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Two Admired Treatises. -About the same time, 1644, Milton published his two prose works which have been most admired, A Tractate on Education, and Areopagitica, or A Plea for the Liberty of Unlicensed Printing.

Appointment as Latin Secretary. — In 1648, Milton was appointed Latin Secretary to the Council of State, and he afterwards held the same office under Cromwell. This office was equivalent to that of Secretary for Foreign Affairs, matters of diplomacy being then conducted chiefly in Latin.

Work as Secretary. The business of the Secretary, however, at least as conceived by Milton himself, was not only to write the dispatches to foreign governments, but to compose from time to time such treatises on affairs of state as might be needed to vindicate the proceedings of his Government before the public tribunal of the world. An abler, more conscientious, or more independent advocate, probably, was never raised up for any great political party. His various "Tractates" are as celebrated in their way as was the military or the political career of Cromwell, and are almost as much a part of the history of the times.

The titles of some of these essays are the following: The Tenure of Kings and Magistrates, Proving that it is Lawful to Call to Account a Tyrant or Wicked King; Eikonoklastes, literally "The Image Breaker," written to weaken the force of the book put forth by the royalist party, called Eikon Basilike, "The Royal Image;" and A Defence of the People of England against Salmasius.

Controversy with Salmasius. This work was written in Latin, and was the crowning effort of Milton's genius in political writing. Salmasius was the picked champion of the royalist party on the continent. He was a man of great learning and eloquence, and had written, also in Latin, A Defense of Charles I. It was the appeal of the royalists against the republicans, and was trumpeted throughout Europe as unanswerable. Milton's reply was so crushing in its force that Salmasius is said to have died of chagrin at the mortifying defeat.

After the Restoration. On the downfall of the Commonwealth and the Restoration of the Stuarts, Milton found it necessary to keep himself out of the public view until the passage of the Act of Oblivion, in 1660.

His Blindness. In 1653, while in the midst of his political labors, and partly in consequence of them, Milton became totally blind. He had from youth suffered from weakness of the eyes, and the excessive →

use of them in this season of intense excitement hastened the final disaster. Several of his political Tractates, and all his longer Poems, were composed while he was thus shut out from all sight of the external world.

Milton was three times married, but had surviving children only by his first wife, three daughters.

During the latter years of his life, in consequence of the celebrity of his writings, he was an object of great interest and reverence to foreigners visiting England, and his house was often thronged with distinguished visitors.

The Paradise Lost, commenced many years before, was published in 1667; Paradise Regained and Samson Agonistes were published in 1671.

Slow Recognition of the Poem. Milton's great poem, after its completion, had to wait two years before it could find a publisher, and even then its way to fame was very slow. The whole amount received by him and his family from the copyright of it was only £28.

The odium attached to him for his championship of a defeated political party was doubtless one cause of so tardy a recognition. "Waller, not Milton, was long considered the Virgil of the nation." - London Quarterly. Waller himself, in the heyday of his pride, wrote these words: "The old blind schoolmaster, John Milton, hath published a tedious poem on the Fall of Man: if its length be not considered a merit, it hath no other."

Macaulay on Milton.-The noblest piece of criticism in the language is Macaulay's celebrated essay on Milton, first published in the Edinburgh Review. Milton has found at length a worthy biographer, also, in Prof. Masson, of Edinburgh. The following extracts are from Macaulay's celebrated essay.

His Majestic Patience.—“If ever despondency and asperity could be excused in any man, they might have been excused in Milton. But the strength of his mind overcame every calamity. Neither blindness, nor gout, nor age, nor penury, nor domestic afflictions, nor political disappointments, nor abuse, nor proscription, nor neglect, had power to disturb his sedate and majestic patience. His spirits do not seem to have been high, but they were singularly equable. His temper was serious, perhaps stern; but it was a temper which no sufferings could render sullen or fretful. Such as it was when, on the eve of great events, he returned from his travels, in the prime of health and manly beauty, loaded with literary distinction, and glowing with patriotic hopes, such it continued to be when, after having experienced every calamity which is incident to our nature, old, poor, sightless, and disgraced, he retired to his hovel to die."

Chief Characteristic of his Poetry.-"The most striking characteristic of the poetry of Milton is the extreme remoteness of the associations by means of which It acts on the reader. Its effect is produced, not so much by what it expresses, as by

what it suggests: not so much by the ideas which it directly conveys, as by other ideas which are connected with them. He electrifies the mind through conductors. The most unimaginative man must understand the Iliad. Homer gives him no choice, and requires from him no exertion, but takes the whole upon himself, and sets the images in so clear a light, that it is impossible to be blind to them. The works of Milton cannot be comprehended or enjoyed, unless the mind of the reader co-operate with that of the writer. He does not paint a finished picture, or play for a mere passive listener. He sketches, and leaves others to fill up the outline. He strikes the key-note, and expects his hearers to make out the melody."

The Enchantment of his Verse.—“We often hear of the magical influence of poetry. The expression in general means nothing: but applied to the writings of Milton, it is most appropriate. His poetry acts like an incantation. Its merit lies less in its obvious meaning than in its occult power. There would seem, at first sight, to be no more in his words than in other words. But they are words of enchantment. No sooner are they pronounced, than the past is present and the distant near. New forms of beauty start at once into existence, and all the burial-places of the memory give up their dead."

L'Allegro and Пl Penseroso.-"In none of the works of Milton is his peculiar manner more happily displayed than in the Allegro and the Penseroso. It is impossible to conceive that the mechanism of language can be brought to a more exquisite degree of perfection. These poems differ from others, as attar of roses differs from ordinary rose water, the close-packed essence from the thin diluted mixture. They are indeed not so much.poems, as collections of hints, from each of which the reader is to make out a poem for himself. Every epithet is a text for a stanza."

His Prose Writings. — “It is to be regretted that the prose writings of Milton should, in our time, be so little read. As compositions, they deserve the attention of every man who wishes to become acquainted with the full power of the English language. They abound with passages compared with which the finest declamations of Burke sink into insignificance. They are a perfect field of cloth of gold. The style is stiff with gorgeous embroidery. Not even in the earlier books of the Paradise Lost has the great poet ever risen higher than in those parts of his controversial works in which his feelings, excited by conflict, find a vent in bursts of devotional and lyric rapture. It is, to borrow his own majestic language, 'a sevenfold chorus of hallelujabs and harping symphonies.""

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Waller.

Edmund Waller, 1605-1687, was in his day regarded as one of the great lights of English literature. It is now only by sufferance that he holds in literature any place at all.

His Career. Waller studied at Eton and Cambridge, and was member of Parliament almost continuously from his eighteenth year to his death. His political career was not glorious, to say the least. In the Long Parliament he was at first an adherent of Hampden. He then went over to the royalists, and being detected in a plot to re-establish the authority of Charles I., he was obliged to make full confession in abject terms and was banished the kingdom. He was allowed to re

turn in 1653, and soon succeeded in ingratiating himself into favor with Cromwell, whose praises he sang in his well-known Panegyric to my Lord Protector. This is one of his happiest efforts. When Charles II. was restored, Waller composed a similar poem on the King's happy return, which was not so successful. Thenceforth his life was uneventful.

His Poems. Waller's poems are nearly all short occasional pieces, chiefly of an amatory nature. The Sacharissa of his verse was Lady Dorothy Sidney, whom he wooed in vain. In connection with Godolphin, Waller also translated the fourth book of the Æneid.

His Popularity.-Waller was one of the popular poets of the age of the Restoration, and regarded as the most elegant and refined master of style. But the following generation, and also our own, are more discriminating and more exacting.

"There are not, perhaps, two hundred really good lines in Waller's poetry. Extravagant conceits, feeble verses, and defective rhymes, are constantly recurring, although the poems, being mostly short, are not tedious. Of elevated imagination, profound thought or passion, he was utterly destitute; and it is only in detached passages, single stanzas, or small pieces, finished with great care and excellence, as the lines on a lady's girdle, those on the dwarfs, and a few of the lyrics, that we can discern that play of fancy, verbal sweetness, and harmony which gave so great a name to Edmund Waller for more than a hundred years." — Carruthers.

Cowley.

Abraham Cowley, 1618-1667, was accounted in his day the greatest of English poets. This verdict also has long since been reversed.

Cowley was, undoubtedly, a man of abilities, and an accomplished scholar; but his poems lack truth and naturalness. He tried to make poetry out of what he had read in books, instead of making it out of his own experience of life.

Career. Being a royalist, Cowley followed the Stuarts into exile during the time of the Commonwealth, and came in with them at the Restoration. He did not, however, obtain from the restored family such reward as his fidelity and services seemed to warrant, and his last days were not happy.

Poems. Cowley's poetical works are divided into four parts: Miscellanies; Mistress, or Love Verses; Pindaric Odes; and The Davideis, a heroic poem, celebrating the troubles of David.

"Who now reads Cowley? If he pleases yet,

His moral pleases, not his pointed wit:

Forgot his epic, nay, Pindaric art,

But still I love the language of his heart."- Pope.

Prose Writings. - Cowley wrote several essays in prose, which are now more admired than his poems. In his prose pieces, he forgets the conceits and appellations which mar his poetry, and gives a natural and pleasing expression to his thoughts. "No author ever kept his verse and his prose at a greater distance from each other." - Dr. Johnson.

"The manners of the Court and of the age inspired Cowley with a portion of gallantry, but he seems to have had no deep or permanent passion. He expresses his love in a style almost as fantastic as the euphuism of old Lyly or Sir Piercie Shafton. 'Poets,' he says, 'are scarce thought free men of their company, without paying some duties and obliging themselves to be true to love;' and it is evident that he himself composed his 'Mistress' as a sort of task-work. There is so much of this wit-writing in Cowley's poetry, that the reader is generally glad to escape from it into his prose, where he has good sense and right feeling, instead of cold, though glittering conceits, forced analogies, and counterfeited passion. His anacreontic pieces are the happiest of his poems; in them he is easy, lively, and full of spirit. They are redolent of joy and youth, and of images of natural and poetic beauty, that touch the feelings as well as the fancy. His 'Pindaric Odes,' though deformed by metaphysical conceits, though they do not roll the full flood of Pindar's unnavigable song, yet contain some noble lines and illustrations."- Chambers.

Wither.

George Wither, 1588-1667, was a poet of some note in his own day, who, after having passed almost into oblivion, has in recent times risen again into favor.

His Career. Wither was educated at Oxford, and subsequently studied law, but seems to have neglected the profession for literature and politics. He was imprisoned for a satire entitled Abuses Stript and Whipt, in 1614. While in prison, he composed a counter-satire dedicated to the King, which gained his release. In 1639, he took part in the King's expedition against the Scotch, but soon after turned to the other side and joined the Parliament forces. Under Cromwell, he was made Major-General of the County of Surrey. After the Restoration, however, he was imprisoned for his Vox Vulgi. Wither was, until recently, neglected by critics and the public; and his restoration to notice is due chiefly to the praises of Southey, Lamb, and others in the present century.

Works. Wither was an exceedingly voluminous writer. The list of his separate publications numbers nearly one hundred. Among the

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