Life Of John Milton by Richard Garnett (best free novels TXT) 📖
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- Author: Richard Garnett
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Before It In A Discussion Of General Principles Is Frittered Away In
Tiresome Wrangling Over A Multitude Of Minutiæ. His Vigorous Blows Avail
But Little Against The Impalpable Ideal With Which He Is Contending; His
Arguments Might Frequently Convince A Court Of Justice, But Could Do
Nothing To Dispel The Sorcery Which Enthralled The Popular Imagination.
Milton's "Eikonoklastes" Had Only Three Editions, Including A
Translation, Within The Year; The "Eikon Basilike" Is Said To Have Had
Fifty.
Milton's Reputation As A Political Controversialist, However, Was Not To
Rest Upon "Eikonoklastes," Or To Be Determined By A Merely English
Public. The Royalists Had Felt The Necessity Of Appealing To The General
Verdict Of Europe, And Had Entrusted Their Cause To The Most Eminent
Classical Scholar Of The Age. To Us The Idea Of Commissioning A
Political Manifesto From A Philologist Seems Eccentric; But Erudition
And The Erudite Were Never So Highly Prized As In The Seventeenth
Century. Men's Minds Were Still Enchained By Authority, And The
Precedents Of Agis, Or Brutus, Or Nehemiah, Weighed Like Dicta Of
Solomon Or Justinian. The Man Of Greek, Or Latin, Or Hebrew Learning
Was, Therefore, A Person Of Much Greater Consequence Than He Is Now, And
So Much The More If He Enjoyed A High Reputation And Wrote Good Latin.
All These Qualifications Were Combined In Claudius Salmasius, A
Frenchman, Who Had Laid Scholars Under An Eternal Obligation By His
Discovery Of The Palatine Ms. Of The Anthology At Heidelberg, And Who,
Having Embraced Protestantism From Conviction, Lived In Splendid Style
At Leyden, Where The Mere Light Of His Countenance--For He Did Not
Teach--Was Valued By The University At Three Thousand Livres A Year. It
Seems Marvellous That A Man Should Become Dictator Of The Republic Of
Letters By Editing "Solinus" And "The Augustan History," However Ably;
But An Achievement Like This, Not A "Paradise Lost" Or A "Werther" Was
The _Sic Itur Ad Astra_ Of The Time. On The Strength Of Such Salmasius
Had Pronounced _Ex Cathedra_ On A Multiplicity Of Topics, From
Episcopacy To Hair-Powder, And There Was No Bishop And No Perfumer
Chapter 6 Pg 60Between The Black Sea And The Irish Who Would Not Rather Have The
Scholar For Him Than Against Him. A Man, Too, To Be Named With Respect;
No Mere Annotator, But A Most Sagacious Critic; Peevish, It Might Be,
But Had He Not Seven Grievous Disorders At Once? One Who Had Shown Such
Independence And Integrity In Various Transactions Of His Life, That We
May Be Very Sure That Charles Ii.'S Hundred Jacobuses, If Ever Given Or
Even Promised, Were The Very Least Of The Inducements That Called Him
Into The Field Against The Executioners Of Charles I.
Whether, However, The Hundred Jacobuses Were Forthcoming Or Not,
Salmasius's Undertaking Was None The Less A Commission From Charles Ii.,
And The Circumstance Put Him Into A False Position, And Increased The
Difficulty Of His Task. Human Feeling Is Not Easily Reconciled To The
Execution Of A Bad Magistrate, Unless He Has Also Been A Bad Man.
Charles I. Was By No Means A Bad Man, Only A Mistaken One. He Had Been
Guilty Of Many Usurpations And Much Perfidy: But He Had Honestly
Believed His Usurpations Within The Limits Of His Prerogative; And His
Breaches Of Faith Were Committed Against Insurgents Whom He Regarded As
Seamen Look Upon Pirates, Or Shepherds Upon Wolves. Salmasius, However,
Pleading By Commission From Charles's Son, Can Urge No Such Mitigating
Plea. He Is Compelled To Maintain The Inviolability Even Of Wicked
Sovereigns, And Spends Two-Thirds Of His Treatise In Supporting A
Proposition To State Which Is To Refute It In The Nineteenth Century. In
The Latter Part He Is On Stronger Ground. Charles Had Unquestionably
Been Tried And Condemned By A Tribunal Destitute Of Legal Authority, And
Executed Contrary To The Wish And Will Of The Great Majority Of His
Subjects. But This Was A Theme For An Englishman To Handle. Salmasius
Cannot Think Himself Into It, Nor Had He Sufficient Imagination To Be
Inspired By Charles As Burke (Who, Nevertheless, Has Borrowed From Him)
Was To Be Inspired By Marie Antoinette.
His Book--Entitled "Defensio Regia Pro Carolo I."--Appeared In October
Or November, 1649. On January 8, 1650, It Was Ordered By The Council Of
State "That Mr. Milton Do Prepare Something In Answer To The Book Of
Salmasius, And When He Hath Done It Bring It To The Council." There Were
Many Reasons Why He Should Be Entrusted With This Commission, And Only
One Why He Should Not; But One Which Would Have Seemed Conclusive To
Most Men. His Sight Had Long Been Failing. He Had Already Lost The Use
Of One Eye, And Was Warned That If He Imposed This Additional Strain
Upon His Sight, That Of The Other Would Follow. He Had Seen The Greatest
Astronomer Of The Age Condemned To Inactivity And Helplessness, And
Could Measure His Own By The Misery Of Galileo. He Calmly Accepted His
Duty Along With Its Penalty, Without Complaint Or Reluctance. If He
Could Have Performed His Task In The Spirit With Which He Undertook It,
He Would Have Produced A Work More Sublime Than "Paradise Lost."
This, Of Course, Was Not Possible. The Efficiency Of A Controversialist
In The Seventeenth Century Was Almost Estimated In The Ratio Of His
Scurrility, Especially When He Wrote Latin. From This Point Of View
Milton Had Got His Opponent At A Tremendous Disadvantage. With The Best
Will In The World, Salmasius Had Come Short In Personal Abuse, For, As
The Initiator Of The Dispute, He Had No Personal Antagonist. In
Denouncing The General Herd Of Regicides And Parricides He Had Hurt
Nobody In Particular, While Concentrating All Milton's Lightnings On His
Chapter 6 Pg 61Own Unlucky Head. They Seared And Scathed A Literary Dictator Whom
Jealous Enemies Had Long Sighed To Behold Insulted And Humiliated, While
Surprise Equalled Delight At Seeing The Blow Dealt From A Quarter So
Utterly Unexpected. There Is No Comparison Between The Invective Of
Milton And Of Salmasius; Not So Much From Milton's Superiority As A
Controversialist, Though This Is Very Evident, As Because He Writes
Under The Inspiration Of A True Passion. His Scorn Of The Presumptuous
Intermeddler Who Has Dared To Libel The People Of England Is Ten
Thousand Times More Real Than Salmasius's Official Indignation At The
Execution Of Charles. His Contempt For Salmasius's Pedantry Is Quite
Genuine; And He Revels In Ecstasies Of Savage Glee When Taunting The
Apologist Of Tyranny With His Own Notorious Subjection To A Tyrannical
Wife. But The Reviler In Milton Is Too Far Ahead Of The Reasoner. He
Seems To Set More Store By His Personalities Than By His Principles. On
The Question Of The Legality Of Charles's Execution He Has Indeed Little
Argument To Offer; And His Views On The Wider Question Of The General
Responsibility Of Kings, Sound And Noble In Themselves, Suffer From The
Mass Of Irrelevant Quotation With Which It Was In That Age Necessary To
Prop Them Up. The Great Success Of His Reply ("Pro Populo Anglicano
Defensio") Arose Mainly From The General Satisfaction That Salmasius
Should At Length Have Met With His Match. The Book, Published In Or
About March, 1651, Instantly Won Over European Public Opinion, So Far As
The Question Was A Literary One. Every Distinguished Foreigner Then
Resident In London, Milton Says, Either Called Upon Him To Congratulate
Him, Or Took The Opportunity Of A Casual Meeting. By May, Says Heinsius,
Five Editions Were Printed Or Printing In Holland, And Two Translations.
"I Had Expected Nothing Of Such Quality From The Englishman," Writes
Vossius. The Diet Of Ratisbon Ordered "That All The Books Of Miltonius
Should Be Searched For And Confiscated." Parisian Magistrates Burned It
On Their Own Responsibility. Salmasius Himself Was Then At Stockholm,
Where Queen Christina, Who Did Not, Like Catherine Ii., Recognize The
Necessity Of "Standing By Her Order," Could Not Help Letting Him See
That She Regarded Milton As The Victor. Vexation, Some Thought,
Contributed As Much As Climate To Determine His Return To Holland. He
Died In September, 1653, At Spa, As, Remote From Books, But Making His
Memory His Library, He Was Penning His Answer. This Unfinished
Production, Edited By His Son, Appeared After The Restoration, When The
Very Embers Of The Controversy Had Grown Cold, And The Palm Of Literary
Victory Had Been Irrevocably Adjudged To Milton.
Milton Could Hear The Plaudits, He Could Not See The Wreaths. The Total
Loss Of His Sight May Be Dated From March, 1652, A Year After The
Publication Of His Reply. It Was Then Necessary To Provide Him With An
Assistant--That No Change Should Have Been Made In His Position Or
Salary Shows Either The Value Attached To His Services Or The Feeling
That Special Consideration Was Due To One Who Had Voluntarily Given His
Eyes For His Country. "The Choice Lay Before Me," He Writes, "Between
Dereliction Of A Supreme Duty And Loss Of Eyesight; In Such A Case I
Could Not Listen To The Physician, Not If Æsculapius Himself Had Spoken
From His Sanctuary; I Could Not But Obey That Inward Monitor, I Know Not
What, That Spoke To Me From Heaven." In September, 1654, He Described
The Symptoms Of His Infirmity To His Friend, The Greek Philaras, Who Had
Chapter 6 Pg 62Flattered Him With Hopes Of Cure From The Dexterity Of The French
Oculist Thevenot. He Tells Him How His Sight Began To Fail About Ten
Years Before; How In The Morning He Felt His Eyes Shrinking From The
Effort To Read Anything; How The Light Of A Candle Appeared Like A
Spectrum Of Various Colours; How, Little By Little, Darkness Crept Over
The Left Eye; And Objects Beheld By The Right Seemed To Waver To And
Fro; How This Was Accompanied By A Kind Of Dizziness And Heaviness Which
Weighed Upon Him Throughout The Afternoon. "Yet The Darkness Which Is
Perpetually Before Me Seems Always Nearer To A Whitish Than To A
Blackish, And Such That, When The Eye Rolls Itself, There Is Admitted,
As Through A Small Chink, A Certain Little Trifle Of Light." Elsewhere
He Says That His Eyes Are Not Disfigured:
"Clear
To Outward View Of Blemish Or Of Spot."
These Symptoms Have Been Pronounced To Resemble Those Of Glaucoma.
Milton Himself, In "Paradise Lost," Hesitates Between Amaurosis ("Drop
Serene") And Cataract ("Suffusion"). Nothing Is Said Of His Having Been
Recommended To Use Glasses Or Other Precautionary Contrivances.
Cheselden Was Not Yet, And The Oculist's Art Was Probably Not Well
Understood. The Sufferer Himself, While Not Repining Or Despairing
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