Life Of John Milton by Richard Garnett (best free novels TXT) 📖
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- Author: Richard Garnett
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Milton Exceedingly Deficient In Consideration For The Inexperienced Girl
Of Half His Age, Brought From A Gay Circle Of Friends And Kindred To A
Grave, Studious House. But It Could Not Well Have Been Otherwise. Milton
Was Constitutionally Unfit "To Soothe And Fondle," And His Theories
Cannot Have Contributed To Correct His Practice. His "He For God Only,
She For God In Him," Condenses Every Fallacy About Woman's True Relation
To Her Husband And Her Maker. In His Tractate On Education There Is Not
A Word On The Education Of Girls, And Yet He Wanted An Intellectual
Female Companion. Where Should The Woman Be Found At Once Submissive
Enough And Learned Enough To Meet Such Inconsistent Exigencies? It Might
Chapter 5 Pg 50Have Been Said To Him As Afterwards To Byron: "You Talk Like A
Rosicrucian, Who Will Love Nothing But A Sylph, Who Does Not Believe In
The Existence Of A Sylph, And Who Yet Quarrels With The Whole Universe
For Not Containing A Sylph."
If Milton's First Tract On Divorce Had Not Been A Mere Impromptu,
Extorted By The Misery Of Finding "An Image Of Earth And Phlegm" In Her
"With Whom He Looked To Be The Co-Partner Of A Sweet And Gladsome
Society," He Would Certainly Have Rendered His Argument More Cogent And
Elaborate. The Tract, In Its Inspired Portions, Is A Fine Impassioned
Poem, Fitter For The Parliament Of Love Than The Parliament At
Westminster. The Second Edition Is Far More Satisfactory As Regards That
Class Of Arguments Which Alone Were Likely To Impress The Men Of His
Generation, Those Derived From The Authority Of The Scriptures And Of
Divines. In One Of His Principal Points All Protestants And Philosophers
Will Confess Him To Be Right, His Reference Of The Matter To Scripture
And Reason, And Repudiation Of The Mediæval Canon Law. It Is Not Here,
Nevertheless, That Milton Is Most At Home. The Strength Of His Position
Is His Lofty Idealism, His Magnificent Conception Of The Institution He
Discusses, And His Disdain For Whatever Degrades It To Conventionality
Or Mere Expediency. "His Ideal Of True And Perfect Marriage," Says Mr.
Ernest Myers, "Appeared To Him So Sacred That He Could Not Admit That
Considerations Of Expediency Might Justify The Law In Maintaining Sacred
Any Meaner Kind, Or At Least Any Kind In Which The Vital Element Of
Spiritual Harmony Was Not." Here He Is Impregnable And Above Criticism,
But His Handling Of The More Sublunary Departments Of The Subject Must
Be Unsatisfactory To Legislators, Who Have Usually Deemed His Sublime
Idealism Fitter For The Societies Of The Blest Than For The Imperfect
Communities Of Mankind. When His "Doctrine And Discipline" Shall Have
Been Sanctioned By Lawgivers, We May Be Sure That The World Is Already
Much Better, Or Much Worse.
As The Girl-Wife Vanishes From Milton's Household Her Place Is Taken By
The Venerable Figure Of His Father. The Aged Man Had Removed With His
Son Christopher To Reading, Probably Before August, 1641, When The Birth
Of A Child Of His Name--Christopher's Offspring As It Should
Seem--Appears In The Reading Register. Christopher Was To Exemplify The
Law Of Reversion To A Primitive Type. Though Not Yet A Roman Catholic
Like His Grandfather, He Had Retrograded Into Royalism, Without Becoming
On That Account Estranged From His Elder Brother. The Surrender Of
Reading To The Parliamentary Forces In April, 1643, Involved His
"Dissettlement," And The Migration Of His Father To The House Of John,
With Whom He Was Moreover Better In Accord In Religion And Politics.
Little External Change Resulted, "The Old Gentleman," Says Phillips,
"Being Wholly Retired To His Rest And Devotion, With The Least Trouble
Imaginable." About The Same Time The Household Received Other Additions
In The Shape Of Pupils, Admitted, Phillips Is Careful To Assure Us, By
Way Of Favour, As M. Jourdain Selected Stuffs For His Friends. Milton's
Pamphlet Was Perhaps Not Yet Published, Or Not Generally Known To Be
His, Or His Friends Were Indifferent To Public Sentiment. Opinion Was
Unquestionably Against Milton, Nor Can He Have Profited Much By The
Support, However Practical, Of A Certain Mrs. Attaway, Who Thought That
Chapter 5 Pg 51"She, For Her Part, Would Look More Into It, For She Had An Unsanctified
Husband, That Did Not Walk In The Way Of Sion, Nor Speak The Language Of
Canaan," And By And By Actually Did What Milton Only Talked Of Doing. We
Have Already Seen That He Had Incurred Danger Of Prosecution From The
Stationers' Company, And In July, 1644, He Was Denounced By Name From
The Pulpit By A Divine Of Much Note, Herbert Palmer, Author Of A Book
Long Attributed To Bacon. But, If Criticised, He Was Read. By 1645 His
Divorce Tract Was In The Third Edition, And He Had Added Three More
Pamphlets--One To Prove That The Revered Martin Bucer Had Agreed With
Him; Two, The "Tetrachordon" And "Colasterion," Directed Against His
Principal Opponents, Palmer, Featley, Caryl, Prynne, And An Anonymous
Pamphleteer, Who Seems To Have Been A Somewhat Contemptible Person, A
Serving-Man Turned Attorney, But Whose Production Contains Some Not
Unwelcome Hints On The Personal Aspects Of Milton's Controversy. "We
Believe You Count No Woman To Due Conversation Accessible, As To You,
Except She Can Speak Hebrew, Greek, Latin, And French, And Dispute
Against The Canon Law As Well As You." Milton's Later Tracts Are Not
Specially Interesting, Except For The Reiteration Of His Fine And Bold
Idealism On The Institution Of Marriage, Qualified Only By His No Less
Strenuous Insistance On The Subjection Of Woman. He Allows, However,
That "It Is No Small Glory To Man That A Creature So Like Him Should Be
Made Subject To Him," And That "Particular Exceptions May Have Place, If
She Exceed Her Husband In Prudence And Dexterity, And He Contentedly
Yield; For Then A Superior And More Natural Law Comes In, That The Wiser
Should Govern The Less Wise, Whether Male Or Female."
Milton's Seminary, Meanwhile, Was Prospering To Such A Degree As To
Compel Him To Take A More Commodious House. Was It Necessity Or
Enthusiasm That Kept Him To A Task So Little Compatible With The Repose
He Must Have Needed Even For Such Intellectual Exercise As The
"Areopagitica," Much More For The High Designs He Had Not Ceased To
Meditate In Verse? Enthusiasm, One Would Certainly Say, Only That It Is
Impossible To Tell To What Extent His Father's Income, Chiefly Derived
From Money Out At Interest, May Have Been Impaired By The Confusion Of
The Times. Whether He Had Done Rightly Or Wrongly In Taking The Duties
Of A Preceptor Upon Himself, His Nephew's Account Attests The
Self-Sacrificing Zeal With Which He Discharged Them: We Groan As We Read
Of Hours Which Should Have Been Devoted To Lonely Musing Or Noble
Composition Passed In "Increasing As It Were By Proxy" His Knowledge Of
"Frontinus His Stratagems, With The Two Egregious Poets Lucretius And
Manilius." He Might Also Have Been Better Employed Than In Dictating "A
Tractate He Thought Fit To Collect From The Ablest Of Divines Who Have
Written On That Subject Of Atheism, Amesius, Wollebius," &C. Here Should
Be Comfort For Those Who Fear With Pattison That Milton's Addiction To
Politics Deprived Us Of Unnumbered "Comuses." The Excerpter Of Amesius
And Wollebius, As We Have So Often Insisted, Needed Great Stimulus For
Great Achievements. Such Stimulus Would Probably Have Come
Superabundantly If He Could At This Time Have Had His Way, For The Most
Moral Of Men Was Bent On Assuming A Direct Antagonism To Conventional
Morality. He Had Maintained That Marriage Ought To Be Dissolved For Mere
Incompatibility; His Case Must Have Seemed Much Stronger Now That
Incompatibility Had Produced Desertion. He Was Not The Man To Shrink
From Acting On His Opinion When The Fit Season Seemed To Him To Have
Chapter 5 Pg 52Arrived; And In The Summer Of 1645 He Was Openly Paying His Addresses To
"A Very Handsome And Witty Gentlewoman, One Of Dr. Davis's Daughters."
Considering The Consequences To The Female Partner To The Contract, It
Is Clear That Miss Davis Could Not Be Expected To Entertain Milton's
Proposals Unless Her Affection For Him Was Very Strong Indeed. It Is
Equally Clear That He Cannot Be Acquitted Of Selfishness In Urging His
Suit Unless He Was Quite Sure Of This, And His Own Heart Also Was Deeply
Interested. An Event Was About To Occur Which Seems To Prove That These
Conditions Were Wanting.
Nearly Two Years Have Passed Since We Have Heard Of Mary Milton, Who Has
Been Living With Her Parents In Oxfordshire. Her Position As A Nominal
Wife Must Have Been Most Uncomfortable, But There Is No Indication Of
Any Effort On Her Part To Alter It, Until The Civil War Was Virtually
Terminated By The Battle Of Naseby, June, 1645. Obstinate Malignants Had
Then Nothing To Expect But Fine And Forfeiture, And Their Son-In-Law's
Puritanism May Have Presented Itself To The Powells In The Light Of A
Merciful Dispensation. Rumours Of Milton's Suit To Miss Davis May Also
Have Reached Them; And They Would Know That An Illegal Tie Would Be As
Fatal To All Hopes Of Reconciliation As A Legal One. So, One Day In July
Or August, 1645, Milton, Paying His Usual Call On A Kinsman Named
Blackborough,[3] Not Otherwise Mentioned In His Life, Who Lived In St.
Martin's-Le-Grand Lane, Where The General Post Office Now Stands, "Was
Surprised To See One Whom He Thought To Have Never Seen More, Making
Submission And Begging Pardon On Her Knees Before Him." There Are Two
Similar Scenes In His Writings, Of Which This May Have Formed The
Groundwork, Dalila's Visit To Her Betrayed Husband In "Samson
Agonistes," And Eve's Repentance In The Tenth Book Of "Paradise Lost."
Samson Replies, "Out, Out, Hyæna!" Eve's "Lowly Plight"
"In Adam Wrought
Commiseration;...
As One Disarmed, His Anger All He Lost,
And Thus With Peaceful Words Upraised Her Soon."
Phillips Appears To Intimate That The Penitent's Reception Began Like
Dalila's And Ended Like Eve's. "He Might Probably At First Make Some
Show Of Aversion And Rejection; But Partly His Own Generous Nature, More
Inclinable To Reconciliation Than To Perseverance In Anger And Revenge,
And Partly The Strong Intercession Of Friends On Both Sides, Soon
Brought Him To An Act Of Oblivion, And A Firm League Of Peace For The
Future." With A Man Of His Magnanimous Temper, Conscious No Doubt That
He Had Himself Been Far From Blameless, Such A Result Was To Be
Expected. But It Was Certainly Well That He Had Made No Deeper
Impression Than He Seems
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