Life Of John Milton - Richard Garnett (i wanna iguana read aloud txt) 📗
- Author: Richard Garnett
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Who Hangs On The Cross!" The Cry Rolled Through The Crowd Like The
Dull Noise Of An Avalanche; Like A Shriek Of Terror, Like The Inward
Consciousness Of A Fearful Mistake, The Most Fearful That Had Been Made
Since The World Began. He Who Hangs Yonder On The Cross Is The Son Of
God. Far Below In A Cleft Of The Rock Is A Poor Sinner. He Struggles
Up To His Feet, Holding On With His Lean Hands, He Looks Up To The
Cross With Rolling Eyes. A Prayer For Mercy Wells Up From His Heart
Like A Bloody Spring. And Beside Him A Woman Kneels And Folds Her
Hands Against The Cross. And She Who Thus Stands Under The Cross
Wrings Her Hands, And Implores Mercy For Her Child.
The Letters I.N.R.I, Over The Cross Begin To Gleam. And A Voice Is
Heard In The Air: "Jesus Near Redeems Ill-Doers."
"The Son Of God! The Son Of God!" The Cry Went On Without Ceasing.
"The Son Of God On The Cross!"
"The Son Of God's Coat! A Hundred Gold Pieces For The Coat!" Shrieked
Old Schobal, Lifting The Garment Up On A Stick Like A Flag. The Dealer
Swore By That Flag, For Its Value Had Risen A Thousandfold In An Hour.
"A Hundred Gold Pieces For The Son Of God's Coat!" But It Was High
Time That The Dealer Made Himself Scarce, For The People Of Jerusalem
Were Enraged At A Man Who Wanted To Do Business In Presence Of The
Dying Saviour. The Good, Pious Citizens Of Jerusalem!
Not A High Priest Was To Be Seen. They Had All Gone Away. The
Hoarse-Voiced Rabbi Was Still There, Reciting Psalms Aloud To The Dying
Man.
"Stop That!" Someone Shouted At Him. "You Killed Him."
"We've Killed Him? Who Do You Mean?" Asked The Rabbi With Well-Feigned
Innocence.
"Why You, You Expounders Of The Scriptures, You Brought Him To His
Death; It Was You, And You Alone!"
The Rabbi Replied Very Seriously: "Think, My Friend, What You Are
Saying. Can You Prove This Charge Before The Dread Jehovah? We
Expounders Of The Law Brought Him To His Death! Every One Knows Who
Condemned Him. It Was The Foreigners. They Have Ever Been The Ruin Of
Our Nation! Every One Knows Who Crucified Him At The Desire Of The
People."
It Was High Time That He Shou One Knows Who Crucified Him Awas
Impossible Under A Dispensation Which Allowed A Parliament To Sit Till A
Protector Turned It Out Of Doors. He Was, Therefore, Only Acting Upon
His Own Theory, And He Seems To Us To Have Been Acting Wisely As Well As
Courageously, When He Consented To Become A Humble But Necessary Wheel
Of The Machinery Of Administration, The Orpheus Among The Argonauts Of
The Commonwealth.
Chapter 6 Pg 57
Milton Was Appointed Secretary For Foreign Tongues On March 15, 1649. He
Removed From High Holborn To Spring Gardens To Be Near The Scene Of His
Labours, And Was Soon Afterwards Provided With An Official Residence In
Whitehall Palace, A Huge Intricacy Of Passages And Chambers, Of Which
But A Fragment Now Remains. His First Performance Was In Some Measure A
False Start; For The Epistle Offering Amity To The Senate Of Hamburg,
Clothed In His Best Latin, Was So Unamiably Regarded By That Body That
The English Envoy Never Formally Delivered It. An Epistle To The Dutch
On The Murder Of The Commonwealth's Ambassador, Dorislaus, By Refugee
Cavaliers, Had A Better Reception; And Milton Was Soon Engaged In
Drafting, Not Merely Translating, A State Paper Designed For The
Press--Observations On The Peace Concluded By Ormond, The Royalist
Commander In Ireland, With The Confederated Catholics In That Country,
And On The Protest Against The Execution Of Charles I. Volunteered By
The Presbytery Of Belfast. The Commentary Was Published In May, Along
With The Documents. It Is A Spirited Manifesto, Cogent In Enforcing The
Necessity Of The Campaign About To Be Undertaken By Cromwell. Ireland
Had At The Moment Exactly As Many Factions As Provinces; And Never,
Perhaps, Since The Days Of Strongbow Had Been In A State Of Such Utter
Confusion. Employed In Work Like This, Milton Did Not Cease To Be "An
Eagle Towering In His Pride Of Place," But He May Seem To Have
Degenerated Into The "Mousing Owl" When He Pounced Upon Newswriters And
Ferreted Unlicensed Pamphlets For Sedition. True, There Was Nothing In
This Occupation Formally Inconsistent With Anything He Had Written In
The "Areopagitica"; Yet One Wishes That The Council Of State Had
Provided Otherwise For This Particular Department Of The Public Service.
Nothing But A Sense Of Duty Can Have Reconciled Him To A Task So
Invidious; And There Is Some Evidence Of What Might Well Have Been
Believed Without Evidence--That He Mitigated The Severity Of The
Censorship As Far As In Him Lay. He Was Not To Want For Better
Occupation, For The Council Of State Was About To Devolve Upon Him The
Charge Of Answering The Great Royalist Manifesto, "Eikon Basilike."
The Controversy Respecting The Authorship Of The "Eikon Basilike" Is A
Remarkable Instance Of The Degree In Which Literary Judgment May Be
Biassed By Political Prepossession. In The Absence Of Other Testimony
One Might Almost Stamp A Writer As Royalist Or Parliamentarian According
As His Verdict Inclined To Charles I. Or Bishop Gauden. In Fact, It Is
No Easy Matter To Balance The Respective Claims Of Two Entirely
Different Kinds Of Testimony. The External Evidence Of Charles's
Authorship Is Worth Nothing. It Is Almost Confined To The Assertions,
Forty Years After The Publication, Of A Few Aged Cavaliers, Who Were
All Morally Certain That Charles Wrote The Book, And To Whom A Fiction
Supplying The Accidental Lack Of External Testimony Would Have Seemed
Laudable And Pious. The Only Wonder Is That Such Legends Are Not Far
Chapter 6 Pg 58More Numerous. On The Other Hand, The Internal Evidence Seems At First
Sight To Make For The King. The Style Is Not Dissimilar To That Of The
Reputed Royal Author; The Sentiments Are Such As Would Have Well Become
Him; The Assumed Character Is Supported Throughout With Consistency; And
There Are None Of The Slips Which A Fabricator Might Have Been Thought
Hardly Able To Avoid. The Supposed Personator Of The King Was
Unquestionably An Unprincipled Time-Server. Is It Not An Axiom That A
Worthy Book Can Only Proceed From A Worthy Mind?
"If This Fail,
The Pillared Firmament Is Rottenness,
And Earth's Base Built On Stubble!"
Against Such Considerations We Have To Set The Stubborn Facts That
Bishop Gauden Did Actually Claim The Authorship That He Preferred His
Claim To The Very Persons Who Had The Strongest Interest In Exploding
It; That He Invoked The Testimony Of Those Who Must Have Known The
Truth, And Could Most Easily Have Crushed The Lie; That He Convinced Not
Only Clarendon, But Charles's Own Children, And Received A Substantial
Reward. In The Face Of These Undeniable Facts, The Numerous
Circumstances Used With Skill And Ingenuity By Dr. Wordsworth To
Invalidate His Claim, Are Of Little Weight. The Stronger The Apparent
Objections, The More Certain That The Proofs In Gauden's Hands Must Have
Been Overwhelming, And The Greater The Presumption That He Was Merely
Urging What Had Always Been Known To Several Persons About The Late
King. When, With This Conviction, We Recur To The "Eikon," And Examine
It In Connection With Gauden's Acknowledged Writings, The Internal
Testimony Against Him No Longer Seems So Absolutely Conclusive. Gauden's
Style Is By No Means So Bad As Hume Represents It. Many Remarkable
Parallels Between It And The Diction Of The "Eikon" Have Been Pointed
Out By Todd, And The Most Searching Modern Investigator, Doble. We May
Also Discover One Marked Intellectual Resemblance. Nothing Is More
Characteristic In The "Eikon" Than Its Indirectness. The Writer Is Full
Of Qualifications, Limitations, Allowances; He Fences And Guards
Himself, And Seems Always On The Point Of Taking Back What He Has Said,
But Never Does; And Veers And Tacks, Tacks And Veers, Until He Has
Worked Himself Into Port. The Like Peculiarity Is Very Observable In
Gauden, Especially In His Once-Popular "Companion To The Altar." There
Is Also A Strong Internal Argument Against Charles's Authorship In The
Preponderance Of The Theological Element. That This Should Occupy An
Important Place In The Writings Of A Martyr For The Church Of England
Was Certainly To Be Expected, But The Theology Of The "Eikon" Has An
Unmistakably Professional Flavour. Let Any Man Read It With An Unbiassed
Mind, And Then Say Whether He Has Been Listening To A King Or To A
Chaplain. "One Of _Us_," Pithily Comments Archbishop Herring. "I Write
Rather Like A Divine Than A Prince," The Assumed Author Acknowledges, Or
Is Made To Acknowledge. When To These Considerations Is Added That Any
Scrap Of The "Eikon" In The King's Handwriting Would Have Been
Treasured As An Inestimable Relic, And That No Scrap Was Ever Produced,
There Can Be Little Question As To The Verdict Of Criticism. For All
Practical Purposes, Nevertheless, The "Eikon" In Milton's Time Was The
King's Book, For Everybody Thought It So. Milton Hints Some Vague
Suspicions, But Refrains From Impugning It Seriously, And Indeed The
Defenders Of Its Authenticity Will Be Quite Justified In Asserting That
Chapter 6 Pg 59If Gauden Had Been Dumb, Criticism Would Have Been Blind.
According To Selden's Biographer, Cromwell Was At First Anxious That The
"Eikon" Should Be Answered By That Consummate Jurist, And It Was Only On
His Declining The Task That It Came Into Milton's Hands. That He Also
Would Have Declined It But For His Official Position May Be Inferred
From His Own Words: "I Take It On Me As A Work Assigned, Rather Than By
Me Chosen Or Affected." His Distaste May Further Be Gauged By His
Tardiness; While "The Tenure Of Kings And Magistrates" Had Been Written
In Little More Than A Week, His "Eikonoklastes," A Reply To A Book
Published In February, Did Not Appear Until October 6th. His Reluctance
May Be Partly Explained By His Feeling That "To Descant On The
Misfortunes Of A Person Fallen From So High A Dignity, Who Hath Also
Paid His Final Debt Both To Nature And His Faults, Is Neither Of Itself
A Thing Commendable, Nor The Intention Of This Discourse." The Intention
It May Not Have Been, But It Was Necessarily The Performance. The Scheme
Of The "Eikon" Required The Respondent To Take Up The Case Article By
Article, A Thing Impossible To Be Done Without Abundant "Descant" Of The
Kind Which Milton Deprecates. He Is Compelled To Fight The Adversary On
The Latter's
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