August 18, 2025 • 30 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 four of Milton by Thomas Babington mac caulay. This
librovox recording is in the public domain. Read by Pamela
and Nagami, Part four. We cannot refrain from adding a
few words respecting a topic on which the defenders of
Charles are fond of dwelling. If they say he governed
(00:23):
his people, ill he at least governed them after the
example of his predecessors. If he violated their privileges, it
was because those privileges had not been accurately defined. No
act of oppression has ever been imputed to him which
has not a parallel in the annals of the tutors.
(00:44):
This point, Hume has labored with an art which is
as discreditable in a historical work as it would be
admirable in a forensic address. The answer is short, clear
and decisive. Charles had a sented to the petition of right,
he had renounced the oppressive power said to have been
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exercised by his predecessors, and he had renounced them for money.
He was not entitled to set up his antiquated claims
against his own recent release. These arguments are so obvious
that it may seem superfluous to dwell upon them. But
those who have observed how much the events of that
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time are misrepresented and misunderstood, will not blame us for
stating the case simply. It is a case of which
the simplest statement is the strongest. The enemies of the
Parliament indeed rarely choose to take issue on the great
points of the question. They content themselves with exposing some
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of the crimes and follies to which public commotions necessarily
give birth. They bewail the unmerited fate of Strafford, They
execrate the lawless violence of the army. They laugh at
the scriptural names of the preachers, major generals fleecing their districts,
(02:08):
Soldiers reveling on the spoils of a ruined peasantry, upstarts
enriched by the public plunder taking, possession of the hospitable
firesides and hereditary trees of the old gentry, boys smashing
the beautiful windows of cathedrals, Quakers riding naked through the marketplace,
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Fifth monarchy, men shouting for King Jesus, Agitators lecturing from
the tops of tubs on the fate of a gog.
All these, they tell us, were the offspring of the
great rebellion. Be it so, we are not careful to
answer in this matter these charges, were they infinitely more important,
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would not alter our opinion of an event which alone
has made us to differ from the slaves who crouch
beneath the lad spot. Acceptors many evils, no doubt, were
produced by the Civil War. They were the price of
our liberty. Has the acquisition been worth the sacrifice? It
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is the nature of the devil of tyranny to tear
and rend the body which he leaves. Are the miseries
of continued possession less horrible than the struggles of the
tremendous exorcism. If it were possible that a people brought
up under an intolerant and arbitrary system could subvert that
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system without acts of cruelty and folly, half the objections
to despotic power would be removed. We should, in that
case be compelled to acknowledge that it at least produces
no pernicious effects on the intellectual and moral character of
a nation. We deplore the outrages which accompany revolutions, but
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the more violent the outrages, the more assured we feel
that a revolution was necessary. The violence of those outrages
will always be proportioned to the ferocity and ignorance of
the people, and the ferocity and ignorance of the people
will be proportioned to the oppression and degradation under which
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they have been accustomed to live. Thus it was in
our civil war the heads of the church and state
reaped only that which they had sown. The government had
prohibited free discussion, It had done its best to keep
the people unacquainted with their duties and their rights. The
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retribution was just and natural. If our rulers suffered from
popular ignorance, it was because they themselves had taken away
the key of knowledge. If they were assailed with blind fury,
it was because they they had exacted an equally blind submission.
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It is the character of such revolutions that we always
see the worst of them at first, till men have
been sometime free, they know not how to use their freedom.
The natives of wine countries are generally sober. In climates
where wine is a rarity, in temperance abounds, a newly
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liberated people may be compared to a northern army encamped
on the Rhine or the Zeres. It is said that
when soldiers in such a situation first find themselves able
to indulge without restraint. In such a rare and expensive luxury,
nothing is to be seen but intoxication. Soon, however, plenty
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teaches discretion, and after wine has been for a few
months their daily fare, they become more temperate than they
had ever been in their own country. In the same manner,
the final, all and permanent fruits of liberty are wisdom, moderation,
and mercy. Its immediate effects are often atrocious crimes, conflicting errors.
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Skepticism on points the most clear, dogmatism on points the
most mysterious. It is just at this crisis that its
enemies love to exhibit it. They pull down the scaffolding
from the half finished edifice. They point to the flying dust,
the falling bricks, the comfortless rooms, the frightful irregularity of
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the whole appearance, and then ask in scorn where the
promised splendor and comfort is to be found. If such
miserable sophisms were to prevail, there would never be a
good house or a good government in the world. Ariosto
tells a pretty story of a fairy who, by some
mysterious law of her nature, was condemned to appear at
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certain seasons in the form of a foul and poisonous snake.
Those who injured her during the period of her disguise
were forever excluded from participation in the blessings which she bestowed.
But to those who, in spite of her loathsome aspect,
pitied and protected her, she afterwards revealed herself in the
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beautiful and celestial form which was natural to her, accompanied
their steps, granted all their wishes, filled their houses with wealth,
made them happy in love, and victorious in war. Such
a spirit is liberty. At times she takes the form
of a hateful reptile. She grovels, she hisses, she stings.
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But woe to those who, in disgust shall venture to
crush her. And happy are those who, having dared to
receive her in her degraded and frightful shape, shall at
length be rewarded by her in the time of her
beauty and her glory. There is only one cure for
the evil which newly acquired freedom produces, and that cure
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is freedom. When a prisoner first leaves his cell, he
cannot bear the light of day. He is unable to
discriminate colors or recognize faces. But the remedy is not
to remand him into his dungeon, but to accustom him
to the rays of the sun. The blaze of truth
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and liberty may at first dazzle in bewilder nations which
have become half blind in the house of bondage. But
let them gaze on, and they will soon be able
to bear it. In a few years, men learn to reason.
The extreme violence of opinion subsides, hostile theories correct each other,
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The scattered elements of truth cease to contend and begin
to coalesce, and at length a system of justice and
order is adduced out of the chaos. Many politicians of
our time are in the habit of laying it down
as a self evident proposition, that no people ought to
be free till they are fit to use their freedom.
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The maxim is worthy of the fool in the old
story who resolved not to go into the water till
he had learnt to swim. If men are to wait
for liberty till they become wise and good in slavery,
they may indeed wait forever. Therefore, it is that we
decidedly approve of the conduct of Milton and the other
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wise and good men, who, in spite of much that
was ridiculous and hateful in the conduct of their associates,
stood firmly by the cause of public liberty. We are
not aware that the poet has been charged with personal
participation in any of the blameable excesses of that time.
The favorite topic of his enemies is the line of
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conduct which he pursued with regard to the execution of
the King of that celebrated proceeding, we by no means approve.
Still we must say, in justice to the many eminent
persons who concurred in it, and in justice more particularly
to the eminent person who defended it, that nothing can
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be more absurd than the imputations which, for the last
one hundred and sixty years it has been the fashion
to cast upon the regicides. We have throughout abstained from
appealing to first principles. We will not appeal to them.
Now we recur again to the parallel case of the revolution.
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What essential distinction can be drawn between the execution of
the father and the deposition of the son? What constitutional
maxim is there which applies to the former and not
to the latter. The King can do no wrong. If so,
James was as innocent as Charles could have been. The
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minister only ought to be responsible for the acts of
the sovereign. If so, why not impeach Jeffrey's and retain James.
The person of a king is sacred. Was the person
of James considered sacred at the boin. To discharge cannon
against an enemy in which a king is known to
be posted is to approach pretty near to regicide. Charles, too,
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which should always be remembered, was put to debt by
men who had been exasperated by the hostilities of several years,
and who had never been bound to him by any
other tie than that which was common to them with
all their fellow citizens. Those who drove James from his throne,
who seduced his army, who alienated his friends, who first
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imprisoned him in his palace and then turned him out
of it, who broke in upon his very slumbers by
imperious messages, who pursued him with fire and sword from
one part of the empire to another, who hanged, drew,
and quartered his adherents, and attainted his innocent Ais were
his nephew and his two daughters, when we reflect on
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all these things, we are at a loss to conceive
how the same persons, who, on the fifth of November
thank God for wonderfully conducting his servant William, and for
making all opposition fall before him until he became our
king and governor can on the thirtieth of January, contrived
to be afraid that the blood of the royal martyr
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may be visited on themselves and their children. We disapprove,
we repeat, of the execution of Charles, not because the
Constitution exempts the king from responsibility, for we know that
all such maxims, however excellent, have their exceptions. Nor because
we feel any peculiar interest in his character, for we
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think that his sentence describes him with perfect justice, as
a tyrant, a traitor, a murderer, and a public enemy.
But because we are convincedst that the measure was most
injurious to the cause of freedom. He whom it removed
was a captive and a hostage. His heir, to whom
the allegiance of every royalist was instantly transferred, was at large.
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The Presbyterians could never have been perfectly reconciled to the Father.
They had no such rooted enmity to the son. The
great body of the people also contemplated that, proceeding with
feelings which, however unreasonable, no government could safely venture to outrage.
But though we think the conduct of the regicides blameable,
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that of Milton appears to us in a very different light.
The deed was done, it could not be undone. The
evil was incurred, and the object was to render it
as small as possible. We censure the chiefs of the
army for not yielding to the popular opinion, but we
cannot censure Milton for wishing to change that opinion. The
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very feeling which would have restrained us from committing the
act would have led us, after it had been committed,
to defend it against the ravings of servility and superstition.
For the sake of public liberty, we wished that the
thing had not been done while the people disapproved of it.
But for the sake of public liberty, we should also
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have wished the people to approve of it when it
was done. If anything more, were wanting to the justification
of Milton, the book of Salmasius would furnish it. That
miserable performance is now with justice considered only as a
beakon two word catchers who wish to become statesmen. The
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celebrity of the man who refuted it, the Ainai Magni
dextra gives it all its fame with the present generation.
In that age, the state of things was different. It
was not then fully understood how vast an interval separate
rates the mere classical scholar from the political philosopher. Nor
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can it be doubted that a treatise which, bearing the
name of so eminent a critic, attacked the fundamental principles
of all free governments, must, if suffered to remain unanswered,
have produced a most pernicious effect on the public mind.
We wish to add a few words relative to another
subject on which the enemies of Milton delight to dwell
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his conduct during the administration of the Protector. That an
enthusiastic votary of liberty should accept office under a military
usurper seems, no doubt, at first sight, extraordinary. But all
the circumstances in which the country was then placed were extraordinary.
The ambition of Oliver was of no vulgar kind. He
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never seems to have coveted despotic power. He at first
fought sincerely and manfully for the Parliament, and never deserted
it till it had deserted its duty. If he dissolved
it by force, it was not till he found that
the few members who remained, after so many deaths, secessions
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and expulsions, were desirous to appropriate to themselves a power
which they held only in trust, and to inflict upon
England the curse of a Venetian oligarchy. But even when
thus placed by violence at the head of affairs, he
did not assume unlimited power. He gave the country a
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constitution far more perfect than any which had at that
time been known in the world. He reformed the representative
system in a manner which has extorted praise even from
Lord Clarendon. For himself he demanded, indeed the first place
in the Commonwealth, but with powers scarcely so great as
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those of a Dutch Stadtholder or an American president. He
gave the Parliament a voice and the appointment of ministers,
and left to it the whole legislative authority, not even
reserving to himself a veto on its enactments. And he
did not require that the chief magistracy should be hereditary
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in his family. Thus far, we think, if the circumstances
of the time and the opportunities which he had of
aggrandizing himself be fairly considered, he will not lose by
comparison with a Washington or a Bolivar. Had his moderation
been met by corresponding moderation, there is no reason to
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think that he would have overstepped the line which he
had traced for himself. But when he found that his
parliaments questioned the authority under which they met, and that
he was in danger of being deprived of the restricted
power which was absolutely necessary to his personal safety, then
it must be acknowledged he adopted a more arbitrary policy. Yet,
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though we believe that the intentions of Cromwell were at
first honest, though we believe that he was driven from
the noble course which he had marked out for himself
by the almost irresistible force of circumstances. Though we admire,
in common with all men of all parties, the ability
and energy of his splendid administration, we are not pleading
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for arbitrary and lawless power even in his hands. We
know that a good constitution is infinitely better than the
best despot but we suspect that, at the time of
which we speak, the violence of religious and political enmities
rendered a stable and happy settlement next to impossible. The
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choice lay not between Cromwell and liberty, but between Cromwell
and the Stewarts that Milton chows well. No man can
doubt who fairly compares the events of the Protectorate with
those of the thirty years which succeeded it. The darkest
and most disgraceful in the English annals. Cromwell was evidently laying,
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though in an irregular manner, the foundations of an admirable system.
Never before had religious liberty and the freedom of discussion
been enjoyed in a greater degree. Never had the national
honor been better upheld abroad, or the seat of justice
better filled at home. And it was rarely that any
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opposition which stopped short of open rebellion provoked the resentment
of the liberal and magnanimous usurper. The institutions which he
had established as set down in the instrument of government,
and the humble petition and advice, were excellent. His practice,
it is true, too often departed from the theory of
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these institutions. But had he lived a few years longer.
It is probable that his institutions would have survived him,
and that his arbitrary practice would have died with him.
His power had not been consecrated by ancient prejudices. It
was upheld only by his great personal qualities. Little therefore,
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was to be dreaded from a second Protector, unless he
was also a second Oliver Cromwell. The events which followed
his decease are the most complete vindication of those who
exerted themselves to uphold his authority. His death dissolved the
whole frame of society. The army rose against the parliament,
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the different corps of the army against each other, Sect
raved against sect, party plotted against party. The Presbyterians, in
their eagerness to be revenged on the independence, sacrificed their
own liberty and deserted all their old principles, without casting
one glance on the past or requiring one stipulation for
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the future. They threw down their freedom at the feet
of the most frivolous and heartless of tyrants. Then came
those days never to be recalled without a blush, the
days of servitude without loyalty, and sensuality without love of dwarfish,
talents and gigantic vices, the paradise of cold hearts and
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narrow minds, the golden age of the coward, the bigot,
and the slave. The king cringed to his rival that
he might trample on his people, sank into a viceroy
of France, and pocketed with complacent infamy, her degrading insults
and her more degrading gold. The caresses of harlots and
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the jests of buffoons regulated the policy of the state.
The government had just ability enough to deceive, and just
religion enough to persecute. The principles of liberty were the
scoff of every grinning courtier and the anathema amaranatha of
every fawning dean. In every high place, worship was paid
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to Charles and James, Belliol and March, and England propitiated
those obscene and cruel idols with the blood of her
best and bravest children. Crime succeeded to crime, and disgrace
to disgrace, till the race accursed of God and man
was a second time driven forth to wander on the
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face of the earth, and to be a byword and
a shaking of the head to the nations. Most of
the remarks which we have hitherto made on the public
character of Milton apply to him only as one of
a large body. We shall proceed to notice some of
the peculiarities which distinguished him from his contemporaries, and for
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that purpose it is necessary to take a short survey
of the parties into which the political world was at
that time divided. We must premise that our observations are
intended to apply only to those who adhered from a
sincere preference to one or to the other side. In
days of public commotion, every faction, like an Oriental army,
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is attended by a crowd of camp followers and useless
and heartless rabble, which prowl round its line of march
in hope of picking up something under its protection, but
deserted in the day of battle, and often joined to
exterminate it after a defeat. England, at the time of
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which we are treating, abounded with fickle and selfish politicians,
who transferred their support to every government as it rose,
who kissed the hand of the King in sixteen forty
and spat in his face in sixteen forty nine, who
shouted with equal glee when Cromwell was inaugurated in Westminster Hall,
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and when he was dug up to be hanged at Tyburn,
shined down cabs heads or stuck up oak branches, as
circumstances altered, without the slightest shame or repugnance. These we
leave out of the account. We take our estimate of
parties from those who really deserved to be called partisans.
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We would speak first of the Puritans, the most remarkable
body of men, perhaps which the world has ever produced.
The odious and ridiculous parts of their character lie on
the surface. He that runs may read them, nor have
there been wanting attentive and malicious observers to point them out.
For many years after the restoration, they were the theme
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of unmeasured invective and derision. They were exposed to the
utmost licentiousness of the present of the stage, at the
time when the press and the stage were most licentious.
They were not men of letters. They were as a
body unpopular. They could not defend themselves, and the public
would not take them under its pro detection. They were
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therefore abandoned without reserve to the tender mercies of the
satirists and dramatists, the ostentatious simplicity of their dress, their
sour aspect, their nasal twang, their stiff posture, their long graces,
their Hebrew names, the scriptural phrases which they introduced on
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every occasion, their contempt of human learning, their detestation of
polite amusements, were indeed fair game for the laughers. But
it is not from the laughers alone that the philosophy
of history is to be learnt, and he who approaches
this subject should carefully guard against the influences of that
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potent ridicule which has already misled so many excellent writers.
Eco il fonte del riso at echo ilillo, qui mortali
perini in se conte, or quitenera frenostro decillo edser caltimoto
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a noi conviene. Those who roused the people to resistance,
who directed their measures through a long series of eventful years,
who formed, out of the most unpromising materials, the finest
army that Europe had ever seen, Who trampled down king,
Church and aristocracy, Who in the short intervals of domestics,
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edition and rebellion, made the name of England terrible to
every nation on the face of the earth were no
vulgar fanatics. Most of their absurdities were mere external badges,
like the signs of freemasonry or the dresses of friars.
We regret that these badges were no more attractive. We
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regret that a body to whose courage and talents mankind
has owed inestimable obligations, had not the lofty elegance which
distinguished some of the adherents of Charles the First, or
the easy good breeding for which the court of Charles
the Second was celebrated. But if we must make our choice,
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we shall, like Bassanio in the play, turn from the
specious caskets, which contain only the death's head and the
fool's head, and fix on the plain leaden chest, which
conceals the treasure. The Puritans were men whose minds had
derived a peculiar character from the daily contemplation of superior
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beings and eternal interests. Not content with acknowledging in general
terms and overruling providence, they habitually ascribed every event to
the will of the great being, for whose power nothing
was too vast, for whose inspection nothing was too minute
to know him, to serve him to enjoy him was
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with them the great end of existence. They reject acted
with contempt the ceremonious homage which other sects substituted for
the pure worship of the soul. Instead of catching occasional
glimpses of the deity through an obscuring veil, they aspired
to gaze full on his intolerable brightness and to commune
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with him face to face. Hence originated their contempt for
terrestrial distinctions. The difference between the greatest and the meanest
of mankind seemed to vanish when compared with the boundless
interval which separated the whole race from Him, on whom
their own eyes were constantly fixed. They recognized no title
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to superiority but his favor, and confidant of that favor,
they despised all the accomplishments and all the dignities of
the world. If they were unacquainted with the works of
philosophers and poets, they were deeply read in the oracles
of God. If their names were not found in the
registers of haty heralds, they were recorded in the Book
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of Life. If their steps were not accompanied by a
splendid train of menials, legions of ministering angels had charge
over them. Their palaces were houses not made with hands.
Their diadems crowns of glory, which should never fade away.
On the rich and the eloquent, On nobles and priests,
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they looked down with contempt, for they esteemed themselves rich
in a more precious treasure, and eloquent in a more
sublime language. Nobles by the rites of an earlier creation,
and priests by the imposition of a mightier hand. The
very meanest of them was a being to whose fate
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a mysterious and terrible importance belonged on whose slightest action.
The spirits of light and darkness looked with anxious interests
who had been destined before heaven and earth were created
to enjoy a felicity win should continue when heaven and
Earth should have passed away. Events which shortsighted politicians ascribed
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to earthly causes had been ordained on his account for
his sake. Empires had risen and flourished and decayed. For
his sake. The Almighty had proclaimed his will by the
pen of the evangelist and the harp of the prophet.
He had been rested by no common deliverer from the
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grasp of no common foe. He had been ransomed by
the sweat of no vulgar agony, by the blood of
no earthly sacrifice. It was for him that the sun
had been darkened, that the rocks had been rent, that
the dead had risen, that all nature had shuddered at
the sufferings of her expiring God. End of Section four.
Section four of Milton by Thomas Babington mac caulay. This
librovox recording is in the public domain. Read by Pamela
and Nagami, Part four. We cannot refrain from adding a
few words respecting a topic on which the defenders of
Charles are fond of dwelling. If they say he governed
(00:23):
his people, ill he at least governed them after the
example of his predecessors. If he violated their privileges, it
was because those privileges had not been accurately defined. No
act of oppression has ever been imputed to him which
has not a parallel in the annals of the tutors.
(00:44):
This point, Hume has labored with an art which is
as discreditable in a historical work as it would be
admirable in a forensic address. The answer is short, clear
and decisive. Charles had a sented to the petition of right,
he had renounced the oppressive power said to have been
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exercised by his predecessors, and he had renounced them for money.
He was not entitled to set up his antiquated claims
against his own recent release. These arguments are so obvious
that it may seem superfluous to dwell upon them. But
those who have observed how much the events of that
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time are misrepresented and misunderstood, will not blame us for
stating the case simply. It is a case of which
the simplest statement is the strongest. The enemies of the
Parliament indeed rarely choose to take issue on the great
points of the question. They content themselves with exposing some
(01:48):
of the crimes and follies to which public commotions necessarily
give birth. They bewail the unmerited fate of Strafford, They
execrate the lawless violence of the army. They laugh at
the scriptural names of the preachers, major generals fleecing their districts,
(02:08):
Soldiers reveling on the spoils of a ruined peasantry, upstarts
enriched by the public plunder taking, possession of the hospitable
firesides and hereditary trees of the old gentry, boys smashing
the beautiful windows of cathedrals, Quakers riding naked through the marketplace,
(02:30):
Fifth monarchy, men shouting for King Jesus, Agitators lecturing from
the tops of tubs on the fate of a gog.
All these, they tell us, were the offspring of the
great rebellion. Be it so, we are not careful to
answer in this matter these charges, were they infinitely more important,
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would not alter our opinion of an event which alone
has made us to differ from the slaves who crouch
beneath the lad spot. Acceptors many evils, no doubt, were
produced by the Civil War. They were the price of
our liberty. Has the acquisition been worth the sacrifice? It
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is the nature of the devil of tyranny to tear
and rend the body which he leaves. Are the miseries
of continued possession less horrible than the struggles of the
tremendous exorcism. If it were possible that a people brought
up under an intolerant and arbitrary system could subvert that
(03:34):
system without acts of cruelty and folly, half the objections
to despotic power would be removed. We should, in that
case be compelled to acknowledge that it at least produces
no pernicious effects on the intellectual and moral character of
a nation. We deplore the outrages which accompany revolutions, but
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the more violent the outrages, the more assured we feel
that a revolution was necessary. The violence of those outrages
will always be proportioned to the ferocity and ignorance of
the people, and the ferocity and ignorance of the people
will be proportioned to the oppression and degradation under which
(04:21):
they have been accustomed to live. Thus it was in
our civil war the heads of the church and state
reaped only that which they had sown. The government had
prohibited free discussion, It had done its best to keep
the people unacquainted with their duties and their rights. The
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retribution was just and natural. If our rulers suffered from
popular ignorance, it was because they themselves had taken away
the key of knowledge. If they were assailed with blind fury,
it was because they they had exacted an equally blind submission.
(05:04):
It is the character of such revolutions that we always
see the worst of them at first, till men have
been sometime free, they know not how to use their freedom.
The natives of wine countries are generally sober. In climates
where wine is a rarity, in temperance abounds, a newly
(05:26):
liberated people may be compared to a northern army encamped
on the Rhine or the Zeres. It is said that
when soldiers in such a situation first find themselves able
to indulge without restraint. In such a rare and expensive luxury,
nothing is to be seen but intoxication. Soon, however, plenty
(05:47):
teaches discretion, and after wine has been for a few
months their daily fare, they become more temperate than they
had ever been in their own country. In the same manner,
the final, all and permanent fruits of liberty are wisdom, moderation,
and mercy. Its immediate effects are often atrocious crimes, conflicting errors.
(06:10):
Skepticism on points the most clear, dogmatism on points the
most mysterious. It is just at this crisis that its
enemies love to exhibit it. They pull down the scaffolding
from the half finished edifice. They point to the flying dust,
the falling bricks, the comfortless rooms, the frightful irregularity of
(06:33):
the whole appearance, and then ask in scorn where the
promised splendor and comfort is to be found. If such
miserable sophisms were to prevail, there would never be a
good house or a good government in the world. Ariosto
tells a pretty story of a fairy who, by some
mysterious law of her nature, was condemned to appear at
(06:56):
certain seasons in the form of a foul and poisonous snake.
Those who injured her during the period of her disguise
were forever excluded from participation in the blessings which she bestowed.
But to those who, in spite of her loathsome aspect,
pitied and protected her, she afterwards revealed herself in the
(07:18):
beautiful and celestial form which was natural to her, accompanied
their steps, granted all their wishes, filled their houses with wealth,
made them happy in love, and victorious in war. Such
a spirit is liberty. At times she takes the form
of a hateful reptile. She grovels, she hisses, she stings.
(07:42):
But woe to those who, in disgust shall venture to
crush her. And happy are those who, having dared to
receive her in her degraded and frightful shape, shall at
length be rewarded by her in the time of her
beauty and her glory. There is only one cure for
the evil which newly acquired freedom produces, and that cure
(08:04):
is freedom. When a prisoner first leaves his cell, he
cannot bear the light of day. He is unable to
discriminate colors or recognize faces. But the remedy is not
to remand him into his dungeon, but to accustom him
to the rays of the sun. The blaze of truth
(08:24):
and liberty may at first dazzle in bewilder nations which
have become half blind in the house of bondage. But
let them gaze on, and they will soon be able
to bear it. In a few years, men learn to reason.
The extreme violence of opinion subsides, hostile theories correct each other,
(08:44):
The scattered elements of truth cease to contend and begin
to coalesce, and at length a system of justice and
order is adduced out of the chaos. Many politicians of
our time are in the habit of laying it down
as a self evident proposition, that no people ought to
be free till they are fit to use their freedom.
(09:07):
The maxim is worthy of the fool in the old
story who resolved not to go into the water till
he had learnt to swim. If men are to wait
for liberty till they become wise and good in slavery,
they may indeed wait forever. Therefore, it is that we
decidedly approve of the conduct of Milton and the other
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wise and good men, who, in spite of much that
was ridiculous and hateful in the conduct of their associates,
stood firmly by the cause of public liberty. We are
not aware that the poet has been charged with personal
participation in any of the blameable excesses of that time.
The favorite topic of his enemies is the line of
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conduct which he pursued with regard to the execution of
the King of that celebrated proceeding, we by no means approve.
Still we must say, in justice to the many eminent
persons who concurred in it, and in justice more particularly
to the eminent person who defended it, that nothing can
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be more absurd than the imputations which, for the last
one hundred and sixty years it has been the fashion
to cast upon the regicides. We have throughout abstained from
appealing to first principles. We will not appeal to them.
Now we recur again to the parallel case of the revolution.
(10:34):
What essential distinction can be drawn between the execution of
the father and the deposition of the son? What constitutional
maxim is there which applies to the former and not
to the latter. The King can do no wrong. If so,
James was as innocent as Charles could have been. The
(10:54):
minister only ought to be responsible for the acts of
the sovereign. If so, why not impeach Jeffrey's and retain James.
The person of a king is sacred. Was the person
of James considered sacred at the boin. To discharge cannon
against an enemy in which a king is known to
be posted is to approach pretty near to regicide. Charles, too,
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which should always be remembered, was put to debt by
men who had been exasperated by the hostilities of several years,
and who had never been bound to him by any
other tie than that which was common to them with
all their fellow citizens. Those who drove James from his throne,
who seduced his army, who alienated his friends, who first
(11:41):
imprisoned him in his palace and then turned him out
of it, who broke in upon his very slumbers by
imperious messages, who pursued him with fire and sword from
one part of the empire to another, who hanged, drew,
and quartered his adherents, and attainted his innocent Ais were
his nephew and his two daughters, when we reflect on
(12:06):
all these things, we are at a loss to conceive
how the same persons, who, on the fifth of November
thank God for wonderfully conducting his servant William, and for
making all opposition fall before him until he became our
king and governor can on the thirtieth of January, contrived
to be afraid that the blood of the royal martyr
(12:27):
may be visited on themselves and their children. We disapprove,
we repeat, of the execution of Charles, not because the
Constitution exempts the king from responsibility, for we know that
all such maxims, however excellent, have their exceptions. Nor because
we feel any peculiar interest in his character, for we
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think that his sentence describes him with perfect justice, as
a tyrant, a traitor, a murderer, and a public enemy.
But because we are convincedst that the measure was most
injurious to the cause of freedom. He whom it removed
was a captive and a hostage. His heir, to whom
the allegiance of every royalist was instantly transferred, was at large.
(13:14):
The Presbyterians could never have been perfectly reconciled to the Father.
They had no such rooted enmity to the son. The
great body of the people also contemplated that, proceeding with
feelings which, however unreasonable, no government could safely venture to outrage.
But though we think the conduct of the regicides blameable,
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that of Milton appears to us in a very different light.
The deed was done, it could not be undone. The
evil was incurred, and the object was to render it
as small as possible. We censure the chiefs of the
army for not yielding to the popular opinion, but we
cannot censure Milton for wishing to change that opinion. The
(14:01):
very feeling which would have restrained us from committing the
act would have led us, after it had been committed,
to defend it against the ravings of servility and superstition.
For the sake of public liberty, we wished that the
thing had not been done while the people disapproved of it.
But for the sake of public liberty, we should also
(14:23):
have wished the people to approve of it when it
was done. If anything more, were wanting to the justification
of Milton, the book of Salmasius would furnish it. That
miserable performance is now with justice considered only as a
beakon two word catchers who wish to become statesmen. The
(14:43):
celebrity of the man who refuted it, the Ainai Magni
dextra gives it all its fame with the present generation.
In that age, the state of things was different. It
was not then fully understood how vast an interval separate
rates the mere classical scholar from the political philosopher. Nor
(15:04):
can it be doubted that a treatise which, bearing the
name of so eminent a critic, attacked the fundamental principles
of all free governments, must, if suffered to remain unanswered,
have produced a most pernicious effect on the public mind.
We wish to add a few words relative to another
subject on which the enemies of Milton delight to dwell
(15:27):
his conduct during the administration of the Protector. That an
enthusiastic votary of liberty should accept office under a military
usurper seems, no doubt, at first sight, extraordinary. But all
the circumstances in which the country was then placed were extraordinary.
The ambition of Oliver was of no vulgar kind. He
(15:50):
never seems to have coveted despotic power. He at first
fought sincerely and manfully for the Parliament, and never deserted
it till it had deserted its duty. If he dissolved
it by force, it was not till he found that
the few members who remained, after so many deaths, secessions
(16:10):
and expulsions, were desirous to appropriate to themselves a power
which they held only in trust, and to inflict upon
England the curse of a Venetian oligarchy. But even when
thus placed by violence at the head of affairs, he
did not assume unlimited power. He gave the country a
(16:31):
constitution far more perfect than any which had at that
time been known in the world. He reformed the representative
system in a manner which has extorted praise even from
Lord Clarendon. For himself he demanded, indeed the first place
in the Commonwealth, but with powers scarcely so great as
(16:51):
those of a Dutch Stadtholder or an American president. He
gave the Parliament a voice and the appointment of ministers,
and left to it the whole legislative authority, not even
reserving to himself a veto on its enactments. And he
did not require that the chief magistracy should be hereditary
(17:12):
in his family. Thus far, we think, if the circumstances
of the time and the opportunities which he had of
aggrandizing himself be fairly considered, he will not lose by
comparison with a Washington or a Bolivar. Had his moderation
been met by corresponding moderation, there is no reason to
(17:33):
think that he would have overstepped the line which he
had traced for himself. But when he found that his
parliaments questioned the authority under which they met, and that
he was in danger of being deprived of the restricted
power which was absolutely necessary to his personal safety, then
it must be acknowledged he adopted a more arbitrary policy. Yet,
(17:58):
though we believe that the intentions of Cromwell were at
first honest, though we believe that he was driven from
the noble course which he had marked out for himself
by the almost irresistible force of circumstances. Though we admire,
in common with all men of all parties, the ability
and energy of his splendid administration, we are not pleading
(18:21):
for arbitrary and lawless power even in his hands. We
know that a good constitution is infinitely better than the
best despot but we suspect that, at the time of
which we speak, the violence of religious and political enmities
rendered a stable and happy settlement next to impossible. The
(18:43):
choice lay not between Cromwell and liberty, but between Cromwell
and the Stewarts that Milton chows well. No man can
doubt who fairly compares the events of the Protectorate with
those of the thirty years which succeeded it. The darkest
and most disgraceful in the English annals. Cromwell was evidently laying,
(19:05):
though in an irregular manner, the foundations of an admirable system.
Never before had religious liberty and the freedom of discussion
been enjoyed in a greater degree. Never had the national
honor been better upheld abroad, or the seat of justice
better filled at home. And it was rarely that any
(19:27):
opposition which stopped short of open rebellion provoked the resentment
of the liberal and magnanimous usurper. The institutions which he
had established as set down in the instrument of government,
and the humble petition and advice, were excellent. His practice,
it is true, too often departed from the theory of
(19:49):
these institutions. But had he lived a few years longer.
It is probable that his institutions would have survived him,
and that his arbitrary practice would have died with him.
His power had not been consecrated by ancient prejudices. It
was upheld only by his great personal qualities. Little therefore,
(20:11):
was to be dreaded from a second Protector, unless he
was also a second Oliver Cromwell. The events which followed
his decease are the most complete vindication of those who
exerted themselves to uphold his authority. His death dissolved the
whole frame of society. The army rose against the parliament,
(20:34):
the different corps of the army against each other, Sect
raved against sect, party plotted against party. The Presbyterians, in
their eagerness to be revenged on the independence, sacrificed their
own liberty and deserted all their old principles, without casting
one glance on the past or requiring one stipulation for
(20:56):
the future. They threw down their freedom at the feet
of the most frivolous and heartless of tyrants. Then came
those days never to be recalled without a blush, the
days of servitude without loyalty, and sensuality without love of dwarfish,
talents and gigantic vices, the paradise of cold hearts and
(21:20):
narrow minds, the golden age of the coward, the bigot,
and the slave. The king cringed to his rival that
he might trample on his people, sank into a viceroy
of France, and pocketed with complacent infamy, her degrading insults
and her more degrading gold. The caresses of harlots and
(21:43):
the jests of buffoons regulated the policy of the state.
The government had just ability enough to deceive, and just
religion enough to persecute. The principles of liberty were the
scoff of every grinning courtier and the anathema amaranatha of
every fawning dean. In every high place, worship was paid
(22:05):
to Charles and James, Belliol and March, and England propitiated
those obscene and cruel idols with the blood of her
best and bravest children. Crime succeeded to crime, and disgrace
to disgrace, till the race accursed of God and man
was a second time driven forth to wander on the
(22:28):
face of the earth, and to be a byword and
a shaking of the head to the nations. Most of
the remarks which we have hitherto made on the public
character of Milton apply to him only as one of
a large body. We shall proceed to notice some of
the peculiarities which distinguished him from his contemporaries, and for
(22:50):
that purpose it is necessary to take a short survey
of the parties into which the political world was at
that time divided. We must premise that our observations are
intended to apply only to those who adhered from a
sincere preference to one or to the other side. In
days of public commotion, every faction, like an Oriental army,
(23:15):
is attended by a crowd of camp followers and useless
and heartless rabble, which prowl round its line of march
in hope of picking up something under its protection, but
deserted in the day of battle, and often joined to
exterminate it after a defeat. England, at the time of
(23:35):
which we are treating, abounded with fickle and selfish politicians,
who transferred their support to every government as it rose,
who kissed the hand of the King in sixteen forty
and spat in his face in sixteen forty nine, who
shouted with equal glee when Cromwell was inaugurated in Westminster Hall,
(23:56):
and when he was dug up to be hanged at Tyburn,
shined down cabs heads or stuck up oak branches, as
circumstances altered, without the slightest shame or repugnance. These we
leave out of the account. We take our estimate of
parties from those who really deserved to be called partisans.
(24:17):
We would speak first of the Puritans, the most remarkable
body of men, perhaps which the world has ever produced.
The odious and ridiculous parts of their character lie on
the surface. He that runs may read them, nor have
there been wanting attentive and malicious observers to point them out.
For many years after the restoration, they were the theme
(24:39):
of unmeasured invective and derision. They were exposed to the
utmost licentiousness of the present of the stage, at the
time when the press and the stage were most licentious.
They were not men of letters. They were as a
body unpopular. They could not defend themselves, and the public
would not take them under its pro detection. They were
(25:01):
therefore abandoned without reserve to the tender mercies of the
satirists and dramatists, the ostentatious simplicity of their dress, their
sour aspect, their nasal twang, their stiff posture, their long graces,
their Hebrew names, the scriptural phrases which they introduced on
(25:22):
every occasion, their contempt of human learning, their detestation of
polite amusements, were indeed fair game for the laughers. But
it is not from the laughers alone that the philosophy
of history is to be learnt, and he who approaches
this subject should carefully guard against the influences of that
(25:46):
potent ridicule which has already misled so many excellent writers.
Eco il fonte del riso at echo ilillo, qui mortali
perini in se conte, or quitenera frenostro decillo edser caltimoto
(26:06):
a noi conviene. Those who roused the people to resistance,
who directed their measures through a long series of eventful years,
who formed, out of the most unpromising materials, the finest
army that Europe had ever seen, Who trampled down king,
Church and aristocracy, Who in the short intervals of domestics,
(26:30):
edition and rebellion, made the name of England terrible to
every nation on the face of the earth were no
vulgar fanatics. Most of their absurdities were mere external badges,
like the signs of freemasonry or the dresses of friars.
We regret that these badges were no more attractive. We
(26:52):
regret that a body to whose courage and talents mankind
has owed inestimable obligations, had not the lofty elegance which
distinguished some of the adherents of Charles the First, or
the easy good breeding for which the court of Charles
the Second was celebrated. But if we must make our choice,
(27:13):
we shall, like Bassanio in the play, turn from the
specious caskets, which contain only the death's head and the
fool's head, and fix on the plain leaden chest, which
conceals the treasure. The Puritans were men whose minds had
derived a peculiar character from the daily contemplation of superior
(27:34):
beings and eternal interests. Not content with acknowledging in general
terms and overruling providence, they habitually ascribed every event to
the will of the great being, for whose power nothing
was too vast, for whose inspection nothing was too minute
to know him, to serve him to enjoy him was
(27:56):
with them the great end of existence. They reject acted
with contempt the ceremonious homage which other sects substituted for
the pure worship of the soul. Instead of catching occasional
glimpses of the deity through an obscuring veil, they aspired
to gaze full on his intolerable brightness and to commune
(28:17):
with him face to face. Hence originated their contempt for
terrestrial distinctions. The difference between the greatest and the meanest
of mankind seemed to vanish when compared with the boundless
interval which separated the whole race from Him, on whom
their own eyes were constantly fixed. They recognized no title
(28:39):
to superiority but his favor, and confidant of that favor,
they despised all the accomplishments and all the dignities of
the world. If they were unacquainted with the works of
philosophers and poets, they were deeply read in the oracles
of God. If their names were not found in the
registers of haty heralds, they were recorded in the Book
(29:02):
of Life. If their steps were not accompanied by a
splendid train of menials, legions of ministering angels had charge
over them. Their palaces were houses not made with hands.
Their diadems crowns of glory, which should never fade away.
On the rich and the eloquent, On nobles and priests,
(29:23):
they looked down with contempt, for they esteemed themselves rich
in a more precious treasure, and eloquent in a more
sublime language. Nobles by the rites of an earlier creation,
and priests by the imposition of a mightier hand. The
very meanest of them was a being to whose fate
(29:44):
a mysterious and terrible importance belonged on whose slightest action.
The spirits of light and darkness looked with anxious interests
who had been destined before heaven and earth were created
to enjoy a felicity win should continue when heaven and
Earth should have passed away. Events which shortsighted politicians ascribed
(30:07):
to earthly causes had been ordained on his account for
his sake. Empires had risen and flourished and decayed. For
his sake. The Almighty had proclaimed his will by the
pen of the evangelist and the harp of the prophet.
He had been rested by no common deliverer from the
(30:27):
grasp of no common foe. He had been ransomed by
the sweat of no vulgar agony, by the blood of
no earthly sacrifice. It was for him that the sun
had been darkened, that the rocks had been rent, that
the dead had risen, that all nature had shuddered at
the sufferings of her expiring God. End of Section four.
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