THE LATIN SECRETARYSHIP.
The Crown having fallen on January 30, 1649, and the House of Lords by
the vote of February 6 following, the sovereign power in England was
for the moment in the hands of that fragment of the Long Parliament,
which remained after the various purges and expulsions to which it had
been subjected. Some of the excluded members were allowed to return,
and by occasional new elections in safe boroughs the number of members
was raised to one hundred and fifty, securing an average attendance of
about seventy. The future government of the nation was declared to be
by way of a republic, and the writs ran in the name of the Keepers
of the Liberty of England, by authority of Parliament. But the real
centre of power was the Council of State, a body of forty-one members,
nominated for a period of twelve months, according to a plan of
constitution devised by the army leaders. In the hands of this
republican Council was concentrated a combination of power such as had
never been wielded by any English monarch. But, though its attribution
of authority was great, its exercise of the powers lodged with it was
hampered by differences among its members, and the disaffection of
various interests and parties. The Council of State contained most of
the notable statesmen of the Parliamentary party, and had before it
a vast task in reorganizing the administration of England, in the
conduct of an actual war in Ireland, a possible war in Scotland, and
in the maintenance of the honour of the republic in its relations with
foreign princes.
The Council of State prepared the business for its consideration
through special committees for special departments of the public
service. The Committee for Foreign Affairs consisted of Whitelocke,
Vane, Lord Lisle, Lord Denbigh, Mr. Marten, Mr. Lisle. A secretary was
required to translate despatches, both those which were sent out, and
those which were received. Nothing seems more natural than that the
author of the _Tenure of Kings and Magistrates_, who was at once a
staunch Parliamentarian, an accomplished Latin scholar, and conversant
with more than one of the spoken languages of the Continent, should be
thought of for the office. Yet so little was Milton personally known,
living as he did the life of a retired student, that it was the
accident of his having the acquaintance of one of the new Council to
which he owed the appointment.
The post was offered him, but would he accept it? He had never ceased
to revolve in his mind subjects capable of poetical treatment, and
to cherish his own vocation as the classical poet of the English
language. Peace had come, and leisure was within his reach. He was
poor, but his wants were simple, and he had enough wherewith to meet
them. Already, in 1649, unmistakable symptoms threatened his sight,
and warned him of the necessity of the most rigid economy in the
use of the eyes. The duties that he was now asked to undertake were
indefinite already in amount, and would doubtless extend themselves if
zealously discharged.
But the temptation was strong, and he did not resist it. The increase
of income was, doubtless, to Milton the smallest among the inducements
now offered him. He had thought it a sufficient and an honourable
employment to serve his country with his pen as a volunteer. Here was
an offer to become her official, authorised servant, and to bear a
part, though a humble part, in the great work of reorganisation which
was now to be attempted. Above all other allurements to a retired
student, unversed in men, and ready to idealise character, was the
opportunity of becoming at once personally acquainted with all the
great men of the patriotic party, whom his ardent imagination had
invested with heroic qualities. The very names of Fairfax, Vane, and
Cromwell, called up in him emotions for which prose was an inadequate
vehicle. Nor was it only that in the Council itself he would be
in daily intercourse with such men as Henry Marten, Hutchinson,
Whitelocke, Harrington, St. John, Ludlow, but his position would
introduce him at once to all the members of the House who were worth
knowing. It was not merely a new world; it was _the_ world which was
here opened for the first time to Milton. And we must remember that,
all scholar as he was, Milton was well convinced of the truth that
there are other sources of knowledge besides books. He had himself
spent "many studious and contemplative years in the search of
religious and civil knowledge," yet he knew that, for a mind large
enough to "take in a general survey of humane things," it was
necessary to know--
The world,... her glory,
Empires and monarchs, and their radiant courts,
Best school of best experience.
_P.R._ iii. 237.
He had repeatedly, as if excusing his political interludes, renewed
his pledge to devote all his powers to poetry as soon, as they
should be fully ripe. To complete his education as a poet, he wanted
initiation into affairs. Here was an opening far beyond any he had
ever dreamed of. The sacrifice of time and precious eyesight which he
was to make was costly, but it was not pure waste; it would be partly
returned to him in a ripened experience in this
Insight
In all things to greatest actions lead,
He accepted the post at once without hesitation. On March 13, 1649,
the Committee for Foreign Affairs was directed to make the offer to
him; on March 15, he attended at Whitehall to be admitted to office.
Well would it have been both for his genius and his fame if he had
declined it. His genius might have reverted to its proper course,
while he was in the flower of age, with eyesight still available, and
a spirit exalted by the triumph of the good cause. His fame would
have been saved from the degrading incidents of the contention with
Salmasius and Morus, and from being tarnished by the obloquy of the
faction which he fought, and which conquered him. No man can with
impunity insult and trample upon his fellow-man, even in the best
of causes. Especially if he be an artist, he makes it impossible to
obtain equitable appreciation of his work.
So far as Milton reckoned upon a gain in experience from his
secretaryship, he doubtless reaped it. Such a probation could not be
passed without solidifying the judgment, and correcting its tendency
to error. And this school of affairs, which is indispensable for
the historian, may also be available for the poet. Yet it would be
difficult to point in Milton's subsequent poetry to any element which
the poet can be thought to have imbibed from the foreign secretary.
Where, as in Milton's two epics, and _Samson Agonistes_, the
personages are all supernatural or heroic, there is no room for the
employment of knowledge of the world. Had Milton written comedy, like
Molière, he might have said with Molière after he had been introduced
at court, "Je n'ai plus que faire d'étudier Plaute et Terence; je n'ai
qu'à étudier le monde."
The office into which Milton was now inducted is called in the Council
books that of "Secretary for foreign tongues." Its duties were chiefly
the translation of despatches from, and to, foreign governments. The
degree of estimation in which the Latin secretary was held, may be
measured by the amount of salary assigned him. For while the English
chief Secretary had a salary of 730 l. (= 2200 l. of our day), the
Latin Secretary was paid only 288 l. 13s. 6d. (= 900 l.). For this,
not very liberal pay, he was told that all his time was to be at the
disposal of the government. Lincoln's Inn Fields was too far off for a
servant of the Council who might have to attend meetings at seven in
the morning. He accordingly migrated to Charing Cross, now become
again Charing without the cross, this work of art having been an early
(1647) victim of religious barbarism. In November he was accommodated
with chambers in Whitehall. But from these he was soon ousted by
claimants more considerable or more importunate, and in 1651 he
removed to "a pretty garden-house" in Petty France, in Westminster,
next door to the Lord Scudamore's, and opening into St. James's Park.
The house was extant till 1877, when it disappeared, the last of
Milton's many London residences. It had long ceased to look into St.
James's Park, more than one row of houses, encroachments upon the
public park, having grown up between. The garden-house had become a
mere ordinary street house in York-street, only distinguished from the
squalid houses on either side of it by a tablet affixed by Bentham,
inscribed "sacred to Milton, prince of poets." Petty France lost its
designation in the French Revolution, in obedience to the childish
petulance which obliterates the name of any one who may displease you
at the moment, and became one of the seventeen York-streets of the
metropolis. Soon after the re-baptism of the street, Milton's house
was occupied by William Hazlitt, who rented it of Bentham. Milton had
lived in it for nine years, from 1651 till a few weeks before the
Restoration. Its nearness to Whitehall where the Council sat, was less
a convenience than a necessity.
For Milton's life now became one of close attention, and busy service.
As Latin secretary, and Weckherlin's successor, indeed, his proper
duties were only those of a clerk or translator. But his aptitude
for business of a literary kind soon drew on him a great variety of
employment. The demand for a Latin translation of a despatch was not
one of frequent occurrence. The Letters of the Parliament, and of
Oliver and Richard, Protectors, which are, intrusively, printed among
Milton's works, are but one hundred and thirty-seven in all. This
number is spread over ten years, being at the rate of about fourteen
per year; most of them are very short. For the purposes of a biography
of Milton, it is sufficient to observe, that the dignified attitude
which the Commonwealth took up towards foreign powers lost none of its
elevation in being conveyed in Miltonic Latin. Whether satisfaction
for the murder of an envoy is to be extorted from the arrogant court
of Madrid, or an apology is to be offered to a humble count of
Oldenburg for delay in issuing a salva-guardia which had been
promised, the same equable dignity of expression is maintained,
equally remote from crouching before the strong, and hectoring the
weak.
His translations were not all the duties of the new secretary. He must
often serve as interpreter at audiences of foreign envoys. He must
superintend the semi-official organ, the _Mercurius Politicus_.
He must answer the manifesto of the Presbyterians of Ireland. The
_Observations_ on the peace of Kilkenny are Milton's composition, but
from instructions. By the peace the Irish had obtained home rule in
its widest extent, release from the oath of supremacy, and the right
to tie their ploughs to the tail of the horse. The same peace also
conceded to them the militia, a trust which Charles I. had said he
would not devolve on the Parliament of England, "not for an hour!"
Milton is indignant that these indulgences, which had been refused to
their obedience, should have been extorted by their rebellion, and
the massacre of "200,000 Protestants". This is an exaggeration of a
butchery sufficiently tragic in its real proportions, and in a later
tract (_Eikonoklastes_) he reduces it to 154,000. Though the
savage Irish are barbarians, uncivilised and uncivilisable, the
_Observations_ distinctly affirm the new principle of toleration.
Though popery be a superstition, the death of all true religion, still
conscience is not within the cognisance of the magistrate. The civil
sword is to be employed against civil offences only. In adding that
the one exception to this toleration is atheism, Milton is careful to
state this limitation as being the toleration professed by Parliament,
and not as his private opinion.
So well satisfied were the Council with their secretary's
_Observations_ on the peace of Kilkenny, that they next imposed upon
him a far more important labour, a reply to the _Eikon Basiliké_. The
execution of Charles I. was not an act of vengeance, but a measure of
public safety. If, as Hallam affirms, there mingled in the motives of
the managers any strain of personal ill-will, this was merged in the
necessity of securing, themselves from the vengeance of the King, and
what they had gained from being taken back. They were alarmed by
the reaction which had set in, and had no choice but to strengthen
themselves by a daring policy. But the first effect of the removal of
the King by violence was to give a powerful stimulus to the reaction
already in progress. The groan, which burst from the spectators before
Whitehall on January 30, 1649, was only representative of the thrill
of horror which ran through England and Scotland in the next ten days.
This feeling found expression in a book entitled "_Eikon Basiliké_,
the portraiture of his sacred majesty in his solitude and sufferings."
The book was, it should seem, composed by Dr. Gauden, but professed
to be an authentic copy of papers written by the King. It is possible
that Gauden may have had in his hands some written scraps of the
King's meditations. If he had such, he only used them as hints to work
upon. Gauden was a churchman whom his friends might call liberal,
and his enemies time-serving. He was a churchman of the stamp of
Archbishop Williams, and preferred bishops and the Common-prayer to
presbyters and extempore sermons, but did not think the difference
between the two of the essence of religion. In better times Gauden
would have passed for broad, though his latitudinarianism was more the
result of love of ease than of philosophy. Though a royalist he sat in
the Westminster Assembly, and took the covenant, for which compliance
he nearly lost the reward which, after the Restoration, became his
due. Like the university-bred men of his day, Gauden was not a man of
ideas, but of style. In the present instance the idea was supplied
by events. The saint and martyr, the man of sorrows, praying for
his murderers, the King, who renounced an earthly kingdom to gain
a heavenly, and who in return for his benefits received from an
unthankful people a crown of thorns--this was the theme supplied to
the royalist advocate. Poet's imagination had never invented one more
calculated to touch the popular heart. This _imitatio Christi_ to
which every private Christian theoretically aspires, had been realised
by a true prince upon an actual scaffold with a graceful dignity of
demeanour, of which it may be said, that nothing in life became him
like the leaving it.
This moving situation Gauden, no mean stylist, set out in the best
academical language of the period. Frigid and artificial it may read
now, but the passion and pity, which is not in the book, was supplied
by the readers of the time. And men are not dainty as to phrase when
they meet with an expression of their own sentiments. The readers of
_Eikon Basilike_--and forty-seven editions were necessary to supply
the demand of a population of eight millions--attributed to the pages
of the book emotions raised in themselves by the tragic catastrophe.
They never doubted that the meditations were those of the royal
martyr, and held the book, in the words of Sir Edward Nicholas, for
"the most exquisite, pious, and princely piece ever written." The
Parliament thought themselves called upon to put forth a reply. If one
book could cause such a commotion of spirits, another book could allay
it--the ordinary illusion of those who do not consider that the vogue
of a printed appeal depends, not on the contents of the appeal, but on
a predisposition of the public temper.
Selden, the most learned man, not only of his party, but of
Englishmen, was first thought of, but the task was finally assigned
to the Latin Secretary. Milton's ready pen completed the answer,
_Eikonoklastes_, a quarto of 242 pages, before October, 1649. It
is, like all answers, worthless as a book. Eikonoklastes, the
Image-breaker, takes the Image, Eikon, paragraph by paragraph, turning
it round, and asserting the negative. To the Royalist view of the
points in dispute Milton opposes the Independent view. A refutation,
which follows each step of an adverse book, is necessarily devoid of
originality. But Milton is worse than tedious; his reply is in a tone
of rude railing and insolent swagger, which would have been always
unbecoming, but which at this moment was grossly indecent.
Milton must, however, be acquitted of one charge which has been made
against him, viz., that he taunts the king with his familiarity with
Shakespeare. The charge rests on a misunderstanding. In quoting
Richard III. in illustration of his own meaning, Milton, says, "I
shall not instance an abstruse author, wherein the King might be less
conversant, but one whom we well know was the closet companion of
these his solitudes, William Shakespeare." Though not an overt gibe,
there certainly lurks an insinuation to Milton's Puritan readers, to
whom stage plays were an abomination--an unworthy device of rhetoric,
as appealing to a superstition in others which the writer himself does
not share. In Milton's contemptuous reference to Sidney's _Arcadia_ as
a vain amatorious poem, we feel that the finer sense of the author of
_L'Allegro_ has suffered from immersion in the slough of religious and
political faction.
Gauden, raking up material from all quarters, had inserted in his
compilation a prayer taken from the _Arcadia_. Milton mercilessly
works this topic against his adversary. It is surprising that this
plagiarism from so well-known a book as the _Arcadia_ should not have
opened Milton's eyes to the unauthentic character of the _Eikon_. He
alludes, indeed, to a suspicion which was abroad that one of the royal
chaplains was a secret coadjutor. But he knew nothing of Gauden at the
time of writing the _Eikonoklastes_, and probably he never came to
know anything. The secret of the authorship of the _Eikon_ was well
kept, being known only to a very few persons--the two royal brothers,
Bishop Morley, the Earl of Bristol, and Clarendon. These were all safe
men, and Gauden was not likely to proclaim himself an impostor. He
pleaded his authorship, however, as a claim to preferment at the
Restoration, when the church spoils came to be partitioned among
the conquerors, and he received the bishopric of Exeter. A
bishopric--because less than the highest preferment could not
be offered to one whose pen had done such signal service; and
Exeter--because the poorest see (then valued at 500 l. a year) was good
enough for a man who had taken the covenant and complied with the
usurping government. By ceaseless importunity the author of the _Eikon
Basilike_ obtained afterwards the see of Worcester, while the portion
of the author of _Eikonoklastes_ was poverty, infamy, and calumny. A
century after Milton's death it was safe for the most popular writer
of the day to say that the prayer from the _Arcadia_ had been
interpolated in the _Eikon_ by Milton himself, and then by him charged
upon the King as a plagiarism (Johnson, _Lives of the Poets_.)