The great object of the Sonnet seems to be, to express in musical
numbers, and as it were with undivided breath, some occasional thought
or personal feeling, 'some fee-grief due to the poet's breast.' It is
a sigh uttered from the fulness of the heart, an involuntary aspiration
born and dying in the same moment. I have always been fond of Milton's
Sonnets for this reason, that they have more of this personal and
internal character than any others; and they acquire a double value when
we consider that they come from the pen of the loftiest of our poets.
Compared with _Paradise_ Lost, they are like tender flowers that adorn
the base of some proud column or stately temple. The author in the one
could work himself up with unabated fortitude 'to the height of his
great argument'; but in the other he has shown that he could condescend
to men of low estate, and after the lightning and the thunderbolt of
his pen, lets fall some drops of natural pity over hapless infirmity,
mingling strains with the nightingale's, 'most musical, most
melancholy.' The immortal poet pours his mortal sorrows into our
breasts, and a tear falls from his sightless orbs on the friendly
hand he presses. The Sonnets are a kind of pensive record of past
achievements, loves, and friendships, and a noble exhortation to himself
to bear up with cheerful hope and confidence to the last. Some of them
are of a more quaint and humorous character; but I speak of those only
which are intended to be serious and pathetical.--I do not know indeed
but they may be said to be almost the first effusions of this sort of
natural and personal sentiment in the language. Drummond's ought
perhaps to be excepted, were they formed less closely on the model
of Petrarch's, so as to be often little more than translations of
the Italian poet. But Milton's Sonnets are truly his own in allusion,
thought, and versification. Those of Sir Philip Sydney, who was a
great transgressor in his way, turn sufficiently on himself and his own
adventures; but they are elaborately quaint and intricate, and more like
riddles than sonnets. They are 'very tolerable and not to be endured.'
Shakespear's, which some persons better informed in such matters than I
can pretend to be, profess to cry up as 'the divine, the matchless, what
you will,'--to say nothing of the want of point or a leading, prominent
idea in most of them, are I think overcharged and monotonous, and as to
their ultimate drift, as for myself, I can make neither head nor tail
of it. Yet some of them, I own, are sweet even to a sense of faintness,
luscious as the woodbine, and graceful and luxuriant like it. Here is
one:
From you have I been absent in the spring,
When proud-pied April, dress'd in all his trim,
Hath put a spirit of youth in every thing;
That heavy Saturn laugh'd and leap'd with him.
Yet nor the lays of birds, nor the sweet smell
Of different flowers in odour and in hue,
Could make me any summer's story tell,
Or from their proud lap pluck them where they grew:
Nor did I wonder at the lilies white,
Nor praise the deep vermilion in the rose;
They were but sweet, but figures of delight,
Drawn after you, you pattern of all those.
Yet seem'd it winter still, and you away,
As with your shadow, I with these did play.
I am not aware of any writer of Sonnets worth mentioning here till long
after Milton, that is, till the time of Warton and the revival of a
taste for Italian and for our own early literature. During the rage
for French models the Sonnet had not been much studied. It is a mode of
composition that depends entirely on _expression,_ and this the French
and artificial style gladly dispenses with, as it lays no particular
stress on anything--except vague, general common-places. Warton's
Sonnets are undoubtedly exquisite, both in style and matter; they are
poetical and philosophical effusions of very delightful sentiment;
but the thoughts, though fine and deeply felt, are not, like Milton's
subjects, identified completely with the writer, and so far want a more
individual interest. Mr. Wordsworth's are also finely conceived and
high-sounding Sonnets. They mouth it well, and are said to be sacred to
Liberty. Brutus's exclamation, 'Oh Virtue, I thought thee a substance,
but I find thee a shadow,' was not considered as a compliment, but as a
bitter sarcasm. The beauty of Milton's Sonnets is their sincerity, the
spirit of poetical patriotism which they breathe. Either Milton's or
the living bard's are defective in this respect. There is no Sonnet of
Milton's on the Restoration of Charles II. There is no Sonnet of Mr.
Wordsworth's corresponding to that of 'the poet blind and bold' 'On
the late Massacre in Piedmont.' It would be no niggard praise to Mr.
Wordsworth to grant that he was either half the man or half the poet
that Milton was. He has not his high and various imagination, nor his
deep and fixed principle. Milton did not worship the rising sun, nor
turn his back on a losing and fallen cause.
Such recantation had no charms for him!
Mr. Southey has thought proper to put the author of _Paradise Lost_ into
his late Heaven, on the understood condition that he is 'no longer to
kings and to hierarchs hostile.' In his lifetime he gave no sign of such
an alteration; and it is rather presumptuous in the poet-laureate to
pursue the deceased antagonist of Salmasius into the other world to
compliment him with his own infirmity of purpose. It is a wonder he did
not add in a note that Milton called him aside to whisper in his ear
that he preferred the new English hexameters to his own blank verse!
Our first of poets was one of our first of men. He was an eminent
instance to prove that a poet is not another name for the slave of power
and fashion, as is the case with painters and musicians--things without
an opinion--and who merely aspire to make up the pageant and show of the
day. There are persons in common life who have that eager curiosity and
restless admiration of bustle and splendour, that sooner than not be
admitted on great occasions of feasting and luxurious display, they will
go in the character of livery-servants to stand behind the chairs of the
great. There are others who can so little bear to be left for any length
of time out of the grand carnival and masquerade of pride and folly,
that they will gain admittance to it at the expense of their characters
as well as of a change of dress. Milton was not one of these. He had too
much of the _ideal_ faculty in his composition, a lofty contemplative
principle, and consciousness of inward power and worth, to be tempted
by such idle baits. We have plenty of chanting and chiming in among some
modern writers with the triumphs over their own views and principles;
but none of a patient resignation to defeat, sustaining and nourishing
itself with the thought of the justice of their cause, and with
firm-fixed rectitude. I do not pretend to defend the tone of Milton's
political writings (which was borrowed from the style of controversial
divinity), or to say that he was right in the part he took,--I say that
he was consistent in it, and did not convict himself of error: he was
consistent in it in spite of danger and obloquy, 'on evil days though
fallen, and evil tongues,' and therefore his character has the salt of
honesty about it. It does not offend in the nostrils of posterity. He
had taken his part boldly and stood to it manfully, and submitted to the
change of times with pious fortitude, building his consolations on the
resources of his own mind and the recollection of the past, instead
of endeavouring to make himself a retreat for the time to come. As an
instance of this we may take one of the best and most admired of these
Sonnets, that addressed to Cyriac Skinner, on his own blindness:--
Cyriac, this three years' day, these eyes, though clear,
To outward view, of blemish or of spot,
Bereft of light their seeing have forgot,
Nor to their idle orbs doth sight appear
Of sun or moon or stars throughout the year,
Or man or woman. Yet I argue not
Against Heav'n's hand or will, nor bate a jot
Of heart or hope; but still bear up and steer
Right onward. What supports me, dost thou ask?
The conscience, Friend, to have lost them overply'd
In liberty's defence, my noble task,
Of which all Europe talks from side to side.
This thought might lead me through the world's vain mask,
Content though blind, had I no better guide.
Nothing can exceed the mild, subdued tone of this Sonnet, nor the
striking grandeur of the concluding thought. It is curious to remark
what seems to be a trait of character in the two first lines. From
Milton's care to inform the reader that 'his eyes wore still clear, to
outward view, of spot or blemish,' it would be thought that he had not
yet given up all regard to personal appearance; a feeling to which his
singular beauty at an earlier age might be supposed naturally enough
to lead. Of the political or (what may be called) his _State-Sonnets,_
those to Cromwell, to Fairfax, and to the younger Vane are full of
exalted praise and dignified advice. They are neither familiar nor
servile. The writer knows what is due to power and to fame. He feels
the true, unassumed equality of greatness. He pays the full tribute of
admiration for great acts achieved, and suggests becoming occasion to
deserve higher praise. That to Cromwell is a proof how completely our
poet maintained the erectness of his understanding and spirit in his
intercourse with men in power. It is such a compliment as a poet might
pay to a conqueror and head of the state without the possibility of
self-degradation:
Cromwell, our chief of men, who through a cloud,
Not of war only, but detractions rude,
Guided by faith and matchless fortitude,
To peace and truth thy glorious way hast plough'd,
And on the neck of crowned fortune proud
Hast rear'd God's trophies and his work pursued
While Darwen stream with blood of Scots imbrued,
And Dunbar field resounds thy praises loud,
And Worcester's laureat wreath. Yet much remains
To conquer still; peace hath her victories
No less renown'd than war: new foes arise
Threatening to bind our souls with secular chains;
Help us to save free conscience from the paw
Of hireling wolves, whose gospel is their maw.
The most spirited and impassioned of them all, and the most inspired
with a sort of prophetic fury, is the one entitled, 'On the late
Massacre in Piedmont.'
Avenge, O Lord, thy slaughter'd saints, whose bones
Lie scatter'd on the Alpine mountains cold;
Even them who kept thy truth so pure of old,
When all our fathers worshipp'd stocks and stones,
Forgot not: in thy book record their groans
Who were thy sheep, and in their ancient fold
Slain by the bloody Piedmontese that roll'd
Mother with infant down the rocks. Their moans
The vales redoubled to the hills, and they
To Heav'n. Their martyr'd blood and ashes sow
O'er all the Italian fields, where still doth sway
The triple Tyrant; that from these may grow
A hundred fold, who having learn'd thy way
Early may fly the Babylonian woe.
In the Nineteenth Sonnet, which is also 'On his blindness,' we see the
jealous watchfulness of his mind over the use of his high gifts, and the
beautiful manner in which he satisfies himself that virtuous thoughts
and intentions are not the least acceptable offering to the Almighty:
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,
Lodged 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.
Those to Mr. Henry Lawes _on his Airs,_ and to Mr. Lawrence, can never
be enough admired. They breathe the very soul of music and friendship.
Both have a tender, thoughtful grace; and for their lightness, with a
certain melancholy complaining intermixed, might be stolen from the harp
of Aeolus. The last is the picture of a day spent in social retirement
and elegant relaxation from severer studies. We sit with the poet at
table and hear his familiar sentiments from his own lips afterwards:--
Lawrence, of virtuous father virtuous son,
Now that the fields are dank and ways are mire,
Where shall we sometimes meet, and by the fire
Help waste a sullen day, what may be won
From the hard season gaining? Time will run
On smoother, till Favonius re-inspire
The frozen earth, and clothe in fresh attire
The lily and rose, that neither sow'd nor spun.
What neat repast shall feast us, light and choice,
Of Attic taste, with wine, whence we may rise
To hear the lute well-touched, or artful voice
Warble immortal notes and Tuscan air?
He who of these delights can judge, and spare
To interpose them oft, is not unwise.
In the last, 'On his deceased Wife,' the allusion to Alcestis is
beautiful, and shows how the poet's mind raised and refined his thoughts
by exquisite classical conceptions, and how these again were enriched
by a passionate reference to actual feelings and images. It is this rare
union that gives such voluptuous dignity and touching purity to Milton's
delineation of the female character:--
Methought I saw my late espoused saint
Brought to me like Alcestis from the grave,
Whom Jove's great son to her glad husband gave,
Rescued from death by force, though pale and faint.
Mine, as whom wash'd from spot of child-bed taint
Purification in the old law did save,
And such, as yet once more I trust to have
Full sight of her in Heav'n without restraint,
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 shined
So clear, as in no face with more delight:
But O as to embrace me she inclined,
I waked, she fled, and day brought back my night.
There could not have been a greater mistake or a more unjust piece of
criticism than to suppose that Milton only shone on great subjects, and
that on ordinary occasions and in familiar life his mind was unwieldy,
averse to the cultivation of grace and elegance, and unsusceptible
of harmless pleasures. The whole tenor of his smaller compositions
contradicts this opinion, which, however, they have been cited to
confirm. The notion first got abroad from the bitterness (or vehemence)
of his controversial writings, and has been kept up since with little
meaning and with less truth. His Letters to Donatus and others are not
more remarkable for the display of a scholastic enthusiasm than for that
of the most amiable dispositions. They are 'severe in youthful virtue
unreproved.' There is a passage in his prose-works (the Treatise on
Education) which shows, I think, his extreme openness and proneness to
pleasing outward impressions in a striking point of view. 'But to return
to our own institute,' he says, 'besides these constant exercises at
home, there is another opportunity of gaining experience to be won from
pleasure itself abroad. _In those vernal seasons of the year, when
the air is calm and pleasant, it were an injury and sullenness against
Nature not to go out and see her riches, and partake in her rejoicing
with Heaven and earth._ I should not therefore be a persuader to them
of studying much then, but to ride out in companies with prudent
and well-staid guides, to all quarters of the land,' etc. Many
other passages might be quoted, in which the poet breaks through the
groundwork of prose, as it were, by natural fecundity and a genial,
unrestrained sense of delight. To suppose that a poet is not easily
accessible to pleasure, or that he does not take an interest in
individual objects and feelings, is to suppose that he is no poet; and
proceeds on the false theory, which has been so often applied to poetry
and the Fine Arts, that the whole is not made up of the particulars. If
our author, according to Dr. Johnson s account of him, could only have
treated epic, high-sounding subjects, he would not have been what he
was, but another Sir Richard Blackmore.--I may conclude with observing,
that I have often wished that Milton had lived to see the Revolution of
1688. This would have been a triumph worthy of him, and which he would
have earned by faith and hope. He would then have been old, but would
not have lived in vain to see it, and might have celebrated the event in
one more undying strain!