Lives of the Poets, Vol. 1 by Samuel Johnson

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Those authors, therefore, are to be read at schools that supply most
axioms of prudence, most principles of moral truth, and most materials
for conversation; and these purposes are best served by poets, orators,
and historians. Let me not be censured for this digression, as pedantick
or paradoxical; for, if I have Milton against me, I have Socrates on my
side. It was his labour to turn philosophy from the study of nature to
speculations upon life; but the innovators whom I oppose are turning off
attention from life to nature. They seem to think, that we are placed
here to watch the growth of plants, or the motions of the stars.
Socrates was rather of opinion, that what we had to learn was, how to do
good, and avoid evil:

'Oti toi en megaroisi kakon t agathon te tetukta']

Of institutions we may judge by their effects. From this wonder-working
academy, I do not know that there ever proceeded any man very eminent
for knowledge: its only genuine product, I believe, is a small history
of poetry, written in Latin by his nephew Philips, of which, perhaps,
none of my readers has ever heard[32].

That in his school, as in every thing else which he undertook, he
laboured with great diligence, there is no reason for doubting. One part
of his method deserves general imitation. He was careful to instruct his
scholars in religion. Every Sunday was spent upon theology; of which
he dictated a short system, gathered from the writers that were then
fashionable in the Dutch universities.

He set his pupils an example of hard study and spare diet; only now and
then he allowed himself to pass a day of festivity and indulgence with
some gay gentlemen of Gray's inn.

He now began to engage in the controversies of the times, and lent
his breath to blow the flames of contention. In 1641, he published a
treatise of Reformation, in two books, against the established church;
being willing to help the puritans, who were, he says, "inferior to the
prelates in learning."

Hall, bishop of Norwich, had published an Humble Remonstrance, in
defence of episcopacy; to which, in 1641, five ministers[33], of whose
names the first letters made the celebrated word Smectymnuus, gave their
answer. Of this answer a confutation was attempted by the learned Usher;
and to the confutation Milton published a reply, entitled, of Prelatical
Episcopacy, and whether it may be deduced from the Apostolical Times, by
virtue of those testimonies which are alleged to that purpose in some
late treatises, one whereof goes under the name of James, lord bishop of
Armagh.

I have transcribed this title to show, by his contemptuous mention of
Usher, that he had now adopted the puritanical savageness of manners.
His next work was, the Reason of Church Government urged against
Prelacy, by Mr. John Milton, 1642. In this book he discovers, not with
ostentatious exultation, but with calm confidence, his high opinion of
his own powers; and promises to undertake something, he yet knows not
what, that may be of use and honour to his country. "This," says he, "is
not to be obtained but by devout prayer to that eternal spirit that can
enrich with all utterance and knowledge, and sends out his seraphim,
with the hallowed fire of his altar, to touch and purify the lips of
whom he pleases. To this must be added, industrious and select reading,
steady observation, and insight into all seemly and generous arts and
affairs; till which in some measure be compast, I refuse not to sustain
this expectation." From a promise like this, at once fervid, pious, and
rational, might be expected the Paradise Lost.

He published, the same year, two more pamphlets, upon the same question.
To one of his antagonists, who affirms that he was "vomited out of the
university," he answers, in general terms: "The fellows of the college,
wherein I spent some years, at my parting, after I had taken two
degrees, as the manner is, signified, many times, how much better it
would content them that I should stay. As for the common approbation or
dislike of that place, as now it is, that I should esteem or disesteem
myself the more for that, too simple is the answerer, if he think to
obtain with me. Of small practice were the physician who could not
judge, by what she and her sister have of long time vomited, that the
worser stuff she strongly keeps in her stomach, but the better she is
ever kecking at, and is queasy; she vomits now out of sickness; but,
before it will be well with her, she must vomit by strong physick. The
university, in the time of her better health, and my younger judgment, I
never greatly admired, but now much less."

This is surely the language of a man who thinks that he has been
injured. He proceeds to describe the course of his conduct, and
the train of his thoughts; and, because he has been suspected of
incontinence, gives an account of his own purity: "That if I be justly
charged," says he, "with this crime, it may come upon me with tenfold
shame."

The style of his piece is rough, and such, perhaps, was that of his
antagonist. This roughness he justifies, by great examples, in a long
digression. Sometimes he tries to be humorous: "Lest I should take him
for some chaplain in hand, some squire of the body to his prelate, one
who serves not at the altar only, but at the court-cupboard, he will
bestow on us a pretty model of himself; and sets me out half a dozen
ptisical mottoes, wherever he had them, hopping short in the measure of
convulsion fits; in which labour the agony of his wit having escaped
narrowly, instead of well-sized periods, he greets us with a quantity of
thumb-ring poesies. And thus ends this section, or rather dissection,
of himself." Such is the controversial merriment of Milton; his gloomy
seriousness is yet more offensive. Such is his malignity, "that hell
grows darker at his frown." His father, after Reading was taken by
Essex, came to reside in his house; and his school increased. At
Whitsuntide, in his thirty-fifth year, he married Mary, the daughter of
Mr. Powel, a justice of the peace in Oxfordshire. He brought her to town
with him, and expected all the advantages of a conjugal life. The lady,
however, seems not much to have delighted in the pleasures of spare
diet and hard study; for, as Philips relates, "having for a month led a
philosophick life, after having been used at home to a great house, and
much company and joviality, her friends, possibly by her own desire,
made earnest suit to have her company the remaining part of the summer;
which was granted, upon a promise of her return at Michaelmas."

Milton was too busy to much miss his wife: he pursued his studies; and
now and then visited the lady Margaret Leigh, whom he has mentioned in
one of his sonnets. At last Michaelmas arrived; but the lady had no
inclination to return to the sullen gloom of her husband's habitation,
and, therefore, very willingly forgot her promise. He sent her a letter,
but had no answer: he sent more with the same success. It could be
alleged that letters miscarry; he, therefore, despatched a messenger,
being by this time too angry to go himself. His messenger was sent back
with some contempt. The family of the lady were cavaliers.

In a man whose opinion of his own merit was like Milton's, less
provocation than this might have raised violent resentment. Milton soon
determined to repudiate her for disobedience; and, being one of those
who could easily find arguments to justify inclination, published, in
1644, the Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce; which was followed by the
Judgment of Martin Bucer concerning Divorce; and the next year, his
Tetrachordon, expositions upon the four chief places of scripture which
treat of marriage.

This innovation was opposed, as might be expected, by the clergy, who,
then holding their famous assembly at Westminster, procured that the
author should be called before the lords; but "that house," says Wood,
"whether approving the doctrine, or not favouring his accusers, did soon
dismiss him."

There seems not to have been much written against him, nor any thing by
any writer of eminence[34]. The antagonist that appeared, is styled by
him "a serving man turned solicitor." Howell, in his Letters, mentions
the new doctrine with contempt[35]: and it was, I suppose, thought more
worthy of derision than of confutation. He complains of this neglect
in two sonnets, of which the first is contemptible and the second not
excellent.

From this time it is observed, that he became an enemy to the
presbyterians, whom he had favoured before. He that changes his party
by his humour, is not more virtuous than he that changes it by his
interest: he loves himself rather than truth.

His wife and her relations now found that Milton was not an unresisting
sufferer of injuries; and, perceiving that he had begun to put
his doctrine in practice, by courting a young woman of great
accomplishments, the daughter of one doctor Davis, who was, however, not
ready to comply, they resolved to endeavour a reunion. He went sometimes
to the house of one Blackborough, his relation, in the lane of St.
Martin-le-grand, and at one of his usual visits was surprised to see his
wife come from another room, and implore forgiveness on her knees. He
resisted her entreaties for awhile; "but partly," says Philips, "his own
generous nature, more inclinable to reconciliation than to perseverance
in anger or 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." It were injurious to omit, that Milton afterwards received her
father and her brothers in his own house, when they were distressed,
with other royalists.

He published, about the same time, his Areopagitica, a speech of Mr.
John Milton, for the liberty of unlicensed printing. The danger of
such unbounded liberty, and the danger of bounding it, have produced a
problem in the science of government, which human understanding seems,
hitherto, unable to solve. If nothing may be published but what civil
authority shall have previously approved, power must always be the
standard of truth; if every dreamer of innovations may propagate his
projects, there can be no settlement; if every murmurer at government
may diffuse discontent, there can be no peace; and if every skeptick in
theology may teach his follies, there can be no religion. The remedy
against these evils is to punish the authors; for it is yet allowed
that every society may punish, though not prevent, the publication of
opinions which that society shall think pernicious; but this punishment,
though it may crush the author, promotes the book; and it seems not more
reasonable to leave the right of printing unrestrained, because writers
may be afterwards censured, than it would be to sleep with doors
unbolted, because by our laws we can hang a thief.

But whatever were his engagements, civil or domestick, poetry was never
long out of his thoughts. About this time (1645) a collection of his
Latin and English poems appeared, in which the Allegro and Penseroso,
with some others, were first published.

He had taken a large house in Barbican, for the reception of scholars;
but the numerous relations of his wife, to whom he generously granted
refuge for awhile, occupied his rooms. In time, however, they went away;
"and the house again," says Philips, "now looked like a house of the
muses only, though the accession of scholars was not great. Possibly
his having proceeded so far in the education of youth may have been the
occasion of his adversaries calling him pedagogue and schoolmaster;
whereas, it is well known he never set up for a publick school, to
teach all the young fry of a parish; but only was willing to impart his
learning and knowledge to his relations, and the sons of gentlemen who
were his intimate friends, and that neither his writings, nor his way of
teaching, ever savoured in the least of pedantry."

Thus laboriously does his nephew extenuate what cannot be denied, and
what might be confessed without disgrace. Milton was not a man who could
become mean by a mean employment. This, however, his warmest friends
seem not to have found; they, therefore, shift and palliate. He did
not sell literature to all comers, at an open shop; he was a chamber
milliner, and measured his commodities only to his friends.

Philips, evidently impatient of viewing him in this state of
degradation, tells us that it was not long continued; and, to raise his
character again, has a mind to invest him with military splendour: "He
is much mistaken," he says, "if there was not, about this time, a design
of making him an adjutant-general in sir William Waller's army. But the
new modelling of the army proved an obstruction to the design." An
event cannot be set at a much greater distance than by having been only
"designed about some time," if a man "be not much mistaken." Milton
shall be a pedagogue no longer; for, if Philips be not much mistaken,
somebody at some time designed him for a soldier.

About the time that the army was new-modelled, (1645,) he removed to
a smaller house in Holborn, which opened backward into Lincoln's inn
fields. He is not known to have published any thing afterwards, till
the king's death, when, finding his murderers condemned by the
presbyterians, he wrote a treatise to justify it, and "to compose the
minds of the people."

He made some Remarks on the Articles of Peace between Ormond and the
Irish Rebels. While he contented himself to write, he, perhaps, did only
what his conscience dictated; and if he did not very vigilantly watch
the influence of his own passions, and the gradual prevalence of
opinions, first willingly admitted, and then habitually indulged; if
objections, by being overlooked, were forgotten, and desire superinduced
conviction; he yet shared only the common weakness of mankind, and might
be no less sincere than his opponents. But, as faction seldom leaves a
man honest, however it might find him, Milton is suspected of having
interpolated the book called Icon Basilike, which the council of state,
to whom he was now made Latin secretary, employed him to censure, by
inserting a prayer taken from Sidney's Arcadia, and imputing it to the
king; whom he charges, in his Iconoclastes, with the use of this prayer,
as with a heavy crime, in the indecent language with which prosperity
had emboldened the advocates for rebellion to insult all that is
venerable or great: "Who would have imagined so little fear in him of
the true all-seeing deity, as, immediately before his death, to pop into
the hands of the grave bishop that attended him, as a special relique of
his saintly exercises, a prayer, stolen word for word, from the mouth of
a heathen woman, praying to a heathen god?"

The papers which the king gave to Dr. Juxon, on the scaffold, the
regicides took away, so that they were, at least, the publishers of this
prayer; and Dr. Birch, who had examined the question with great care,
was inclined to think them the forgers. The use of it, by adaptation,
was innocent; and they who could so noisily censure it, with a
little extension of their malice, could contrive what they wanted to
accuse[36].

King Charles the second, being now sheltered in Holland, employed
Salmasius, professor of polite learning at Leyden, to write a defence of
his father and of monarchy; and, to excite his industry, gave him, as
was reported, a hundred Jacobuses. Salmasius was a man of skill in
languages, knowledge of antiquity, and sagacity of emendatory criticism,
almost exceeding all hope of human attainment; and having, by excessive
praises, been confirmed in great confidence of himself, though he
probably had not much considered the principles of society, or the
rights of government, undertook the employment without distrust of his
own qualifications; and, as his expedition in writing was wonderful, in
1649, published Defensio Regis.

To this Milton was required to write a sufficient answer; which he
performed (1651) in such a manner, that Hobbes declared himself unable
to decide whose language was best, or whose arguments were worst. In my
opinion, Milton's periods are smoother, neater, and more pointed; but he
delights himself with teasing his adversary, as much as with confuting
him. He makes a foolish allusion of Salmasius, whose doctrine he
considers as servile and unmanly, to the stream of Salmacis, which,
whoever entered, left half his virility behind him. Salmasius was a
Frenchman, and was unhappily married to a scold: "Tu es Gallus," says
Milton, "et, ut aiunt, minium gallinaceus." But his supreme pleasure is
to tax his adversary, so renowned for criticism, with vitious Latin. He
opens his book with telling that he has used _persona_, which, according
to Milton, signifies only a _mask_, in a sense not known to the Romans,
by applying it as we apply _person_. But, as Nemesis is always on the
watch, it is memorable that he has enforced the charge of a solecism by
an expression in itself grossly solecistical, when, for one of those
supposed blunders, he says, as Ker, and, I think, some one before him,
has remarked, "propino te grammatistis tuis _vapulandum_[37]." From
_vapulo_, which has a passive sense, _vapulandus_ can never be derived.
No man forgets his original trade: the rights of nations, and of kings,
sink into questions of grammar, if grammarians discuss them.

Milton, when he undertook this answer, was weak of body and dim of
sight; but his will was forward, and what was wanting of health was
supplied by zeal. He was rewarded with a thousand pounds, and his book
was much read; for paradox, recommended by spirit and elegance, easily
gains attention; and he, who told every man that he was equal to his
king, could hardly want an audience.

That the performance of Salmasius was not dispersed with equal rapidity,
or read with equal eagerness, is very credible. He taught only the stale
doctrine of authority, and the unpleasing duty of submission; and he had
been so long not only the monarch, but the tyrant, of literature, that
almost all mankind were delighted to find him defied and insulted by a
new name, not yet considered as any one's rival. If Christina, as is
said, commended the Defence of the People, her purpose must be to
torment Salmasius, who was then at court; for neither her civil station,
nor her natural character, could dispose her to favour the doctrine, who
was by birth a queen, and by temper despotick.

That Salmasius was, from the appearance of Milton's book, treated with
neglect, there is not much proof; but to a man, so long accustomed to
admiration, a little praise of his antagonist would be sufficiently
offensive, and might incline him to leave Sweden, from which, however,
he was dismissed, not with any mark of contempt, but with a train of
attendance scarcely less than regal.

He prepared a reply, which, left as it was imperfect, was published by
his son in the year of the restoration. In the beginning, being probably
most in pain for his Latinity, he endeavours to defend his use of the
word _persona_; but, if I remember right, he misses a better authority
than any that he has found, that of Juvenal in his fourth satire:

Quid agas, cum dira et foedior omni
Crimine _persona_ est?

As Salmasius reproached Milton with losing his eyes in the quarrel,
Milton delighted himself with the belief that he had shortened
Salmasius's life, and both, perhaps, with more malignity than reason.
Salmasius died at the spa, Sept. 3, 1653; and, as controvertists are
commonly said to be killed by their last dispute, Milton was flattered
with the credit of destroying him.

Cromwell had now dismissed the parliament by the authority of which he
had destroyed monarchy, and commenced monarch himself, under the title
of protector, but with kingly, and more than kingly, power. That his
authority was lawful, never was pretended: he himself founded his right
only in necessity; but Milton, having now tasted the honey of publick
employment, would not return to hunger and philosophy, but, continuing
to exercise his office, under a manifest usurpation, betrayed to his
power that liberty which he had defended. Nothing can be more just than
that rebellion should end in slavery; that he, who had justified the
murder of his king, for some acts which seemed to him unlawful, should
now sell his services, and his flatteries, to a tyrant, of whom it was
evident that he could do nothing lawful.

He had now been blind for some years; but his vigour of intellect
was such, that he was not disabled to discharge his office of Latin
secretary, or continue his controversies. His mind was too eager to be
diverted, and too strong to be subdued.

About this time his first wife died in childbed, having left him three
daughters. As he probably did not much love her, he did not long
continue the appearance of lamenting her; but, after a short time,
married Catharine, the daughter of one captain Woodcock, of Hackney; a
woman, doubtless, educated in opinions like his own. She died, within a
year, of childbirth, or some distemper that followed it; and her husband
honoured her memory with a poor sonnet.

The first reply to Milton's Defensio Populi was published in 1651,
called Apologia pro Rege et Populo Anglicano, contra Johannis
Polypragmatici, alias Miltoni, Defensionem destructivam Regis et Populi.
Of this the author was not known; but Milton and his nephew, Philips,
under whose name he published an answer, so much corrected by him that
it might be called his own, imputed it to Bramhal; and, knowing him no
friend to regicides, thought themselves at liberty to treat him as if
they had known what they only suspected.

Next year appeared Regii Sanguinis Clamor ad Coelum. Of this the author
was Peter du Moulin, who was afterwards prebendary of Canterbury; but
Morus, or More, a French minister, having the care of its publication,
was treated as the writer by Milton in his Defensio Secunda, and
overwhelmed by such violence of invective, that he began to shrink under
the tempest, and gave his persecutors the means of knowing the true
author. Du Moulin was now in great danger; but Milton's pride operated
against his malignity; and both he and his friends were more willing
that Du Moulin should escape than that he should be convicted of
mistake.

In this second defence he shows that his eloquence is not merely
satirical; the rudeness of his invective is equalled by the grossness
of his flattery. "Deserimur, Cromuelle, tu solus superes, ad te summa
nostrarum rerum rediit, in te solo consistit, insuperabili tuae virtuti
cedimus cuncti, nemine vel obloquente, nisi qui aequales inaequalis ipse
honores sibi quaerit, aut digniori concessos invidet, aut non intelligit
nihil esse in societate hominum magis vel Deo gratum, vel rationi
consentaneum, esse in civitate nihil aequius, nihil utilius, quam potiri
rerum dignissimum. Eum te agnoscunt omnes, Cromuelle, ea tu civis
maximus et gloriosissimus[38], dux publici consilii, exercituum
fortissimorum imperator, pater patriae gessisti. Sic tu spontanea
bonorum omnium, et animitus missa voce salutaris."

Caesar, when he assumed the perpetual dictatorship, had not more servile
or more elegant flattery. A translation may show its servility; but
its elegance is less attainable. Having exposed the unskilfulness or
selfishness of the former government, "We were left," says Milton,
"to ourselves: the whole national interest fell into your hands, and
subsists only in your abilities. To your virtue, overpowering and
resistless, every man gives way, except some who, without equal
qualifications, aspire to equal honours, who envy the distinctions of
merit, greater than their own, or who have yet to learn, that, in the
coalition of human society, nothing is more pleasing to God, or more
agreeable to reason, than that the highest mind should have the
sovereign power. Such, sir, are you by general confession; such are the
things achieved by you, the greatest and most glorious of our countrymen,
the director of our publick councils, the leader of unconquered armies,
the father of your country; for by that title does every good man hail
you with sincere and voluntary praise."

Next year, having defended all that wanted defence, he found leisure to
defend himself. He undertook his own vindication against More, whom he
declares, in his title, to be justly called the author of the Regii
Sanguinis Clamor. In this there is no want of vehemence or eloquence,
nor does he forget his wonted wit: "Morus est? an Momus? an uterque idem
est?" He then remembers that Morus is Latin for a mulberry-tree, and
hints at the known transformation:

"Poma alba ferebat
Quae post nigra tulit Morus."

With this piece ended his controversies; and he, from this time, gave
himself up to his private studies and his civil employment.

As secretary to the protector, he is supposed to have written the
declaration of the reasons for a war with Spain. His agency was
considered as of great importance; for, when a treaty with Sweden was
artfully suspended, the delay was publickly imputed to Mr. Milton's
indisposition; and the Swedish agent was provoked to express his wonder,
that only one man in England could write Latin, and that man blind.

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