Life Of John Milton - Richard Garnett (i wanna iguana read aloud txt) 📗
- Author: Richard Garnett
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Languages, Including Greek And Latin (Hebrew And Syriac Are Also
Mentioned, But This Is Difficult Of Belief), That They Could Read Aloud
To Him Without Any Comprehension Of The Meaning Of The Text. Sixty Years
Afterwards, Passages Of Homer And Ovid Were Found Lingering As Melodious
Sounds In The Memory Of The Youngest. Such A Task, Inexpressibly
Delightful To Affection, Must Have Been Intolerably Repulsive To Dislike
Chapter 9 Pg 78Or Indifference: We Can Scarcely Wonder That Two Of These Children (Of
The Youngest We Have A Better Report), Abhorred The Father Who Exacted
So Much And Imparted So Little. Yet, Before Visiting Any Of The Parties
With Inexorable Condemnation, We Should Consider The Strong Probability
That Much Of The Misery Grew Out Of An Antecedent State Of Things, For
Which None Of Them Were Responsible. The Infant Minds Of Two Of The
Daughters, And The Two Chiefly Named As Undutiful, Had Been Formed By
Their Mother. Mistress Milton Cannot Have Greatly Cherished Her Husband,
And What She Wanted In Love Must Have Been Made Up In Fear. She Must
Have Abhorred His Principles And His Writings, And Probably Gave Free
Course To Her Feelings Whenever She Could Have Speech With A
Sympathizer, Without Caring Whether The Girls Were Within Hearing.
Milton Himself, We Know, Was Cheerful In Congenial Society, But He Were
No Poet If He Had Not Been Reserved With The Uncongenial. To Them The
Silent, Abstracted, Often Irritable, And Finally Sightless Father Would
Seem Awful And Forbidding. It Is Impossible To Exaggerate The
Susceptibility Of Young Minds To First Impressions. The Probability Is
That Ere Mistress Milton Departed This Life, She Had Intentionally Or
Unintentionally Avenged All The Injuries She Could Imagine Herself To
Have Received From Her Husband, And Furnished Him With A Stronger
Argument Than Any That Had Found A Place In The "Doctrine And Discipline
Of Divorce."
It Is Something In Favour Of The Milton Girls That They Were At Least
Not Calculating In Their Undutifulness. Had They Reflected, They Must
Have Seen That Their Behaviour Was Little To Their Interest. If They
Brought A Stepmother Upon Themselves, The Blame Was Theirs. Something
Must Certainly Be Done To Keep Milton's Library From The Rag-Women; And
In February, 1663, By The Advice Of His Excellent Physician Dr. Paget,
He Married Elizabeth Minshull, Daughter Of A Yeoman Of Wistaston In
Cheshire, A Distant Relation Of Dr. Paget's Own, And Exactly Thirty
Years Younger Than Milton. "A Genteel Person, A Peaceful And Agreeable
Woman," Says Aubrey, Who Knew Her, And Refutes By Anticipation
Richardson's Anonymous Informant, Perhaps Deborah Clarke, Who Libelled
Her As "A Termagant." She Was Pretty, And Had Golden Hair, Which One
Connects Pleasantly With The Late Sunshine She Brought Into Milton's
Life. She Sang To His Accompaniment On The Organ And Bass-Viol, But Is
Not Recorded To Have Read Or Written For Him; The Only Direct Testimony
We Have Of Her Care Of Him Is His Verbal Acknowledgment Of Her Attention
To His Creature Comforts. Yet Aubrey's Memoranda Show That She Could
Talk With Her Husband About Hobbes, And She Treasured The Letters He Had
Received From Distinguished Foreigners. At The Time Of Their Marriage
Milton Was Living In Jewin Street, Aldersgate, From Which He Soon
Afterwards Removed To Artillery Walk, Bunhill Fields, His Last
Residence. He Lodged In The Interim With Millington, The Book
Auctioneer, A Man Of Superior Ability, Whom An Informant Of Richardson's
Had Often Met In The Streets Leading His Inmate By The Hand.
It Is At This Era Of Milton's History That We Obtain The Fullest Details
Of His Daily Life, As Being Nearer To The Recollection Of Those From
Whom Information Was Sought After His Death. His Household Was Larger
Than Might Have Been Expected In His Reduced Circumstances; He Had A
Man-Servant, Greene, And A Maid, Named Fisher. That True
Hero-Worshipper, Aubrey, Tells Us That He Generally Rose At Four, And
Chapter 9 Pg 79Was Even Then Attended By His "Man" Who Read To Him Out Of The Hebrew
Bible. Such Erudition In A Serving-Man Almost Surpasses Credibility: The
English Bible Probably Sufficed Both. It Is Easier To Believe That Some
One Read To Him Or Wrote For Him From Seven Till Dinner Time: If,
However, "The Writing Was Nearly As Much As The Reading," Much That
Milton Dictated Must Have Been Lost. His Recreations Were Walking In His
Garden, Never Wanting To Any Of His Residences, Where He Would Continue
For Three Or Four Hours At A Time; Swinging In A Chair When Weather
Prevented Open-Air Exercise; And Music, That Blissful Resource Of
Blindness. His Instrument Was Usually The Organ, The Counterpart Of The
Stately Harmony Of His Own Verse. To These Relaxations Must Be Added The
Society Of Faithful Friends, Among Whom Andrew Marvell, Dr. Paget, And
Cyriack Skinner Are Particularly Named. Nor Did Edward Phillips Neglect
His Uncle, Finding Him, As Aubrey Implies, "Most Familiar And Free In
His Conversation To Those To Whom Most Sour In His Way Of Education."
Milton Had Made Him "A Songster," And We Can Imagine The "Sober, Silent,
And Most Harmless Person" (Evelyn) Opening His Lips To Accompany His
Uncle's Music. Of Milton's Manner Aubrey Says, "Extreme Pleasant In His
Conversation, And At Dinner, Supper, Etc., But Satirical." Visitors
Usually Came From Six Till Eight, If At All, And The Day Concluded With
A Light Supper, Sometimes Of Olives, Which We May Well Imagine Fraught
For Him With Tuscan Memories, A Pipe, And A Glass Of Water. This Picture
Of Plain Living And High Thinking Is Confirmed By The Testimony Of The
Quaker Thomas Ellwood, Who For A Short Time Read To Him, And Who
Describes The Kindness Of His Demeanour, And The Pains He Took To Teach
The Foreign Method Of Pronouncing Latin. Even More; "Having A Curious
Ear, He Understood By My Tone When I Understood What I Read And When I
Did Not, And Accordingly Would Stop Me, Examine Me, And Open The Most
Difficult Passages To Me." Milton Must Have Felt A Special Tenderness
For The Quakers, Whose Religious Opinions, Divested Of The Shell Of
Eccentricity Which The Vulgar Have Always Mistaken For The Kernel, Had
Become Substantially His Own. He Had Outgrown Independency As Formerly
Presbyterianism. His Blindness Served To Excuse His Absence From Public
Worship; To Which, So Long At Least As Clarendon's Intolerance Prevailed
In The Councils Of Charles The Second, Might Be Added The Difficulty Of
Finding Edification In The Pulpit, Had He Needed It. But These Reasons,
Though Not Imaginary, Were Not Those Which Really Actuated Him. He Had
Ceased To Value Rites And Forms Of Any Kind, And, Had His Religious
Views Been Known, He Would Have Been "Equalled In Fate" With His
Contemporary Spinoza. Yet He Was Writing A Book Which Orthodox
Protestantism Has Accepted As But A Little Lower Than The Scriptures.
"The Kingdom Of Heaven Cometh Not With Observation." We Know But Little
Of The History Of The Greatest Works Of Genius. That Something More Than
Usual Should Be Known Of "Paradise Lost" Must Be Ascribed To The
Author's Blindness, And Consequent Dependence Upon Amanuenses. When
Inspiration Came Upon Him Any One At Hand Would Be Called Upon To
Preserve The Precious Verses, Hence The Progress Of The Poem Was Known
To Many, And Phillips Can Speak Of "Parcels Of Ten, Twenty, Or Thirty
Verses At A Time." We Have Already Heard From Him That Milton's Season
Of Inspiration Lasted From The Autumnal Equinox To The Vernal: The
Remainder Of The Year Doubtless Contributed Much To The Matter Of His
Poem, If Nothing To The Form. His Habits Of Composition Appear To Be
Shadowed Forth By Himself In The Induction To The Third Book:--
Chapter 9 Pg 80
"Thee, Sion, And The Flowery Brooks Beneath
That Wash Thy Hallowed Feet, And Warbling Flow,
Nightly I Visit--"
"Then Feed On Thoughts That Voluntary Move
Harmonious Numbers; As The Wakeful Bird
Sings Darkling, And In Shadiest Covert Hid
Tunes Her Nocturnal Note."
This Is Something More Precise Than A Mere Poetical Allusion To His
Blindness, And The Inference Is Strengthened By The Anecdote That When
"His Celestial Patroness" "Deigned Nightly Visitation Unimplored," His
Daughters Were Frequently Called At Night To Take Down The Verses, Not
One Of Which The Whole World Could Have Replaced. This Was As It Should
Be. Grand Indeed Is The Thought Of The Unequalled Strain Poured Forth
When Every Other Voice Was Hushed In The Mighty City, To No Meaner
Accompaniment Than The Music Of The Spheres. Respecting The Date Of
Composition, We May Trust Aubrey's Statement That The Poem Was Commenced
In 1658, And When The Rapidity Of Milton's Composition Is Considered
("Easy My Unpremeditated Verse") It May, Notwithstanding The Terrible
Hindrances Of The Years 1659 And 1660, Have Been, As Aubrey Thinks,
Completed By 1663. It Would Still Require Mature Revision, Which We Know
From Ellwood That It Had Received By The Summer Of 1665. Internal
Evidence Of The Chronology Of The Poem Is Very Scanty. Professor Masson
Thinks That The First Two Books Were Probably Written Before The
Restoration. In Support Of This View It May Be Urged That Lines 500-505
Of Book I. Wear The Appearance Of An Insertion After The Restoration,
And That In The Invocation To The Third Book Milton May Be Thought To
Allude To The Dangers His Life And Liberty Had Afterwards Encountered,
Figured By The Regions Of Nether Darkness Which He Had Traversed As A
Poet.
"Hail Holy Light!...
Thee I Revisit Now With Bolder Wing,
Escaped The Stygian Pool, Though Long Detained
In That Obscure Sojourn, While In My Flight
Through Utter And Through Middle Darkness Borne."
The Only Other Passage Important In This Respect Is The Famous One From
The Invocation To The Seventh Book, Manifestly Describing The Poet's
Condition Under The Restoration:--
"Standing On Earth, Not Rapt Above The Pole,
More Safe I Sing With Mortal Voice, Unchanged
To Hoarse Or Mute, Though Fallen On Evil Days,
On Evil Days Though Fallen And Evil Tongues;
In Darkness, And With Dangers Compassed Round,
And Solitude; Yet Not Alone, While Thou
Visitest My Slumbers Nightly, Or When Morn
Purples The East. Still Govern Thou My Song,
Urania, And Fit Audience Find, Though Few.
But Drive Far Off The Barbarous Dissonance
Of Bacchus And His Revellers, The Race
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