Life Of John Milton - Richard Garnett (i wanna iguana read aloud txt) 📗
- Author: Richard Garnett
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Where He Is Stated To Have Been Apprentice To James Colborn. Colborn
Himself Had Been Only Four Years In Business, Instead Of The Seven Which
Would Usually Be Required For An Apprentice To Serve Out His
Indenture--Which Suggests That Some Formalities May Have Been Dispensed
With On Account Of John Milton's Age. A Scrivener Was A Kind Of Cross
Between An Attorney And A Law Stationer, Whose Principal Business Was
The Preparation Of Deeds, "To Be Well And Truly Done After My Learning,
Skill, And Science," And With Due Regard To The Interests Of More
Exalted Personages. "Neither For Haste Nor Covetousness I Shall Take
Upon Me To Make Any Deed Whereof I Have Not Cunning, Without Good Advice
And Information Of Counsel." Such A Calling Offered Excellent
Opportunities For Investments; And John Milton, A Man Of Strict
Integrity And Frugality, Came To Possess A "Plentiful Estate." Among His
Possessions Was The House In Bread Street Destroyed In The Great Fire.
The Tenement Where The Poet Was Born, Being A Shop, Required A Sign, For
Which He Chose The Spread Eagle, Either From The Crest Of Such Among The
Miltons As Had A Right To Bear Arms, Among Whom He May Have Reckoned
Himself; Or As The Device Of The Scriveners' Company. He Had Been
Married About 1600 To A Lady Whose Name Has Been But Lately Ascertained
To Have Been Sarah Jeffrey. John Milton The Younger Was The Third Of Six
Children, Only Three Of Whom Survived Infancy. He Grew Up Between A
Sister, Anne, Several Years Older, And A Brother, Christopher, Seven
Years Younger Than Himself.
Milton's Birth And Nurture Were Thus In The Centre Of London; But The
London Of That Day Had Not Half The Population Of The Liverpool Of Ours.
Even Now The Fragrance Of The Hay In Far-Off Meadows May Be Inhaled In
Bread Street On A Balmy Summer's Night; Then The Meadows Were Near The
Doors, And The Undefiled Sky Was Reflected By An Unpolluted Stream.
There Seems No Reason To Conclude That Milton, In His Early Boyhood,
Enjoyed Any Further Opportunities Of Resort To Rural Scenery Than The
Vicinity Of London Could Afford; But If The City Is His Native Element,
Natural Beauty Never Appeals To Him In Vain. Yet The Influences Which
Moulded His Childhood Must Have Been Rather Moral And Intellectual Than
Merely Natural:--
"The Starlight Smile Of Children, The Sweet Looks
Of Women, The Fair Breast From Which I Fed,"
Played A Greater Part In The Education Of This Poet Than
"The Murmur Of The Unreposing Brooks,
And The Green Light Which, Shifting Overhead,
Some Tangled Bower Of Vines Around Me Shed,
The Shells On The Sea-Sand, And The Wild Flowers."
Paramount To All Other Influences Must Have Been The Character Of His
Father, A "Mute" But By No Means An "Inglorious" Milton, The Preface And
Foreshadowing Of The Son. His Great Step In Life Had Set The Son The
Example From Which The Latter Never Swerved, And From Him The Younger
Chapter 1 Pg 7Milton Derived Not Only The Independence Of Thought Which Was To Lead
Him Into Moral And Social Heresy, And The Fidelity To Principle Which
Was To Make Him The Abdiel Of The Commonwealth, But No Mean Share Of His
Poetical Faculty Also. His Mastery Of Verbal Harmony Was But A New Phase
Of His Father's Mastery Of Music, Which He Himself Recognizes As The
Complement Of His Own Poetical Gift:--
"Ipse Volens Phoebus Se Dispertire Duobus,
Altera Dona Mihi, Dedit Altera Dona Parenti."
As A Composer, The Circumspect, And, As Many No Doubt Thought Prosaic
Scrivener, Took Rank Among The Best Of His Day. One Of His
Compositions, Now Lost, Was Rewarded With A Gold Medal By A Polish
Prince (Aubrey Says The Landgrave Of Hesse), And He Appears Among The
Contributors To _The Triumphs Of Oriana_, A Set Of Twenty-Five Madrigals
Composed In Honour Of Queen Elizabeth. "The Teares And Lamentations Of A
Sorrowful Soule"--Dolorous Sacred Songs, Professor Masson Calls
Them--Were, According To Their Editor, The Production Of "Famous
Artists," Among Whom Byrd, Bull, Dowland, Orlando Gibbons, Certainly
Figure, And Three Of Them Were Composed By The Elder Milton. He Also
Harmonized The Norwich And York Psalm Tunes, Which Were Adapted To Six
Of The Psalms In Ravenscroft's Collection. Such Performance Bespeaks Not
Only Musical Accomplishment, But A Refined Nature; And We May Well
Believe That Milton's Love Of Learning, As Well As His Love Of Music,
Was Hereditary In Its Origin, And Fostered By His Contact With His
Father. Aubrey Distinctly Affirms That Milton's Skill On The Organ Was
Directly Imparted To Him By His Father, And There Would Be Nothing
Surprising If The First Rudiments Of Knowledge Were Also Instilled By
Him. Poetry He May Have Taught By Precept, But The One Extant Specimen
Of His Muse Is Enough To Prove That He Could Never Have Taught It By
Example.
We Have Therefore To Picture Milton Growing Up In A Narrow Street Amid A
Strict Puritan Household, But Not Secluded From The Influences Of Nature
Or Uncheered By Melodious Recreations; And Tenderly Watched Over By
Exemplary Parents--A Mother Noted, He Tells Us, For Her Charities Among
Her Neighbours, And A Father Who Had Discerned His Promise From The Very
First. Given This Perception In The Head Of A Religious Household, It
Almost Followed In That Age That The Future Poet Should Receive The
Education Of A Divine. Happily, The Sacerdotal Caste Had Ceased To
Exist, And The Education Of A Clergyman Meant Not That Of A Priest, But
That Of A Scholar. Milton Was Instructed Daily, He Says, Both At Grammar
Schools And Under Private Masters, "As My Age Would Suffer," He Adds, In
Acknowledgment Of His Father's Considerateness. Like Disraeli Two
Centuries Afterwards (Perhaps The Single Point Of Resemblance), He Went
For Schooling To A Nonconformist In Essex, "Who," Says Aubrey, "Cut His
Hair Short." His Own Hair? Or His Pupil's? Queries Biography. We Boldly
Reply, Both. Undoubtedly Milton's Hair Is Short In The Miniature Painted
Of Him At The Age Of Ten By, As Is Believed, Cornelius Jansen. A
Thoughtful Little Face, That Of A Well-Nurtured, Towardly Boy; Lacking
The Poetry And Spirituality Of The Portrait Of Eleven Years Later, Where
The Long Hair Flows Down Upon The Ruff.
Chapter 1 Pg 8
After Leaving His Essex Pedagogue, Milton Came Under The Private Tuition
Of Thomas Young, A Scotchman From St. Andrews, Who Afterwards Rose To Be
Master Of Jesus College, Cambridge. It Would Appear From The Elegies
Subsequently Addressed To Him By His Pupil That He First Taught Milton
To Write Latin Verse. This Instruction Was No Doubt Intended To Be
Preliminary To The Youth's Entrance At St. Paul's School, Where He Must
Have Been Admitted By 1620 At The Latest.
At The Time Of Milton's Entry, St. Paul's Stood High Among The Schools
Of The Metropolis, Competing With Merchant Taylors', Westminster, And
The Now Extinct St. Anthony's. The Headmaster, Dr. Gill, Was An
Admirable Scholar, Though, As Aubrey Records, "He Had His Whipping
Fits." His Fitful Severity Was Probably More Tolerable Than The
Systematic Cruelty Of His Predecessor Mulcaster (Spenser's Schoolmaster
When He Presided Over Merchant Taylors'), Of Whom Fuller Approvingly
Records: "Atropos Might Be Persuaded To Pity As Soon As He To Pardon
Where He Found Just Fault. The Prayers Of Cockering Mothers Prevailed
With Him As Much As The Requests Of Indulgent Fathers, Rather Increasing
Than Mitigating His Severity On Their Offending Children." Milton's
Father, Though By No Means "Cockering," Would Not Have Tolerated Such
Discipline, And The Passionate Ardour With Which Milton Threw Himself
Into The Studious Life Of The School Is The Best Proof That He Was
Exempt From Tyranny. "From The Twelfth Year Of My Age," He Says, "I
Scarcely Ever Went From My Lessons To Bed Before Midnight." The Ordinary
School Tasks Cannot Have Exacted So Much Time From So Gifted A Boy: He
Must Have Read Largely Outside The Regular Curriculum, And Probably He
Practised Himself Diligently In Latin Verse. For This He Would Have The
Prompting, And Perhaps The Aid, Of The Younger Gill, Assistant To His
Father, Who, While At The University, Had Especially Distinguished
Himself By His Skill In Versification. Gill Must Also Have Been A Man Of
Letters, Affable And Communicative, For Milton In After-Years Reminds
Him Of Their "Almost Constant Conversations," And Declares That He Had
Never Left His Company Without A Manifest Accession Of Literary
Knowledge. The Latin School Exercises Have Perished, But Two English
Productions Of The Period, Paraphrases Of Psalms Executed At Fifteen,
Remain To Attest The Boy's Proficiency In Contemporary English
Literature. Some Of The Unconscious Borrowings Attributed To Him Are
Probably Mere Coincidences, But There Is Still Enough To Evince
Acquaintance With "Sylvester, Spenser, Drummond, Drayton, Chaucer,
Fairfax, And Buchanan." The Literary Merit Of These Versions Seems To Us
To Have Been Underrated. There May Be No Individual Phrase Beyond The
Compass Of An Apt And Sensitive Boy With A Turn For Verse-Making; But
The General Tone Is Masculine And Emphatic. There Is Not Much To Say,
But What Is Said Is Delivered With A "Large Utterance," Prophetic Of The
"Os Magna Soniturum," And Justifying His Own Report Of His Youthful
Promise:--"It Was Found That Whether Aught Was Imposed Me By Them That
Had The Overlooking, Or Betaken To Of Mine Own Choice, In English Or
Other Tongue, Prosing Or Versing, But Chiefly By This Latter, The Style,
By Certain Vital Signs It Had, Was Likely To Live."
Among The Incidents Of Milton's Life At St. Paul's School Should Not Be
Chapter 1 Pg 9Forgotten His Friendship With Charles Diodati, The Son Of A Genevese
Physician Settled In England, Whose Father Had Been Exiled From Italy
For His Protestantism. A Friendship Memorable Not Only As Milton's
Tenderest And His First, But As One Which Quickened His Instinctive Love
Of Italian Literature, Enhanced The Pleasure, If It Did Not Suggest The
Undertaking, Of His Italian Pilgrimage, And Doubtless Helped To Inspire
The Execration Which He Launched In After Years Against The Slayers Of
The Vaudois. The Italian Language Is Named By Him Among Three Which,
About The Time Of His Migration To The University, He Had Added To The
Classical And The Vernacular, The Other Two Being French And Hebrew. It
Has Been Remarked, However, That His Use Of "Penseroso," Incorrect Both
In Orthography And Signification, Shows That Prior To His Visit To Italy
He Was Unacquainted With The Niceties Of The Language. He Entered As "A
Lesser Pensioner" At Christ's College, Cambridge, On February 12, 1625;
The Greatest Poetic Name
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