TRANSCRIBER'S NOTES
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of facilitating the navigation on the HTML version and hand-held
devices chapters were added to the transcribed text. The addition of
those chapters was arbitrary and did not follow any particular logic.
Consequently, the Table of Contents was also added by the Transcriber.
The book cover was modified by the Transcriber and has been added to
the public domain.
A number of words in this book have both hyphenated and non-hyphenated
variants. For the words with both variants present the one more used
has been kept.
Obvious punctuation and other printing errors have been silently
corrected.
* * * * *
MILTON
Thomas Babington Macaulay
NEW YORK, H. M. CALDWELL & Co.
1900
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Pag.
CHAPTER I 1
CHAPTER II 9
CHAPTER III 26
CHAPTER IV 43
CHAPTER V 76
CHAPTER VI 113
CHAPTER VII 149
MILTON[1]
CHAPTER I
Toward the close of the year 1823, Mr. Lemon, deputy keeper of the
state papers, in the course of his researches among the presses of
his office, met with a large Latin manuscript. With it were found
corrected copies of the foreign despatches written by Milton, while he
filled the office of Secretary, and several papers relating to the
Popish Trials and the Rye-House Plot. The whole was wrapped up in an
envelope, superscribed _To Mr. Skinner, Merchant_. On examination, the
large manuscript proved to be the long lost Essay on the Doctrines of
Christianity, which, according to Wood and Toland, Milton finished
after the Restoration, and deposited with Cyriac Skinner. Skinner, it
is well known, held the same political opinions with his illustrious
friend. It is therefore probable, as Mr. Lemon conjectures, that he
may have fallen under the suspicions of the government during that
persecution of the Whigs which followed the dissolution of the Oxford
parliament, and that, in consequence of a general seizure of his
papers, this work may have been brought to the office in which it has
been found. But whatever the adventures of the manuscript may have
been, no doubt can exist that it is a genuine relic of the great poet.
Mr. Sumner, who was commanded by his Majesty to edit and translate the
treatise, has acquitted himself of his task in a manner honourable to
his talents and to his character. His version is not indeed very easy
or elegant; but it is entitled to the praise of clearness and fidelity.
His notes abound with interesting quotations, and have the rare merit
of really elucidating the text. The preface is evidently the work of
a sensible and candid man, firm in his own religious opinions, and
tolerant toward those of others.
The book itself will not add much to the fame of Milton. It is, like
all his Latin works, well written, though not exactly in the style
of the prize essays of Oxford and Cambridge. There is no elaborate
imitation of classical antiquity, no scrupulous purity, none of the
ceremonial cleanness which characterises the diction of our academical
Pharisees. The author does not attempt to polish and brighten his
composition into the Ciceronian gloss and brilliancy. He does not in
short sacrifice sense and spirit to pedantic refinements. The nature of
his subject compelled him to use many words
"That would have made Quintilian stare and gasp."
But he writes with as much ease and freedom as if Latin were his
mother tongue; and, where he is least happy, his failure seems to
arise from the carelessness of a native, not from the ignorance of a
foreigner. We may apply to him what Denham with great felicity says of
Cowley. He wears the garb, but not the clothes of the ancients.
Throughout the volume are discernible the traces of a powerful and
independent mind, emancipated from the influence of authority, and
devoted to the search of truth. Milton professes to form his system
from the Bible alone; and his digest of Scriptural texts is certainly
among the best that have appeared. But he is not always so happy in his
inferences as in his citations.
Some of the heterodox doctrines which he avows seemed to have excited
considerable amazement, particularly his Arianism, and his theory on
the subject of polygamy. Yet we can scarcely conceive that any person
could have read the "Paradise Lost" without suspecting him of the
former; nor do we think that any reader, acquainted with the history
of his life, ought to be much startled at the latter. The opinions
which he has expressed respecting the nature of the Deity, the eternity
of matter, and the observation of the Sabbath, might, we think, have
caused more just surprise.
But we will not go into the discussion of these points. The book, were
it far more orthodox or far more heretical than it is, would not much
edify or corrupt the present generation. The men of our time are not
to be converted or perverted by quartos. A few more days, and this
essay will follow the _Defensio Populi_, to the dust and silence of the
upper shelf. The name of its author, and the remarkable circumstances
attending its publication, will secure to it a certain degree of
attention. For a month or two it will occupy a few minutes of chat in
every drawing-room, and a few columns in every magazine; and it will
then, to borrow the elegant language of the play-bills, be withdrawn,
to make room for the forthcoming novelties.
We wish, however, to avail ourselves of the interest, transient as it
may be, which this work has excited. The dexterous Capuchins never
choose to preach on the life and miracles of a saint till they have
awakened the devotional feelings of their auditors by exhibiting some
relic of him, a thread of his garment, a lock of his hair, or a drop of
his blood. On the same principle, we intend to take advantage of the
late interesting discovery, and, while this memorial of a great and
good man is still in the hands of all, to say something of his moral
and intellectual qualities. Nor, we are convinced, will the severest
of our readers blame us if, on an occasion like the present, we turn
for a short time from the topics of the day, to commemorate, in all
love and reverence, the genius and virtues of John Milton, the poet,
the statesman, the philosopher, the glory of English literature, the
champion and the martyr of English liberty.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] _Jonnis Miltoni Angli, de Doctrinâ Christiana libri duo posthumi._
A Treatise on Christian Doctrine, compiled from the Holy Scriptures
alone. By John Milton, translated from the Original by Charles R.
Sumner, M. A., etc., 1825.