Lives of the English Poets : Waller, Milton, Cowley

Poetry pleases by exhibiting an idea more grateful to the mind than things themselves afford.  This effect proceeds from the display of those parts of nature which attract, and the concealment of those which repel, the imagination: but religion must be shown as it is; suppression and addition equally corrupt it; and such as it is, it is known already.

From poetry the reader justly expects, and from good poetry always obtains, the enlargement of his comprehension and elevation of his fancy: but this is rarely to be hoped by Christians from metrical devotion.  Whatever is great, desirable, or tremendous, is comprised in the name of the Supreme Being.  Omnipotence cannot be exalted; Infinity cannot be amplified; Perfection cannot be improved.

The employments of pious meditation are Faith, Thanksgiving, Repentance, and Supplication.  Faith, invariably uniform, cannot be invested by fancy with decorations.  Thanksgiving, the most joyful of all holy effusions, yet addressed to a Being without passions, is confined to a few modes, and is to be felt rather then expressed.  Repentance, trembling in the presence of the judge, is not at leisure for cadences and epithets.  Supplication of man to man may diffuse itself through many topics of persuasion; but supplication to God can only cry for mercy.

Of sentiments purely religious, it will be found that the most simple expression is the most sublime.  Poetry loses its lustre and its power, because it is applied to the decoration of something more excellent than itself.  All that pious verse can do is to help the memory and delight the ear, and for these purposes it may be very useful; but it supplies nothing to the mind.  The ideas of Christian Theology are too simple for eloquence, too sacred for fiction, and too majestic for ornament; to recommend them by tropes and figures, is to magnify by a concave mirror the sidereal hemisphere.

As much of Waller’s reputation was owing to the softness and smoothness of his numbers, it is proper to consider those minute particulars to which a versifier must attend.

He certainly very much excelled in smoothness most of the writers who were living when his poetry commenced.  The poets of Elizabeth had attained an art of modulation, which was afterwards neglected or forgotten.  Fairfax was acknowledged by him as his model; and he might have studied with advantage the poem of Davies, which, though merely philosophical, yet seldom leaves the ear ungratified.

But he was rather smooth than strong; of “the full resounding line,” which Pope attributes to Dryden, he has given very few examples.  The critical decision has given the praise of strength to Denham, and of sweetness to Waller.

His excellence of versification has some abatements.  He uses the expletive “do” very frequently; and, though he lived to see it almost universally ejected, was not more careful to avoid it in his last compositions than in his first.  Praise had given him confidence; and finding the world satisfied, he satisfied himself.

His rhymes are sometimes weak words: “so” is found to make the rhyme twice in ten lines, and occurs often as a rhyme through his book.

His double rhymes, in heroic verse, have been censured by Mrs. Phillips, who was his rival in the translation of Corneille’s “Pompey;” and more faults might be found were not the inquiry below attention.

He sometimes uses the obsolete termination of verbs, as “waxeth,” “affecteth;” and sometimes retains the final syllable of the preterite, as “amazed,” “supposed,” of which I know not whether it is not to the detriment of our language that we have totally rejected them.

Of triplets he is sparing; but he did not wholly forbear them: of an Alexandrine he has given no example.

The general character of his poetry is elegance and gaiety.  He is never pathetic, and very rarely sublime.  He seems neither to have had a mind much elevated by nature nor amplified by learning.  His thoughts are such as a liberal conversation and large acquaintance with life would easily supply.  They had however then, perhaps, that grace of novelty which they are now often supposed to want by those who, having already found them in later books, do not know or inquire who produced them first.  This treatment is unjust.  Let not the original author lose by his imitators.

Praise, however, should be due before it is given.  The author of Waller’s Life ascribes to him the first practice of what Erythræus and some late critics call “Alliteration,” of using in the same verse many words beginning with the same letter.  But this knack, whatever be its value, was so frequent among early writers, that Gascoigne, a writer of the sixteenth century, warns the young poet against affecting it; Shakespeare, in the “Midsummer Night’s Dream,” is supposed to ridicule it; and in another play the sonnet of Holofernes fully displays it.

He borrows too many of his sentiments and illustrations from the old mythology, for which it is vain to plead the example of ancient poets; the deities, which they introduced so frequently, were considered as realities, so far as to be received by the imagination, whatever sober reason might even then determine.  But of these images time has tarnished the splendour.  A fiction, not only detected but despised, can never afford a solid basis to any position, though sometimes it may furnish a transient allusion, or slight illustration.  No modern monarch can be much exalted by hearing that, as Hercules had his “club” he has his “navy.”

But of the praise of Waller, though much may be taken away, much will remain; for it cannot be denied that he added something to our elegance of diction, and something to our propriety of thought; and to him may be applied what Tasso said, with equal spirit and justice, of himself and Guarini, when, having perused the Pastor Fido, he cried out, “If he had not read Aminta, he had not excelled it.”

As Waller professed himself to have learned the art of versification from Fairfax, it has been thought proper to subjoin a specimen of his work, which, after Mr. Hoole’s translation, will perhaps not be soon reprinted.  By knowing the state in which Waller found our poetry, the reader may judge how much he improved it.

1   Erminia’s steed (this while) his mistresse boreThrough forrests thicke among the shadie treene,Her feeble hand the bridle raines forelore,Halfe in a swoune she was for fear I weene;But her flit courser spared nere the more,To beare her through the desart woods unseene   Of her strong foes, that chas’d her through the plaine   And still pursu’d, but still pursu’d in vaine.2Like as the wearie hounds at last retire,Windlesse, displeased, from the fruitlesse chace,When the slie beast Tapisht in bush and brire,No art nor paines can rowse out of his place:The Christian knights so full of shame and ireReturned backe, with faint and wearie pace!Yet still the fearfull Dame fled, swift as windeNor euer staid, nor euer lookt behinde.3Through thicke and thinne, all night, all day, she driued,Withouten comfort, companie, or guide,Her plaints and teares with euery thought reuiued,She heard and saw her greefes, but nought beside.But when the sunne his burning chariot diuedIn Thetis wane, and wearie teame vntide,   On Iordans sandie banks her course she staid,   At last, there downe she light, and downe she laid4Her teares, her drinke; her food, her sorrowings,This was her diet that vnhappie night;But sleepe (that sweet repose and quiet brings)To ease the greefes of discontented wight,Spred forth his tender, soft, and nimble wings,In his dull armes foulding the virgin bright;   And loue, his mother, and the graces kept   Strong watch and warde, while this faire Ladie slept5The birds awakte her with their morning song,Their warbling musicke pearst her tender eare,The murmuring brookes and whistling windes amongThe rattling boughes, and leaues, their parts did beare;Her eies vnclos’d beheld the groues alongOf swaines and shepherd groomes, that dwellings weare;   And that sweet noise, birds, winds, and waters sent,   Prouokt again the virgin to lament.6Her plaints were interrupted with a sound,That seem’d from thickest bushes to proceed,Some iolly shepherd sung a lustie round,And to his voice had tun’d his oaten reed;Thither she went, an old man there she found,(At whose right hand his little flock did feed)   Sat making baskets, his three sonnes among   That learn’d their father’s art, and learn’d his song.7Beholding one in shining armes appeareThe seelie man and his were sore dismaid;But sweet Erminia comforted their feare,Her ventall vp, her visage open laidYou happie folke, of heau’n beloued deare,Work on (quoth she) upon your harmless traid,   These dreadfull armes I beare no warfare bring   To your sweet toile, nor those sweet tunes yon sing.8But father, since this land, these townes and towres,Destroied are with sword, with fire and spoile,How may it be unhurt, that you and yoursIn safetie thus, applie your harmlesse toile?My sonne (quoth he) this pore estate of oursIs euer safe from storm of warlike broile;   This wilderneese doth vs in safetie keepe,   No thundering drum, no trumpet breakes our sleepe.9Haply iust heau’ns defence and shield of right,Doth loue the innocence of simple swains,The thunderbolts on highest mountains light,And seld or neuer strike the lower plaines;So kings have cause to feare Bellonaes might,Not they whose sweat and toile their dinner gaines,   Nor ever greedie soldier was entised   By pouertie, neglected and despised.10O Pouertie, chefe of the heau’nly brood,Dearer to me than wealth or kingly crowne!No wish for honour, thirst of others good,Can moue my hart, contented with mine owne:We quench our thirst with water of this flood,Nor fear we poison should therein be throwne;   These little flocks of sheepe and tender goates   Giue milke for food, and wool to make us coates.11We little wish, we need but little wealth,From cold and hunger vs to cloath and feed;These are my sonnes, their care preserues from stealthTheir fathers flocks, nor servants moe I need:Amid these groues I walks oft for my health,And to the fishes, birds, and beastes give heed,   How they are fed, in forrest, spring and lake,   And their contentment for ensample take.12Time was (for each one hath his doting time,These siluer locks were golden tresses than)That countrie life I hated as a crime,And from the forrests sweet contentment ran,To Memphis’ stately pallace would I clime,And there became the mightie Caliphes man   And though I but a simple gardner weare,   Yet could I marke abuses, see and heare.13Entised on with hope of future gaine,I suffred long what did my soule displease;But when my youth was spent, my hope was vaine,I felt my native strength at last decrease;I gan my losse of lustie yeeres complaine,And wisht I had enjoy’d the countries peace;   I bod the court farewell, and with content   My later age here have I quiet spent.14While thus he spake, Erminia husht and stillHis wise discourses heard, with great attention,His speeches graue those idle fancies kill,Which in her troubled soule bred such dissention;After much thought reformed was her will,Within those woods to dwell was her intention,   Till fortune should occasion new afford,   To turne her home to her desired Lord.15She said therefore, O shepherd fortunate!That troubles some didst whilom feele and proue.Yet liuest now in this contented state,Let my mishap thy thoughts to pitie moue,To entertaine me as a willing mateIn shepherds life, which I admire and loue;   Within these plessant groues perchance my hart,   Of her discomforts, may vnload some part.16If gold or wealth of most esteemed deare,If iewels rich, thou diddest hold in prise,Such store thereof, such plentie haue I seen,As to a greedie minde might well suffice:With that downe trickled many a siluer teare,Two christall streames fell from her watrie eies;   Part of her sad misfortunes then she told,   And wept, and with her wept that shepherd old.17With speeches kinde, he gan the virgin deareTowards his cottage gently home to guide;His aged wife there made her homely cheare,Yet welcomde her, and plast her by her side.The Princesse dond a poor pastoraes geare,A kerchiefe course vpon her head she tide;   But yet her gestures and her lookes (I gesse)   Were such, as ill beseem’d a shepherdesse.18Not those rude garments could obscure, and hideThe heau’nly beautie of her angels face,Nor was her princely ofspring damnifide,Or ought disparag’de, by those labours bace;Her little flocks to pasture would she guide,And milke her goates, and in their folds them place,   Both cheese and butter could she make, and frame   Her selfe to please the shepherd and his dame.

MILTON

The life of Milton has been already written in so many forms, and with such minute inquiry, that I might perhaps more properly have contented myself with the addition of a few notes on Mr. Fenton’s elegant abridgment, but that a new narrative was thought necessary to the uniformity of this edition.

John Milton was by birth a gentleman, descended from the proprietors of Milton, near Thame, in Oxfordshire, one of whom forfeited his estate in the times of York and Lancaster.  Which side he took I know not; his descendant inherited no veneration for the White Rose.

His grandfather, John, was keeper of the forest of Shotover, a zealous Papist, who disinherited his son because he had forsaken the religion of his ancestors.

His father, John, who was the son disinherited, had recourse for his support to the profession of a scrivener.  He was a man eminent for his skill in music, many of his compositions being still to be found; and his reputation in his profession was such, that he grew rich, and retired to an estate.  He had probably more than common literature, as his son addresses him in one of his most elaborate Latin poems.  He married a gentlewoman of the name of Caston, a Welsh family, by whom he had two sons, John, the poet, and Christopher, who studied the law and adhered, as the law taught him, to the king’s party, for which he was a while persecuted; but having by his brother’s interest obtained permission to live in quiet, he supported himself so honourably by chamber-practice, that, soon after the accession of King James, he was knighted and made a judge; but, his constitution being too weak for business, he retired before any disreputable compliances became necessary.

He had likewise a daughter Anne, whom he married with a considerable fortune to Edward Philips, who came from Shrewsbury, and rose in the Crown-office to be secondary: by him she had two sons, John and Edward, who were educated by the poet, and from whom is derived the only authentic account of his domestic manners.

John the poet, was born in his father’s house, at the Spread Eagle, in Bread Street, Dec. 9, 1608, between six and seven in the morning.  His father appears to have been very solicitous about his education; for he was instructed at first by private tuition under the care of Thomas Young, who was afterwards chaplain to the English merchants at Hamburgh, and of whom we have reason to think well, since his scholar considered him as worthy of an epistolary elegy.

He was then sent to St. Paul’s school, under the care of Mr. Gill; and removed, in the beginning of his sixteenth year, to Christ’s College, in Cambridge, where he entered a sizar, Feb. 12, 1624.

He was at this time eminently skilled in the Latin tongue; and he himself, by annexing the dates to his first compositions, a boast of which the learned Politian has given him an example, seems to commend the earliness of his own proficiency to the notice of posterity.

But the products of his vernal fertility have been surpassed by many, and particularly by his contemporary Cowley.  Of the powers of the mind it is difficult to form an estimate: many have excelled Milton in their first essays, who never rose to works like “Paradise Lost.”

At fifteen, a date which he uses till he is sixteen, he translated or versified two Psalms, 114 and 136, which he thought worthy of the public eye; but they raise no great expectations: they would in any numerous school have obtained praise, but not excited wonder.

Many of his elegies appear to have been written in his eighteenth year, by which it appears that he had then read the Roman authors with very nice discernment.  I once heard Mr. Hampton, the translator of Polybius, remark, what I think is true, that Milton was the first Englishman who, after the revival of letters, wrote Latin verses with classic elegance.  If any exceptions can be made, they are very few: Haddon and Ascham, the pride of Elizabeth’s reign, however they may have succeeded in prose, no sooner attempt verse than they provoke derision.  If we produced anything worthy of notice before the elegies of Milton, it was perhaps Alabaster’s “Roxana.”

Of these exercises, which the rules of the University required, some were published by him in his maturer years.  They had been undoubtedly applauded; for they were such as few can form: yet there is reason to suspect that he was regarded in his college with no great fondness.  That he obtained no fellowship is certain; but the unkindness with which he was treated was not merely negative.  I am ashamed to relate what I fear is true, that Milton was one of the last students in either University that suffered the public indignity of corporal correction.

It was, in the violence of controversial hostility, objected to him, that he was expelled: this he steadily denies, and it was apparently not true; but it seems plain, from his own verses to “Diodati”, that he had incurred “rustication,” a temporary dismission into the country, with perhaps the loss of a term.

Me tenet urbs refluâ quam Thamesis alluit undâ,   Meque nec invitum patria dulcis habet.Jam nec arundiferum mihi cura revisere Camum   Nec dudum vetiti me laris angit amor.—Nec duri libet usque minas preferre magistri,   Cæteraque ingenio non subeunda meo.Si sit hoc exilium patrias adiisse penates,   Et vacuum curis otia greta sequi,Non ego vel profugi nomen sortemve recuso,   Lætus et exilii conditione fruor.

I cannot find any meaning but this, which even kindness and reverence can give to the term, “vetiti laris,” “a habitation from which he is excluded;” or how “exile” can be otherwise interpreted.  He declares yet more, that he is weary of enduring “the threats of a rigorous master, and something else which a temper like his cannot undergo.”  What was more than threat was probably punishment.  This poem, which mentions his “exile,” proves likewise that it was not perpetual; for it concludes with a resolution of returning some time to Cambridge.  And it may be conjectured, from the willingness with which he has perpetuated the memory of his exile, that its cause was such as gave him no shame.

He took both the usual degrees: that of bachelor in 1628, and that of master in 1632; but he left the University with no kindness for its institution, alienated either by the injudicious severity of his governors, or his own captious perverseness.  The cause cannot now be known, but the effect appears in his writings.  His scheme of education, inscribed to Hartlib, supersedes all academical instruction, being intended to comprise the whole time which men usually spend in literature, from their entrance upon grammar, till they proceed, as it is called Masters of Art.  And in his discourse “on the likeliest Way to remove Hirelings out of the Church,” he ingeniously proposes that the profits of the lands forfeited by the act for superstitious uses should be applied to such academies all over the land where languages and arts may be taught together that youth may be at once brought up to a competency of learning and an honest trade, by which means such of them as had the gift, being enabled to support themselves (without tithes) by the latter, may, by the help of the former, become worthy preachers.

One of his objections to academical education, as it was then conducted, is, that men designed for orders in the church were permitted to act plays, writhing and unboning their clergy limbs to all the antic and dishonest gestures of Trincalos, buffoons, and bawds, prostituting the shame of that ministry which they had, or were near having, to the eyes of courtiers and court-ladies, their grooms and mademoiselles.

This is sufficiently peevish in a man, who, when he mentions his exile from the college, relates, with great luxuriance, the compensation which the pleasures of the theatre afford him.  Plays were therefore only criminal when they were acted by academics.

He went to the university with a design of entering into the church, but in time altered his mind; for he declared, that whoever became a clergyman, must “subscribe slave, and take an oath withal, which, unless he took with a conscience that could retch, he must straight perjure himself.  He thought it better to prefer a blameless silence before the office of speaking, bought and begun with servitude and forswearing.”

These expressions are, I find, applied to the subscription of the Articles; but it seems more probable that they relate to canonical obedience.  I know not any of the Articles which seem to thwart his opinions: but the thoughts of obedience, whether canonical or civil, raise his indignation.

His unwillingness to engage in the ministry, perhaps not yet advanced to a settled resolution of declining it, appears in a letter to one of his friends, who had reproved his suspended and dilatory life, which he seems to have imputed to an insatiable curiosity, and fantastic luxury of various knowledge.  To this he writes a cool and plausible answer, in which he endeavours to persuade him, that the delay proceeds not from the delights of desultory study, but from the desire of obtaining more fitness for his task; and that he goes on, “not taking thought of being late, so it gives advantage to be more fit.”

When he left the University, he returned to his father, then residing at Horton, in Buckinghamshire, with whom he lived five years, in which time he is said to have read all the Greek and Latin writers.  With what limitations this universality is to be understood, who shall inform us?

It might be supposed, that he who read so much should have done nothing else; but Milton found time to write the “Masque of Comus,” which was presented at Ludlow, then the residence of the Lord President of Wales, in 1634; and had the honour of being acted by the Earl of Bridgewater’s sons and daughter.  The fiction is derived from Homer’s “Circe;” but we never can refuse to any modern the liberty of borrowing from Homer:

   —a quo ceu fonte perenniVatum Pieriis ora rigantur aquis.

His next production was Lycidas, an elegy, written in 1637, on the death of Mr. King, the son of Sir John King, Secretary for Ireland in the time of Elizabeth, James, and Charles.  King was much a favourite at Cambridge, and many of the wits joined to do honour to his memory.  Milton’s acquaintance with the Italian writers may be discovered by a mixture of longer and shorter verses, according to the rules of Tuscan poetry, and his malignity to the church by some lines which are interpreted as threatening its extermination.

He is supposed about this time to have written his Arcades; for while he lived at Horton he used sometimes to steal from his studies a few days, which he spent at Harefield, the house of the Countess Dowager of Derby, where the Arcades made part of a dramatic entertainment.

He began now to grow weary of the country, and had some purpose of taking chambers in the Inns of Court, when the death of his mother set him at liberty to travel, for which he obtained his father’s consent, and Sir Henry Wotton’s directions; with the celebrated precept of prudence, i pensieri stretti, ed il viso sciolto; “thoughts close, and looks loose.”

In 1638 he left England, and went first to Paris; where, by the favour of Lord Scudamore, he had the opportunity of visiting Grotius, then residing at the French court as ambassador from Christina of Sweden.  From Paris he hasted into Italy, of which he had with particular diligence studied the language and literature; and, though he seems to have intended a very quick perambulation of the country, stayed two months at Florence; where he found his way into the academies, and produced his compositions with such applause as appears to have exalted him in his own opinion, and confirmed him in the hope, that, “by labour and intense study, which,” says he, “I take to be my portion in this life, joined with a strong propensity of nature,” he might “leave something so written to after-times, as they should not willingly let it die.”