A BOOK THAT RANKS CLOSE TO THE ENGLISH BIBLE--IT TELLS
THE STORY OF SATAN'S REVOLT, THE FALL OF MAN AND THE
EXPULSION FROM EDEN.
In beginning with the great books of the modern world two works stand
out in English literature as preeminent, ranking close to the Bible in
popular regard for nearly four hundred years. These are Milton's
_Paradise Lost_ and Bunyan's _Pilgrim's Progress_. To those of New
England blood whose memory runs back over forty years these two books
fill much of the youthful horizon, for, besides the Bible, these were
almost the only books that were allowed to be read on Sunday. It seems
strange in these days of religious toleration that Sunday reading should
be prescribed, but it was a mournful fact in my early days and it forced
me, with many others, to cultivate Milton and Bunyan, when my natural
inclinations would have been toward lighter and easier reading. But that
old Puritan rule, like its companion rule of committing to memory on
Sunday a certain number of verses in the Bible, served one in good
stead, for it fixed in the plastic mind of childhood some of the best
literature that the world has produced.
[Illustration:
PORTRAIT OF MILTON
AFTER THE ORIGINAL CRAYON DRAWING FROM
LIFE BY WILLIAM FAITHORNE AT
BAYFORDBURY, HERTS]
Milton's fame rests mainly on his _Paradise Lost_ and on his sonnets and
minor poems, although he wrote much in prose which was far in advance of
his age in liberality of thought. He was a typical English Puritan, with
much of the Cromwellian sternness of creed, but with a fine Greek
culture that made him one of the great scholars of the world. His early
life was singularly full and beautiful, and this peace and delight in
all lovely things in nature and art may be found reflected in such poems
as _L'Allegro_ and _Il Penseroso_, and in the perfect masque of _Comus_.
His later life, after many years of good service to the state, was
clouded by blindness and loss of fortune and menaced by fear of a
shameful death on the gallows. And it was in these years, when the sun
of his prosperity had set and when large honors had been succeeded by
contumely and final neglect, that the old poet produced the great work
which assured his fame as long as the English language endures.
Milton came of a good English family and he had the supreme advantage of
splendid early training in all the knowledge of his time. The great
Greek classics exercised the strongest influence over his youthful mind,
but he knew all that the Latin writers had produced, and he acquired
such a mastery of the native tongue of Virgil and Cicero that he wrote
it like his own, and produced many Latin poems which have never been
surpassed for easy command of this ancient language. Then for twenty
years succeeded a period in which Milton devoted his great talents to
the defense of his country in controversial papers, that are still the
delight of scholars because of their high thought, their keen logic and
their sonorous prose.
The noblest of these papers is that plea for the liberty of a free press
which is buried under the long Greek name, _Areopagitica_. It contains
some of the finest passages in defense of freedom of thought and
speech. As Foreign Secretary to the Council of State under Cromwell,
Milton labored ten years, and it was his voice that defended the acts of
the Puritan government, and it was his pen that sounded the warning to
monarchy, which was not heard again until the roaring French mob sacked
the Bastile and mocked the King and Queen at Versailles.
At the age of forty-five Milton was stricken with total blindness, but
he did not give up any of his activities under this crushing affliction.
In these dark days also he learned what it was to have a home without
peace or comfort and to be vexed daily by ungrateful children. When the
monarchy was restored Milton was forced into retirement, and narrowly
escaped the gallows for his part in sending Charles I to the block.
Thus in his old age, beaten down by misfortune, galled by neglect, he
turned to the development of that rich poetic faculty which had lain
fallow for a score of years. And in three years of silent meditation he
produced _Paradise Lost_, which ranks very close to the Bible in
religious fervor and in splendor of genuine poetic inspiration. It is
Biblical in its subject, for it includes the revolt of the rebellious
angels, the splendid picture of the Garden of Eden and the noble
conception of the creation of the world. It is Biblical, also, in a
certain sustained sweep of the imagination, such as is seen in the great
picture of the burning lake, in which Satan first awakes from the shock
of his fall, and in the impressive speeches that mark his plan of
campaign against the Lord who had thrown him and his cohorts into outer
darkness.
Yet this poem is modeled on the great epics of antiquity, and much of
the splendor of the style is due to allusions to Greek and Roman history
and mythology, with which Milton's mind was saturated. In other men this
constant reference to the classics would be called pedantry; in him it
was simply the struggle of a great mind to find fitting expression for
his thoughts, just as in a later age we see the same process repeated in
the essays of Macaulay, which are equally rich in references to the
writers of all ages, whose works had been made a permanent part of this
scholar's mental possessions.
[Illustration:
MILTON DICTATING TO HIS
DAUGHTERS--AFTER AN
ENGRAVING BY W. C. EDWARDS
FROM THE FAMOUS PAINTING
BY ROMNEY]
Some present-day critics of Milton's _Paradise Lost_ have declared that
his subject is obsolete and that his verse repels the modern reader. As
well say that the average unlettered reader finds the Bible dull and
commonplace. Even if you do not know the historical fact or the
mythological legend to which Milton refers, you can enjoy the music of
his verse; and if you take the trouble to look up these allusions you
will find that each has a meaning, and that each helps out the thought
which the poet tries to express. This work of looking up the references
which Milton makes to history and mythology is not difficult, and it
will reward the patient reader with much knowledge that would not come
to him in any other way. Behind Milton's grand style, as behind the
splendid garments of a great monarch, one may see at times the man who
influenced his own age by his genius and whose power has gone on through
the ages, stimulating the minds of poets and sages and men of action,
girding up their loins for conflict, breathing into them the spirit
which demands freedom of speech and conscience.
Milton's style in _Paradise Lost_ is unrhymed heroic verse, which seems
to move easily with the thought of the poet. The absence of rhyme
permits the poet to carry over most of his lines and to save the verse
from that monotony which marks the artificial verse of even great
literary artists like Dryden and Pope. Here is a passage from the
opening of the second book, which depicts Satan in power in the Court of
Hades, and which may be taken as a specimen of Milton's fine style:
High on a throne of royal state, which far
Outshone the wealth of Ormus and of Ind,
Or where the gorgeous East with richest hand
Showers on her kings barbaric pearl and gold,
Satan exalted sat.
And here, in a short description of the adventures of a body of Satan's
fallen angels in their quest for escape from the lower regions to which
they had been condemned, may be found all the salient features of
Milton's style at its best:
Through many a dark and dreary vale
They passed, and many a region dolorous,
O'er many a frozen, many a fiery Alp,
Rocks, caves, lakes, fens, bogs, dens and shades of death--
A universe of death, which God by curse
Created evil, for evil only good;
Where all life dies, death lives, and Nature breeds,
Perverse, all monstrous, all prodigious things,
Abominable, inutterable and worse
Than fables yet have feigned or fear conceived,
Gorgons, and Hydras, and Chimaeras dire.
In contrast to this resounding verse, which enables the poet to soar to
lofty heights of imagination, turn to some of Milton's early work, the
two beautiful classical idyls, _L'Allegro_ and _Il Penseroso_, the fine
_Hymn to the Nativity_, and the mournful cadences of _Lycidas_, the
poet's lament over the death of a beloved young friend. But in parting
with Milton one should not neglect his sonnets, which rank with
Wordsworth's as among the finest in the language. This brief notice
cannot be ended more appropriately than with Milton's memorable sonnet
on his blindness:
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."