Bunyan left the army, and while he was still very
young, he married. Both he and his wife were, he says, "as poor
as poor might be, not having so much household stuff as a dish or
a spoon betwixt us both. Yet this she had for her part, The
Plain Man's Pathway to Heaven and The Practice of Piety, which
her father had left her when he died."
These two books Bunyan read with his wife, picking up again the
art of reading, which he had been taught at school, and which he
had since almost forgotten. He began now to go a great deal to
church, and one of his chief pleasures was helping to ring the
bells. To him the services were a joy. He loved the singing,
the altar with its candles, the rich robes, the white surplices,
and everything that made the service beautiful. Yet the terrible
struggle between good and evil in his soul went on. He seemed to
hear voices in the air, good voices and bad voices, voices that
accused him, voices that tempted. He was a most miserable man,
and seemed to himself to be one of the most wicked, and yet
perhaps the worst thing he could accuse himself of doing was
playing games on Sunday, and pleasing himself by bell-ringing.
He gave up his bell-ringing because it was a temptation to
vanity. "Yet my mind hankered, therefore I would go to the
steeple house and look on, though I durst not ring." One by one
he gave up all the things he loved, things that even if we think
them wrong do not seem to us to merit everlasting punishment.
But at last the long struggle ended and his tortured mind found
rest in the love of Christ.
Bunyan himself tells us the story of this long fight in a book
called Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners. As we read we
cannot help but see that Bunyan was never a very wicked man, but
merely a man with a very tender conscience. Things which seemed
to other men trifles were to him deadly sins; and although he was
so stern to himself, to others he shows a fatherly tenderness
which makes us feel that this rough tinker was no narrow Puritan,
but a broad-minded, large-hearted Christian. And now that Bunyan
had found peace he became a Baptist, and joined the church of a
man whom he calls "the holy Mr. Gifford." Gifford had been an
officer in the Royal army. He had been wild and drunken, but
repenting of his evil ways had become a preacher. Now, until he
died some years later, he was Bunyan's fast friend.
In the same year as Bunyan lost his friend his wife too died, and
he was left alone with four children, two of them little girls,
one of whom was blind. She was, because of that, all the more
dear to him. "She lay nearer to my heart than all beside," he
says.
And now Bunyan's friends found out his great gift of speech.
They begged him to preach, but he was so humble and modest that
at first he refused. At length, however, he was over-persuaded.
He began his career as a minister and soon became famous. People
came from long distances to hear him, and he preached not only in
Elstow and Bedford but in all the country round. He preached,
not only in churches, but in barns and in fields, by the roadside
or in the market-place, anywhere, in fact, where he could gather
an audience.
It was while Cromwell ruled that Bunyan began this ministry. But
in spite of all the battles that had been fought for religious
freedom, there was as yet no real religious freedom in England.
Each part, as it became powerful, tried to tyrannize over every
other party, and no one was allowed to preach without a license.
The Presbyterians were now in power; Bunyan was a Baptist, and
some of the Presbyterians would gladly have silenced him. Yet
during Cromwell's lifetime he went his way in peace. Then the
Restoration came. A few months later Bunyan was arrested for
preaching without a license. Those who now ruled "were angry
with the tinker because he strove to mend souls as well as
kettles and pans."* Before he was taken prisoner Bunyan was
warned of his danger, and if he had "been minded to have played
the coward" he might have escaped. But he would not try to save
himself. "If I should now run to make an escape," he said, "it
will be a very ill savour in the country. For what will my weak
and newly-converted brethren think of it but that I was not so
strong in deed as I was in word."
*Henry Deane.
So Bunyan was taken prisoner. Even then he might have been at
once set free would he have promised not to preach. But to all
persuasions he replied, "I durst not leave off that work which
God has called me to."
Thus Bunyan's long imprisonment of twelve years began. He had
married again by this time, and the parting with his wife and
children was hard for him, and harder still for the young wife
left behind "all smayed at the news." But although she was
dismayed she was brave of heart, and she at once set about
eagerly doing all she could to free her husband. She went to
London, she ventured into the House of Lords, and there pleaded
for him. Touched by her earnestness and her helplessness the
Lords treated her kindly. But they told her they could do
nothing for her and that she must plead her case before the
ordinary judges.
So back to Bedford she went, and with beating heart and trembling
limbs sought out the judges. Again she was kindly received, but
again her petition was of no avail. The law was the law. Bunyan
had broken the law and must suffer. He would not promise to
cease from preaching, she would as little promise for him. "My
lord," she said, "he dares not leave off preaching as long as he
can speak."
So it was all useless labor, neither side could or would give way
one inch. Bursting into tears the poor young wife turned away.
But she wept "not so much because they were so hard-hearted
against me and my husband, but to think what a sad account such
poor creatures will have to give at the coming of the Lord, when
they shall then answer for all things whatsoever they have done
in the body, whether it be good, or whether it be bad."
Seeing there was no help for it, Bunyan set himself bravely to
endure his imprisonment. And, in truth, this was not very
severe. Strangely enough he was allowed to preach to his fellow-
prisoners, he was even at one time allowed to go to church. But
the great thing for us is that he wrote books. Already, before
his imprisonment, he had written several books, and now he wrote
that for which he is most famous, the Pilgrim's Progress.
It is a book so well known and so well loved that I think I need
say little about it. In the form of a dream Bunyan tells, as you
know, the story of Christian who set out on his long and
difficult pilgrimage from the City of Destruction to the City of
the Blest. He tells of all Christian's trials and adventures on
the way, of how he encounters giants and lion, of how he fights
with a great demon, and of how at length he arrives at his
journey's end in safety. A great writer has said, "There is no
book in our literature on which we would so readily stake the
fame of the old unpolluted English language, no book which shows
so well how rich that language is in its own proper wealth, and
how little it has been improved by all that it has borrowed."*
*Macaulay.
For the power of imagination this writer places Bunyan by the
side of Milton. Although there were many clever men in England
towards the end of the seventeenth century, there were only two
minds which had great powers of imagination. "One of those minds
produced the Paradise Lost, the other the Pilgrim's Progress."
That is very great praise, and yet although Milton and Bunyan are
thus placed side by side no two writers are more widely apart.
Milton's writing is full of the proofs of his leaning, his
English is fine and stately, but it is full of words made from
Latin words. As an early writer on him said "Milton's language
is English, but it is Milton's English."*
*Richardson.
On the other hand, Bunyan's writing is most simple. He uses
strong, plain, purely English words. There is hardly one word in
all his writing which a man who knows his Bible cannot easily
understand. And it was from the Bible that Bunyan gathered
nearly all his learning. He knew it from end to end, and the
poetry and grandeur of its language filled his soul. But he read
other books, too, among them, we feel sure, the Faery Queen.
Some day you may like to compare the adventures of the Red Cross
Knight with the adventures of Christian. And perhaps in all the
Faery Queen you will find nothing so real and exciting as
Christian's fight with Apollyon. Apollyon comes from a Greek
word meaning the destroyer. This is how Bunyan tells of the
fight:--
"But now in this Valley of Humiliation poor Christian was hard
put to it. For he had gone but a little way before he espied a
Foul Fiend coming over the field to meet him. His name is
Apollyon. Then did Christian begin to be afraid and to cast in
his mind whether to go back or to stand his ground. But he
considered again, that he had no armour for his back, and
therefore thought that to turn the back to him might give him
greater advantage, with ease, to pierce him with his darts.
Therefore he resolved to venture and stand his ground. For, he
thought, had I no more in mine eye than the saving of my life,
'twould be the best way to stand.
"So he went on, and Apollyon met him. Now the Monster was
hideous to behold. He was clothed with scales like a fish, and
they are his pride. He had wings like a dragon, feet like a
bear, and out of his belly came fire and smoke. And his mouth
was as the mouth of a lion. When he came up to Christian he
beheld him with a disdainful countenance, and thus began to
question him.
"APOLLYON. When came you? and whither are you bound?
"CHRISTIAN. I am come from the City of Destruction, which is the
place of all evil, and am going to the City of Zion."
After this Apollyon argued with Christian, trying to persuade him
to give up his pilgrimage and return to his evil ways. But
Christian would listen to nothing that Apollyon could say.
"Then Apollyon straddled quite over the whole breadth of the Way
and said, 'I am void of fear in this matter. Prepare thyself to
die, for I swear by my Infernal Den that thou shalt go no
further. Here will I spill thy soul!'
"And with that he threw a flaming dart at his heart. But
Christian had a shield in his hand, with which he caught it, and
so prevented the danger of that.
"Then did Christian draw, for he saw it was time to bestir him,
and Apollyon as fast made at him, throwing darts as thick as
hail, by the which, notwithstanding all that Christian could do
to avoid it, Apollyon wounded him in his head, his hand, and
foot. This made Christian give a little back. Apollyon
therefore followed his work amain, and Christian again took
courage and resisted as manfully as he could. This sore combat
lasted for above half a day, even till Christian was almost quite
spent. For you must know that Christian, by reason of his
wounds, must needs grow weaker and weaker.
"Then Apollyon espying his opportunity began to gather up close
to Christian, and wrestling with him gave him a dreadful fall.
And with that Christian's sword flew out of his hand. Then said
Apollyon, 'I am sure of thee now.' And with that he had almost
pressed him to death so that Christian began to despair of life.
But, as God would have it, while Apollyon was fetching his last
blow, thereby to make a full end of this good man, Christian
nimbly reached out his hand for his sword and caught it, saying,
'Rejoice not against me, O mine Enemy! when I fall I shall
arise!' and with that gave him a deadly thrust which made him
give back, as one that had received his mortal wound.
"Christian perceiving that made at him again, saying 'Nay in all
these things we are more than conquerors through Him that loved
us.' And with that Apollyon spread forth his dragon's wings and
sped him away, and Christian saw him no more."
Bunyan wrote a second part or sequel to the Pilgrim's Progress,
in which he tells of the adventures of Christian's wife and
children on their way to Zion. But the story does not interest
us as the story of Christian does. Because we love Christian we
are glad to know that his wife and children escaped destruction,
but except that they belong to him we do not really care about
them.
Bunyan wrote several other books. The best known are The Holy
War and Grace Abounding. The Holy War might be called a Paradise
Lost and Regained in homely prose. It tells much the same story,
the story of the struggle between Good and Evil for the
possession of man's soul.
In Grace Abounding Bunyan tells of his own struggle with evil,
and it is from that book that we learn much of what we know of
his life.
He also wrote the Life and Death of Mr. Badman. Instead of
telling how a good man struggles with evil and at last wins rest,
it tells of how a bad man yields always to evil and comes at last
to a sad end. It is not a pretty story, and is one, I think,
which you will not care to read.
Bunyan, too, wrote a good deal of rime, but for the most part it
can hardly be called poetry. It is for his prose that we
remember him. Yet who would willingly part with the song of the
shepherd-boy in the second part of the Pilgrim's Progress:--
"He that is down needs fear no fall;
He that is low, no pride:
He that is humble, ever shall
Have God to be his guide.
I am content with what I have,
Little be it or much:
And, Lord, contentment still I crave,
Because thou savest such.
Fullness to such a burden is
That go on pilgrimage:
Here little, and hereafter bliss,
Is best from age to age."
When Bunyan had been in prison for six years he was set free, but
as he at once began to preach he was immediately seized and
reimprisoned. He remained shut up for six years longer. Then
King Charles II passed an Act called the Declaration of
Indulgence. By this Act all the severe laws against those who
did not conform to the Church of England were done away with,
and, in consequence, Bunyan was set free. Charles passed this
Act, not because he was sorry for the Nonconformists--as all who
would not conform to the Church of England were called--but
because he wished to free the Roman Catholics, and he could not
do that without freeing the Nonconformists too. Two years later
Bunyan was again imprisoned because "in contempt of his Majesty's
good laws he preached or teached in other manner than according
to the Liturgy or practice of the Church of England." But this
time his imprisonment lasted only six months. And I must tell
you that many people now think that it was during this later
short imprisonment that Bunyan wrote the Pilgrim's Progress, and
not during the earlier and longer.
The rest of Bunyan's life passed peacefully and happily. But we
know few details of it, for "he seems to have been too busy to
keep any records of his busy life."* We know at least that it
was busy. He was now a licensed preacher, and if the people had
flocked to hear him before his imprisonment they flocked in far
greater numbers now. Even learned men came to hear him. "I
marvel," said King Charles to one, "that a learned man such as
you can sit and listen to an unlearned tinker."
*Brown.
"May it please your Majesty," replied he, "I would gladly give up
all my learning if I could preach like that tinker."
Bunyan became the head of the Baptist Church. Near and far he
traveled, preaching and teaching, honored and beloved wherever he
went. And his word had such power, his commands had such weight,
that people playfully called him Bishop Bunyan. Yet he was "not
puffed up in prosperity, nor shaken in adversity, always holding
the golden mean."*
*Charles Doe.
Death found Bunyan still busy, still kindly. A young man who
lived at Reading had offended his father so greatly that the
father cast him off. In his trouble the young man came to
Bunyan. He at once mounted his horse and rode off to Reading.
There he saw the angry father, and persuaded him to make peace
with his repentant son.
Glad at his success, Bunyan rode on to London, where he meant to
preach. But the weather was bad, the roads were heavy with mud,
he was overtaken by a storm of rain, and ere he could find
shelter he was soaked to the skin. He arrived at length at a
friend's house wet and weary and shaking with fever. He went to
bed never to rise again. The time had come when, like Christian,
he must cross the river which all must cross "where there is no
bridge to go over and the river very deep." But Bunyan, like
Christian, was held up by Hope. He well knew the words, "When
thou passest through the waters I will be with thee, and through
the rivers they shall not overflow thee." And so he crossed
over.
And may we not believe that Bunyan, when he reached the other
side, heard again, as he had once before heard in his immortal
dream, "all the bells in the city ring again with joy," and that
it was said unto him, "Enter ye into the joy of our Lord"?
YEAR 9
Chapter LX DRYDEN--THE NEW POETRY
"THE life of Dryden may be said to comprehend a history of the
literature of England, and its changes, during nearly half a
century." With these words Sir Walter Scott, himself a great
writer, began his life of John Dryden. Yet although Dryden
stands for so much in the story of our literature, as a man we
know little of him. As a writer his influence on the age in
which he lived was tremendous. As a man he is more shadowy than
almost any other greater writer. We seem to know Chaucer, and
Spenser, and Milton, and even Shakespeare a little, but to know
Dryden in himself seems impossible. We can only know him through
his works, and through his age. And in him we find the
expression of his age.
With Milton ended the great romantic school of poetry. He was
indeed as one born out of time, a lonely giant. He died and left
no follower. With Dryden began a new school of poetry, which was
to be the type of English poetry for a hundred and fifty years to
come. This is called the classical school, and the rime which
the classical poets used is called the heroic couplet. It is a
long ten-syllabled line, and rimes in couplets, as, for
instance:--
"He sought the storms; but, for a calm unfit,
Would stem too nigh the sands, to boast his wit,
Great wits are sure to madness near allied,
And thin partitions do their bounds divide."*
*Absalom and Achitophel.