August 18, 2025 • 26 mins
John Milton (1608-1674) was an English poet, classicist, and a bold champion of civil liberty who played a significant role in the Commonwealth of England under Oliver Cromwell. He is perhaps best remembered for his monumental epic poem Paradise Lost (1667), a work that weaves together stunning imagery and profound themes of heresy. In this insightful essay, Macaulay merges literary critique with political history, asserting that Milton, unlike many of his contemporaries, rightfully earned the glory of the battle he fought for the most precious and least understood freedom of all—the freedom of the human mind. (Summary by Pamela Nagami, M.D.)
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Section one of Milton. This is a LibriVox recording. All
LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information
or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org. Read by
Pamela and Nagami, M D. Milton, by Thomas Babington mac caulay,
Part one Milton, August eighteen twenty five. Johannes MILTONI Angli
(00:27):
de doc trina Cristiani Libri duo posthumi, A treatise on
Christian doctrine compiled from the Holy Scriptures alone by John Milton,
translated from the original by Charles R. Sumner, m a
And et cetera and et cetera, eighteen twenty five. Toward
the close of the year eighteen twenty three, mister Lemon,
(00:50):
Deputy Keeper of the State Papers, in the course of
his researches among the presses of his office, met with
a large Latin manuscript. With it were found corrected copies
of the foreign despatches written by Milton while he filled
the office of Secretary, and several papers related to the
(01:10):
Popish trials and the Rye House plot. The whole was
wrapped up in an envelope superscribed to mister Skinner Merchant.
On examination, the large manuscript proved to be the long
lost essay on the Doctrines of Christianity, which, according to
Wood and tolland Milton, finished after the restoration and deposited
(01:33):
with Syriac Skinner. Skinner, it is well known, held the
same political opinions with his illustrious friend. It is therefore probable,
as mister Lemon conjectures, that he may have fallen under
the suspicions of the government during that persecution of the
Whigs which followed the dissolution of the Oxford Parliament, and that,
(01:55):
in consequence of a general seizure of his papers, this
work may have been brought to the office in which
it was found. But whatever the adventures of the manuscript
may have been, no doubt can exist that it is
a genuine relic of the great poet. Mister Sumner, who
was commanded by his majesty to edit and translate the treatise,
(02:18):
has acquitted himself of his task in a manner honorable
to his talents and to his character.
Speaker 2 (02:25):
His version is.
Speaker 1 (02:26):
Not indeed very easy or elegant, but it is entitled
to the praise of clearness and fidelity. His notes abound
with interesting quotations, and have the rare merit of really
elucidating the text. The preface is evidently the work of
a sensible and candid man, firm in his own religious
(02:46):
opinions and tolerant toward those of others. The book itself
will not add much to the fame of Milton. It is,
like all his Latin works, well written, though not exactly
in the style of the prize essays of Oxford and Cambridge.
There is no elaborate imitation of classical antiquity, no scrupulous purity,
(03:09):
none of the ceremonial cleanness which characterizes the diction of
our academical pharisees. The author does not attempt to polish
and brighten his composition into the Ciceronian gloss and brilliancy.
He does, not, in short, sacrifice sense and spirit to
pedantic refinements. The nature of his subject compelled him to
(03:32):
use many words that would have made Quintillian stare and gasp,
but he writes with as much ease and freedom as
if Latin were his mother's tongue. And where he is
least happy, his failure seems to arise from the carelessness
of a native, not from the ignorance of a foreigner.
We may apply to him what Denham, with great felicity,
(03:54):
says of Cowley. He wears the garb, but not the
clothes of the ancients. Throughout the volume are discernible the
traces of a powerful and independent mind, emancipated from the
influence of authority and devoted to the search of truth.
Milton professes to form his system from the Bible alone,
(04:16):
and his digestive scriptural text is certainly among the best
that have appeared. But he is not always so happy
in his inferences, as in his citations. Some of the
heterodox doctrines which he avows seem to have excited considerable amazement,
particularly his arianism and his theory on the subject of polygamy.
(04:39):
Yet we can scarcely conceive that any person could have
read The Paradise Lost without suspecting him of the former,
Nor do we think that any reader acquainted with the
history of his life ought to be much startled at
the latter. The opinions which he has expressed respecting the
nature of the deity, the eternity of matter, and the
(05:02):
observation of the Sabbath, might we think have caused more
just surprise. But we will not go into the discussion
of these points. The book, or it far more orthodox
or far more heretical than it is, would not much
edify or corrupt the present generation. The men of our
time are not to be converted or perverted by quartos.
(05:24):
A few more days in this essay will follow the
Defensio Popoli to the dust and silence of the upper shelf.
The name of its author and the remarkable circumstances attending
its publication will secure to it a certain degree of attention.
For a month or two, it will occupy a few
minutes of chat in every drawing room, and a few
(05:45):
columns in every magazine, And it will, then, to borrow
the elegant language of the play bills be withdrawn to
make room for the forthcoming novelties. We wish, however, to
avail ourselves of the interest, transient as it may be,
which this work has excited. The dexterous Capuchins never choose
(06:07):
to preach on the life and miracles of a saint
till they have awakened the devotional feelings of their auditors
by exhibiting some relic of him, a thread of his garment,
a lock of his hair, or a drop of his blood.
On the same principle, we intend to take advantage of
the late interesting discovery, And while this memorial of a
(06:29):
great and good man is still in the hands of all,
to say something of his moral and intellectual qualities, nor
we are convinced will the severest of our readers blame us, if,
on an occasion like the present, we turn for a
short time from the topics of the day to commemorate,
in all love and reverence, the genius and virtues of
(06:52):
John Milton, the poet, the statesman, the philosopher, the glory
of English literature, the vampion and the martyr.
Speaker 2 (07:01):
Of English liberty.
Speaker 1 (07:04):
It is by his poetry that Milton is best known,
and it is of his poetry that we wish first
to speak. By the general suffrage of the civilized world,
his place has been assigned among the greatest masters of
the art. His detractors, however, though outvoted, have not been silenced.
(07:24):
There are many critics, and some of great name, who
contrive in the same breath to extol the poems and
to decry the poet. The works they acknowledge, considered in
themselves may be classed among the noblest productions of the
human mind, but they will not allow the author to
rank with those great men who born in the infancy
(07:46):
of civilization, supplied by their own powers the want of instruction,
and though destitute of models, themselves bequeathed to posterity, models
which defy imitation. Milton, it is inherited what his predecessors created.
He lived in an enlightened age, he received a finished education,
(08:09):
and we must, therefore, if we would form a just
estimate of his powers, make large deductions in consideration of
these advantages. We venture to say, on the contrary, paradoxical
as the remark may appear, that no poet has ever
had to struggle with more unfavorable circumstances than Milton. He doubted,
(08:31):
as he has himself owned, whether he had not been
born an.
Speaker 2 (08:34):
Age too late for this notion.
Speaker 1 (08:37):
Johnson has thought fit to make him the butt of
much clumsy ridicule.
Speaker 2 (08:42):
The poet, we believe, understood.
Speaker 1 (08:44):
The nature of his art better than the critic. He
knew that his poetical genius derived no advantage from the
civilization which surrounded him, or from the learning which he
had acquired, and he looked back with something like regret
to the ruder age of simple words and vivid impressions.
(09:05):
We think that as civilization advances, poetry almost necessarily declines. Therefore,
though we fervently admire those great works of imagination which
have appeared in dark ages, we do not admire them
the more because they.
Speaker 2 (09:21):
Have appeared in dark ages.
Speaker 1 (09:23):
On the contrary, we hold that the most wonderful and
splendid proof of genius is a great poem produced in
this civilized age. We cannot understand why those who believe,
in that most orthodox article of literary faith, that the
earliest poets are generally the best, should wonder at the
(09:45):
rule as if it were the exception. Surely, the uniformity
of the phenomenon indicates a corresponding uniformity in the cause.
The fact is that common observers reason from the progress
of the experiment sciences to that of the imitative arts.
The improvement of the former is gradual and slow. Ages
(10:07):
are spent in collecting materials, ages more and separating and
combining them. Even when a system has been formed, there
is still something.
Speaker 2 (10:17):
To add, to alter, or to reject.
Speaker 1 (10:20):
Every generation enjoys the use of a vast horde bequeathed
to it by antiquity, and transmits that horde, augmented by
fresh acquisitions, to future ages. In these pursuits, therefore, the
first speculators lie under great disadvantages, and even when they fail,
are entitled to praise their pupils with foreign inferior intellectual
(10:45):
powers speedily surpass them in actual attainments. Every girl who
has read Missus Marsett's Little Dialogues on Political Economy could
teach Montague or Wallpole many lessons in finance. Intelligent man may, now,
by resolutely applying himself for a few years to mathematics,
(11:06):
learn more than the great Newton new after half a
century of study and meditation. But it is not thus
with music, with painting, or with sculpture. Still less is
it thus with poetry. The progress of refinement rarely supplies
these arts with better objects of imitation. It may indeed
(11:27):
improve the instruments which are necessary to the mechanical operations
of the musician, the sculptor, and the painter. But language,
the machine of the poet, is best fitted for his
purpose in its rudest state. Nations, like individuals, first perceive
and then abstract they advance from particular images to general terms. Hence,
(11:51):
the vocabulary of an enlightened society is philosophical, that of
a half civilized people is poetical. This change in the
language of men is partly the cause and partly the
effect of a corresponding change in the nature of their
intellectual operations, of a change by which science gains and
(12:12):
poetry loses. Generalization is necessary to the advancement of knowledge,
but particularly is indispensable to the creations of the imagination.
In proportion, as men know more and think more, they
look less at individuals and more at classes. They therefore
make better theories and worse poems. They give us vague
(12:37):
phrases instead of images, and personified qualities instead of men.
They may be better able to analyze human nature than
their predecessors, but analysis is not the business of the poet.
His office is to portray, not to dissect. He may
believe in a moral sense, like Shopesbury. He may refer
(12:59):
all human actions to self interests like Helvitius. Or he
may never think about the matter at all. His creed
on such subjects will no more influence his poetry, properly
so called than the notions which a painter may have
conceived respecting the lachrymal glands, or the circulation of the
blood will affect the tears of his niobe, or the
(13:22):
blushes of his aurora. If Shakespeare had written a book
on the motives of human actions, it is for no
means certain that it would have been a good one.
It is extremely improbable that it would have contained half
so much able reasoning on the subject as to be
found in the Fable of the bees. But could Mandeville
(13:42):
have created an iago well? As he knew how to
resolve characters into their elements, would he have been able
to combine those elements in such a manner as to
make a man a real, living individual man. Perhaps no
person can be a poet, or can even enjoy poetry,
(14:02):
without a certain unsoundness of mind. If anything which gives
so much pleasure ought to be called unsoundness. By poetry
we mean not all writing in verse, nor even all
good writing in verse. Our definition excludes many metrical compositions, which,
on other grounds, deserve the highest praise. By poetry we
(14:26):
mean the art of employing words in such a manner
as to produce an illusion on the imagination the art
of doing by means of words what the painter does
by means of colors. Thus the greatest of poets has
described it in lines, universally admired for the vigor and
(14:46):
felicity of their diction, and still more valuable on account
of the just notion which they convey of the art
in which he excelled. As imagination bodies forth the forms
of things unknown, the poetry pen turns them to shapes,
and gives to airy nothing a local habitation and a name.
(15:08):
These are the fruits of the fine frenzy which he
ascribes to the poet, A fine frenzy, doubtless, but still
a frenzy. Truth indeed is essential to poetry, but it
is the truth of madness. The reasonings are just, but
the premises are false. After the first suppositions have been made,
(15:29):
everything ought to be consistent. But those first suppositions require
a degree of credulity, which almost amounts to a partial
and temporary derangement of the intellect. Hence, of all people,
children are the most imaginative. They abandon themselves without reserve
to every illusion. Every image which is strongly presented to
(15:53):
their mental eye produces on them the effect of reality.
No man, whatever his sense disability may be, is ever
affected by hamlet or lear as a little girl is
affected by the story of poor Red Ridinghood. She knows
that it is all false, that wolves cannot speak, that
(16:14):
there are no wolves in England. Yet in spite of
her knowledge, she believes, She weeps, she trembles, She dares
not go into a dark room lest she should feel
the teeth of the monster at her throat. Such is
the despotism of the imagination over uncultivated minds. In a
(16:36):
rude state of society, men are children with a greater
variety of ideas. It is therefore, in such a state
of society that we may expect to find the poetical
temperament in its highest perfection. In an enlightened age, there
will be much intelligence, much science, much philosophy, abundance of
(16:58):
just classification and subtle analysis, abundance of wit and eloquence,
abundance of verses and even of good ones, but little poetry.
Men will judge and compare, but they will not create.
They will talk about the old poets and comment on them,
(17:19):
and to a certain degree enjoy them.
Speaker 2 (17:21):
But they will.
Speaker 1 (17:22):
Scarcely be able to conceive the effect which poetry produced
on their ruder ancestors, the agony, the ecstasy, the plenitude
of belief. The Greek rhapsodists, according to Plato, could scarce
recite Homer without falling into convulsions. The mohawk hardly feels
(17:42):
the scalping knife while he shouts his death song. The
power which the ancient Bards of Wales in Germany exercised
over their auditors seems to modern readers almost miraculous. Such
feelings are very rare in a civilized community, and most
rare among those who participate most in its improvements. They
(18:05):
linger longest among the peasantry. Poetry produces an illusion on
the eye of the mind, as a magic lantern produces
an illusion on the eye of the body, and as
the magic lantern acts best in a dark room. Poetry
affects its purpose most completely in a dark age. As
(18:27):
the light of knowledge breaks in upon its exhibitions. As
the outlines of certainty become more and more definite, and
the shades of probability more and more distinct, the hues
and lineaments of the phantoms which the poet calls up
grow fainter and fainter. We cannot unite the incompatible advantages
of reality and deception, the clear discernment of truth, and
(18:50):
the exquisite enjoyments of fiction. He who, in an enlightened
and literary society aspires to be a great poet, must
first become a little child. He must take to pieces
the whole web of his mind. He must unlearn much
of that knowledge which has perhaps constituted hitherto his chief
(19:10):
title to superiority. His very talents will be a hindrance
to him. His difficulties will be proportioned to his proficiency
in the pursuits which are fashionable among his contemporaries. And
that proficiency will in general be proportioned to the vigor
and activity of his mind. And it is well, if,
(19:31):
after all his sacrifices and exertions, his works do not
resemble a lisping man or a modern ruin. We have
seen in our own time great talents, intense labor, and
long meditation employed in this struggle against the spirit of
the age, and employed, we will not say absolutely in vain,
(19:52):
but with dubious success and feeble applause. If these reasonings
be just, no poet has ever triumphed over greater difficulties
than Milton. He received the learned education. He was a
profound and elegant classical scholar. He had studied all the
mysteries of rabbinical literature. He was intimately acquainted with every
(20:16):
language of modern Europe from which either pleasure or information
was then to be derived. He was perhaps the only
great poet of later times who has been distinguished by
the excellence of his Latin verse. The genius of Petrarch
was scarcely of the first order, and his poems in
the ancient language, though much praised by those who have
(20:39):
never read them, are wretched compositions. Cowley, with all his
admirable wit and ingenuity, had little imagination. Nor indeed, do
we think his classical diction comparable to that of Milton.
The authority of Johnson is against us on this point.
But Johnson had studied the bad writer of the Middle
(21:00):
Ages till he had become utterly insensible to the Augustine elegance,
and was as ill qualified to judge between two Latin
styles as a habitual drunkard to set up for a
wine taster. Versification in a dead language is an exotic
a far fetched, costly, sickly imitation of that which elsewhere
(21:22):
may be found in healthful and spontaneous perfection. The soils
on which this rarity flourishes are in general as ill
suited to the production of vigorous native poetry as the
flower pots.
Speaker 2 (21:35):
Of a hothouse to the growth of oaks.
Speaker 1 (21:38):
That the author of the Paradise Lost should have written
the Epistle to Manso was truly wonderful. Never before were
such marked originality and such exquisite mimicry found together. Indeed,
in all the Latin poems of Milton, the artificial manner
indispensable to such works is admirably preserved, while at the
(22:01):
same time his genius gives to them a peculiar charm,
an air of nobleness and freedom, which distinguishes them from
all other writings of the same class. They remind us
of the amusements of those angelic warriors who composed the
cohort of Gabriel about him exercised heroic games the unarmed
(22:23):
youth of Heaven. But o'er their heads celestial armory, shield
helman's spear hung high with diamond flaming and with gold,
we cannot look upon the sport of exercises for which
the genius of Milton ungirds itself, without catching a glimpse
of the gorgeous and terrible panoply which it is accustomed
(22:45):
to wear. The strength of his imagination triumphed over every obstacle.
So intense and ardent was the fire of his mind
that it not only was not suffocated beneath the weight
of fuel, but penetrated the whole superincumbent mass with its
own heat and radiance. It is not our intention to
(23:06):
attempt anything like a complete examination of the poetry of Milton.
The public has long been agreed as to the merit
of the most remarkable passages, the incomparable harmony of the numbers,
and the excellence of that style which no rival has
been able to equal, and no parodist to degrade, which
displays in their highest perfections the idiomatic powers of the
(23:30):
English tongue, and to which every ancient and every modern
language has contributed something of grace of energy or of music.
In the vast field of criticism on which we are entering,
innumerable reapers have already put their sickles. Yet the harvest
is so abundant that the negligent search of a straggling
(23:54):
gleaner may be rewarded with a sheaf. The most striking
characteristic of the poetry of Man Milton is the extreme
remoteness of the associations by means of which it acts
on the reader. Its effect is produced not so much
by what it expresses as by what it suggests, not
so much by the ideas which it directly conveys as
(24:17):
by other ideas which.
Speaker 2 (24:19):
Are connected with them.
Speaker 1 (24:21):
He electrifies the mind through conductors. The most unimaginative man
must understand the iliad. Homer gives him no choice and
requires from him no exertion, but takes the whole upon himself,
and sets the images in so clear a light that
it is impossible to be blind to them. The works
(24:41):
of Milton cannot be comprehended or enjoyed unless the mind
of the reader co operate with that of the writer.
He does not paint a finished picture or play for
a mere passive listener. He sketches and leaves others to
fill up the outline. He writes the keynote, and expects
(25:02):
his hearer to make out the melody. We often hear
of the magical influence of poetry. The expression in general
means nothing, but applied to the writings of Milton, it
is most appropriate. His poetry acts like an incantation. Its
merit lies less in its obvious meaning than in its
(25:22):
occult power. There would seem at first sight to be
no more in his words than in other words. But
they are words of enchantment. No sooner are they pronounced
than the past is present, and the distant near. New
forms of beauty start at once into existence, and all
the burial places of the memory give up their dead change,
(25:47):
the structure of the sentence, substitute one synonym for another,
and the.
Speaker 2 (25:52):
Whole effect is destroyed.
Speaker 1 (25:54):
The spell loses its power, and he who should then
hope to conjure with it would find himself as much
mistaken as Cassim in the Arabian tale, when he stood
crying open wheat, open barley, to the door which obeyed
no sound but open sesame. The miserable failure of Dryden
(26:15):
in his attempt to translate into his own diction some
parts of the Paradise Lost, is a remarkable instance of this.
Speaker 2 (26:24):
End of section one
Section one of Milton. This is a LibriVox recording. All
LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information
or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org. Read by
Pamela and Nagami, M D. Milton, by Thomas Babington mac caulay,
Part one Milton, August eighteen twenty five. Johannes MILTONI Angli
(00:27):
de doc trina Cristiani Libri duo posthumi, A treatise on
Christian doctrine compiled from the Holy Scriptures alone by John Milton,
translated from the original by Charles R. Sumner, m a
And et cetera and et cetera, eighteen twenty five. Toward
the close of the year eighteen twenty three, mister Lemon,
(00:50):
Deputy Keeper of the State Papers, in the course of
his researches among the presses of his office, met with
a large Latin manuscript. With it were found corrected copies
of the foreign despatches written by Milton while he filled
the office of Secretary, and several papers related to the
(01:10):
Popish trials and the Rye House plot. The whole was
wrapped up in an envelope superscribed to mister Skinner Merchant.
On examination, the large manuscript proved to be the long
lost essay on the Doctrines of Christianity, which, according to
Wood and tolland Milton, finished after the restoration and deposited
(01:33):
with Syriac Skinner. Skinner, it is well known, held the
same political opinions with his illustrious friend. It is therefore probable,
as mister Lemon conjectures, that he may have fallen under
the suspicions of the government during that persecution of the
Whigs which followed the dissolution of the Oxford Parliament, and that,
(01:55):
in consequence of a general seizure of his papers, this
work may have been brought to the office in which
it was found. But whatever the adventures of the manuscript
may have been, no doubt can exist that it is
a genuine relic of the great poet. Mister Sumner, who
was commanded by his majesty to edit and translate the treatise,
(02:18):
has acquitted himself of his task in a manner honorable
to his talents and to his character.
Speaker 2 (02:25):
His version is.
Speaker 1 (02:26):
Not indeed very easy or elegant, but it is entitled
to the praise of clearness and fidelity. His notes abound
with interesting quotations, and have the rare merit of really
elucidating the text. The preface is evidently the work of
a sensible and candid man, firm in his own religious
(02:46):
opinions and tolerant toward those of others. The book itself
will not add much to the fame of Milton. It is,
like all his Latin works, well written, though not exactly
in the style of the prize essays of Oxford and Cambridge.
There is no elaborate imitation of classical antiquity, no scrupulous purity,
(03:09):
none of the ceremonial cleanness which characterizes the diction of
our academical pharisees. The author does not attempt to polish
and brighten his composition into the Ciceronian gloss and brilliancy.
He does, not, in short, sacrifice sense and spirit to
pedantic refinements. The nature of his subject compelled him to
(03:32):
use many words that would have made Quintillian stare and gasp,
but he writes with as much ease and freedom as
if Latin were his mother's tongue. And where he is
least happy, his failure seems to arise from the carelessness
of a native, not from the ignorance of a foreigner.
We may apply to him what Denham, with great felicity,
(03:54):
says of Cowley. He wears the garb, but not the
clothes of the ancients. Throughout the volume are discernible the
traces of a powerful and independent mind, emancipated from the
influence of authority and devoted to the search of truth.
Milton professes to form his system from the Bible alone,
(04:16):
and his digestive scriptural text is certainly among the best
that have appeared. But he is not always so happy
in his inferences, as in his citations. Some of the
heterodox doctrines which he avows seem to have excited considerable amazement,
particularly his arianism and his theory on the subject of polygamy.
(04:39):
Yet we can scarcely conceive that any person could have
read The Paradise Lost without suspecting him of the former,
Nor do we think that any reader acquainted with the
history of his life ought to be much startled at
the latter. The opinions which he has expressed respecting the
nature of the deity, the eternity of matter, and the
(05:02):
observation of the Sabbath, might we think have caused more
just surprise. But we will not go into the discussion
of these points. The book, or it far more orthodox
or far more heretical than it is, would not much
edify or corrupt the present generation. The men of our
time are not to be converted or perverted by quartos.
(05:24):
A few more days in this essay will follow the
Defensio Popoli to the dust and silence of the upper shelf.
The name of its author and the remarkable circumstances attending
its publication will secure to it a certain degree of attention.
For a month or two, it will occupy a few
minutes of chat in every drawing room, and a few
(05:45):
columns in every magazine, And it will, then, to borrow
the elegant language of the play bills be withdrawn to
make room for the forthcoming novelties. We wish, however, to
avail ourselves of the interest, transient as it may be,
which this work has excited. The dexterous Capuchins never choose
(06:07):
to preach on the life and miracles of a saint
till they have awakened the devotional feelings of their auditors
by exhibiting some relic of him, a thread of his garment,
a lock of his hair, or a drop of his blood.
On the same principle, we intend to take advantage of
the late interesting discovery, And while this memorial of a
(06:29):
great and good man is still in the hands of all,
to say something of his moral and intellectual qualities, nor
we are convinced will the severest of our readers blame us, if,
on an occasion like the present, we turn for a
short time from the topics of the day to commemorate,
in all love and reverence, the genius and virtues of
(06:52):
John Milton, the poet, the statesman, the philosopher, the glory
of English literature, the vampion and the martyr.
Speaker 2 (07:01):
Of English liberty.
Speaker 1 (07:04):
It is by his poetry that Milton is best known,
and it is of his poetry that we wish first
to speak. By the general suffrage of the civilized world,
his place has been assigned among the greatest masters of
the art. His detractors, however, though outvoted, have not been silenced.
(07:24):
There are many critics, and some of great name, who
contrive in the same breath to extol the poems and
to decry the poet. The works they acknowledge, considered in
themselves may be classed among the noblest productions of the
human mind, but they will not allow the author to
rank with those great men who born in the infancy
(07:46):
of civilization, supplied by their own powers the want of instruction,
and though destitute of models, themselves bequeathed to posterity, models
which defy imitation. Milton, it is inherited what his predecessors created.
He lived in an enlightened age, he received a finished education,
(08:09):
and we must, therefore, if we would form a just
estimate of his powers, make large deductions in consideration of
these advantages. We venture to say, on the contrary, paradoxical
as the remark may appear, that no poet has ever
had to struggle with more unfavorable circumstances than Milton. He doubted,
(08:31):
as he has himself owned, whether he had not been
born an.
Speaker 2 (08:34):
Age too late for this notion.
Speaker 1 (08:37):
Johnson has thought fit to make him the butt of
much clumsy ridicule.
Speaker 2 (08:42):
The poet, we believe, understood.
Speaker 1 (08:44):
The nature of his art better than the critic. He
knew that his poetical genius derived no advantage from the
civilization which surrounded him, or from the learning which he
had acquired, and he looked back with something like regret
to the ruder age of simple words and vivid impressions.
(09:05):
We think that as civilization advances, poetry almost necessarily declines. Therefore,
though we fervently admire those great works of imagination which
have appeared in dark ages, we do not admire them
the more because they.
Speaker 2 (09:21):
Have appeared in dark ages.
Speaker 1 (09:23):
On the contrary, we hold that the most wonderful and
splendid proof of genius is a great poem produced in
this civilized age. We cannot understand why those who believe,
in that most orthodox article of literary faith, that the
earliest poets are generally the best, should wonder at the
(09:45):
rule as if it were the exception. Surely, the uniformity
of the phenomenon indicates a corresponding uniformity in the cause.
The fact is that common observers reason from the progress
of the experiment sciences to that of the imitative arts.
The improvement of the former is gradual and slow. Ages
(10:07):
are spent in collecting materials, ages more and separating and
combining them. Even when a system has been formed, there
is still something.
Speaker 2 (10:17):
To add, to alter, or to reject.
Speaker 1 (10:20):
Every generation enjoys the use of a vast horde bequeathed
to it by antiquity, and transmits that horde, augmented by
fresh acquisitions, to future ages. In these pursuits, therefore, the
first speculators lie under great disadvantages, and even when they fail,
are entitled to praise their pupils with foreign inferior intellectual
(10:45):
powers speedily surpass them in actual attainments. Every girl who
has read Missus Marsett's Little Dialogues on Political Economy could
teach Montague or Wallpole many lessons in finance. Intelligent man may, now,
by resolutely applying himself for a few years to mathematics,
(11:06):
learn more than the great Newton new after half a
century of study and meditation. But it is not thus
with music, with painting, or with sculpture. Still less is
it thus with poetry. The progress of refinement rarely supplies
these arts with better objects of imitation. It may indeed
(11:27):
improve the instruments which are necessary to the mechanical operations
of the musician, the sculptor, and the painter. But language,
the machine of the poet, is best fitted for his
purpose in its rudest state. Nations, like individuals, first perceive
and then abstract they advance from particular images to general terms. Hence,
(11:51):
the vocabulary of an enlightened society is philosophical, that of
a half civilized people is poetical. This change in the
language of men is partly the cause and partly the
effect of a corresponding change in the nature of their
intellectual operations, of a change by which science gains and
(12:12):
poetry loses. Generalization is necessary to the advancement of knowledge,
but particularly is indispensable to the creations of the imagination.
In proportion, as men know more and think more, they
look less at individuals and more at classes. They therefore
make better theories and worse poems. They give us vague
(12:37):
phrases instead of images, and personified qualities instead of men.
They may be better able to analyze human nature than
their predecessors, but analysis is not the business of the poet.
His office is to portray, not to dissect. He may
believe in a moral sense, like Shopesbury. He may refer
(12:59):
all human actions to self interests like Helvitius. Or he
may never think about the matter at all. His creed
on such subjects will no more influence his poetry, properly
so called than the notions which a painter may have
conceived respecting the lachrymal glands, or the circulation of the
blood will affect the tears of his niobe, or the
(13:22):
blushes of his aurora. If Shakespeare had written a book
on the motives of human actions, it is for no
means certain that it would have been a good one.
It is extremely improbable that it would have contained half
so much able reasoning on the subject as to be
found in the Fable of the bees. But could Mandeville
(13:42):
have created an iago well? As he knew how to
resolve characters into their elements, would he have been able
to combine those elements in such a manner as to
make a man a real, living individual man. Perhaps no
person can be a poet, or can even enjoy poetry,
(14:02):
without a certain unsoundness of mind. If anything which gives
so much pleasure ought to be called unsoundness. By poetry
we mean not all writing in verse, nor even all
good writing in verse. Our definition excludes many metrical compositions, which,
on other grounds, deserve the highest praise. By poetry we
(14:26):
mean the art of employing words in such a manner
as to produce an illusion on the imagination the art
of doing by means of words what the painter does
by means of colors. Thus the greatest of poets has
described it in lines, universally admired for the vigor and
(14:46):
felicity of their diction, and still more valuable on account
of the just notion which they convey of the art
in which he excelled. As imagination bodies forth the forms
of things unknown, the poetry pen turns them to shapes,
and gives to airy nothing a local habitation and a name.
(15:08):
These are the fruits of the fine frenzy which he
ascribes to the poet, A fine frenzy, doubtless, but still
a frenzy. Truth indeed is essential to poetry, but it
is the truth of madness. The reasonings are just, but
the premises are false. After the first suppositions have been made,
(15:29):
everything ought to be consistent. But those first suppositions require
a degree of credulity, which almost amounts to a partial
and temporary derangement of the intellect. Hence, of all people,
children are the most imaginative. They abandon themselves without reserve
to every illusion. Every image which is strongly presented to
(15:53):
their mental eye produces on them the effect of reality.
No man, whatever his sense disability may be, is ever
affected by hamlet or lear as a little girl is
affected by the story of poor Red Ridinghood. She knows
that it is all false, that wolves cannot speak, that
(16:14):
there are no wolves in England. Yet in spite of
her knowledge, she believes, She weeps, she trembles, She dares
not go into a dark room lest she should feel
the teeth of the monster at her throat. Such is
the despotism of the imagination over uncultivated minds. In a
(16:36):
rude state of society, men are children with a greater
variety of ideas. It is therefore, in such a state
of society that we may expect to find the poetical
temperament in its highest perfection. In an enlightened age, there
will be much intelligence, much science, much philosophy, abundance of
(16:58):
just classification and subtle analysis, abundance of wit and eloquence,
abundance of verses and even of good ones, but little poetry.
Men will judge and compare, but they will not create.
They will talk about the old poets and comment on them,
(17:19):
and to a certain degree enjoy them.
Speaker 2 (17:21):
But they will.
Speaker 1 (17:22):
Scarcely be able to conceive the effect which poetry produced
on their ruder ancestors, the agony, the ecstasy, the plenitude
of belief. The Greek rhapsodists, according to Plato, could scarce
recite Homer without falling into convulsions. The mohawk hardly feels
(17:42):
the scalping knife while he shouts his death song. The
power which the ancient Bards of Wales in Germany exercised
over their auditors seems to modern readers almost miraculous. Such
feelings are very rare in a civilized community, and most
rare among those who participate most in its improvements. They
(18:05):
linger longest among the peasantry. Poetry produces an illusion on
the eye of the mind, as a magic lantern produces
an illusion on the eye of the body, and as
the magic lantern acts best in a dark room. Poetry
affects its purpose most completely in a dark age. As
(18:27):
the light of knowledge breaks in upon its exhibitions. As
the outlines of certainty become more and more definite, and
the shades of probability more and more distinct, the hues
and lineaments of the phantoms which the poet calls up
grow fainter and fainter. We cannot unite the incompatible advantages
of reality and deception, the clear discernment of truth, and
(18:50):
the exquisite enjoyments of fiction. He who, in an enlightened
and literary society aspires to be a great poet, must
first become a little child. He must take to pieces
the whole web of his mind. He must unlearn much
of that knowledge which has perhaps constituted hitherto his chief
(19:10):
title to superiority. His very talents will be a hindrance
to him. His difficulties will be proportioned to his proficiency
in the pursuits which are fashionable among his contemporaries. And
that proficiency will in general be proportioned to the vigor
and activity of his mind. And it is well, if,
(19:31):
after all his sacrifices and exertions, his works do not
resemble a lisping man or a modern ruin. We have
seen in our own time great talents, intense labor, and
long meditation employed in this struggle against the spirit of
the age, and employed, we will not say absolutely in vain,
(19:52):
but with dubious success and feeble applause. If these reasonings
be just, no poet has ever triumphed over greater difficulties
than Milton. He received the learned education. He was a
profound and elegant classical scholar. He had studied all the
mysteries of rabbinical literature. He was intimately acquainted with every
(20:16):
language of modern Europe from which either pleasure or information
was then to be derived. He was perhaps the only
great poet of later times who has been distinguished by
the excellence of his Latin verse. The genius of Petrarch
was scarcely of the first order, and his poems in
the ancient language, though much praised by those who have
(20:39):
never read them, are wretched compositions. Cowley, with all his
admirable wit and ingenuity, had little imagination. Nor indeed, do
we think his classical diction comparable to that of Milton.
The authority of Johnson is against us on this point.
But Johnson had studied the bad writer of the Middle
(21:00):
Ages till he had become utterly insensible to the Augustine elegance,
and was as ill qualified to judge between two Latin
styles as a habitual drunkard to set up for a
wine taster. Versification in a dead language is an exotic
a far fetched, costly, sickly imitation of that which elsewhere
(21:22):
may be found in healthful and spontaneous perfection. The soils
on which this rarity flourishes are in general as ill
suited to the production of vigorous native poetry as the
flower pots.
Speaker 2 (21:35):
Of a hothouse to the growth of oaks.
Speaker 1 (21:38):
That the author of the Paradise Lost should have written
the Epistle to Manso was truly wonderful. Never before were
such marked originality and such exquisite mimicry found together. Indeed,
in all the Latin poems of Milton, the artificial manner
indispensable to such works is admirably preserved, while at the
(22:01):
same time his genius gives to them a peculiar charm,
an air of nobleness and freedom, which distinguishes them from
all other writings of the same class. They remind us
of the amusements of those angelic warriors who composed the
cohort of Gabriel about him exercised heroic games the unarmed
(22:23):
youth of Heaven. But o'er their heads celestial armory, shield
helman's spear hung high with diamond flaming and with gold,
we cannot look upon the sport of exercises for which
the genius of Milton ungirds itself, without catching a glimpse
of the gorgeous and terrible panoply which it is accustomed
(22:45):
to wear. The strength of his imagination triumphed over every obstacle.
So intense and ardent was the fire of his mind
that it not only was not suffocated beneath the weight
of fuel, but penetrated the whole superincumbent mass with its
own heat and radiance. It is not our intention to
(23:06):
attempt anything like a complete examination of the poetry of Milton.
The public has long been agreed as to the merit
of the most remarkable passages, the incomparable harmony of the numbers,
and the excellence of that style which no rival has
been able to equal, and no parodist to degrade, which
displays in their highest perfections the idiomatic powers of the
(23:30):
English tongue, and to which every ancient and every modern
language has contributed something of grace of energy or of music.
In the vast field of criticism on which we are entering,
innumerable reapers have already put their sickles. Yet the harvest
is so abundant that the negligent search of a straggling
(23:54):
gleaner may be rewarded with a sheaf. The most striking
characteristic of the poetry of Man Milton is the extreme
remoteness of the associations by means of which it acts
on the reader. Its effect is produced not so much
by what it expresses as by what it suggests, not
so much by the ideas which it directly conveys as
(24:17):
by other ideas which.
Speaker 2 (24:19):
Are connected with them.
Speaker 1 (24:21):
He electrifies the mind through conductors. The most unimaginative man
must understand the iliad. Homer gives him no choice and
requires from him no exertion, but takes the whole upon himself,
and sets the images in so clear a light that
it is impossible to be blind to them. The works
(24:41):
of Milton cannot be comprehended or enjoyed unless the mind
of the reader co operate with that of the writer.
He does not paint a finished picture or play for
a mere passive listener. He sketches and leaves others to
fill up the outline. He writes the keynote, and expects
(25:02):
his hearer to make out the melody. We often hear
of the magical influence of poetry. The expression in general
means nothing, but applied to the writings of Milton, it
is most appropriate. His poetry acts like an incantation. Its
merit lies less in its obvious meaning than in its
(25:22):
occult power. There would seem at first sight to be
no more in his words than in other words. But
they are words of enchantment. No sooner are they pronounced
than the past is present, and the distant near. New
forms of beauty start at once into existence, and all
the burial places of the memory give up their dead change,
(25:47):
the structure of the sentence, substitute one synonym for another,
and the.
Speaker 2 (25:52):
Whole effect is destroyed.
Speaker 1 (25:54):
The spell loses its power, and he who should then
hope to conjure with it would find himself as much
mistaken as Cassim in the Arabian tale, when he stood
crying open wheat, open barley, to the door which obeyed
no sound but open sesame. The miserable failure of Dryden
(26:15):
in his attempt to translate into his own diction some
parts of the Paradise Lost, is a remarkable instance of this.
Speaker 2 (26:24):
End of section one
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