August 18, 2025 • 21 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.)
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Section five of Milton by Thomas Babington mac caulay. This
librovox recording is in the public domain. Read by Pamela
and Nigami, Part five. Thus the Puritan was made up
of two different men, the one all self abasement, penitence, gratitude, passion,
(00:22):
the other proud, calm, inflexible, sagacious. He prostrated himself in
the dust before his maker, but he set his foot
on the neck of his king. In his devotional retirement,
he prayed with convulsions and groans and tears. He was
half maddened by glorious or terrible illusions. He heard the
(00:44):
lyres of angels, of the tempting whispers of fiends. He
caught a gleam of the beatific vision. More woke screaming
from dreams of everlasting fire. Like Vain, he thought himself
entrusted with the scepter of the millennial year. Like Fleetwood.
He cried in the bitterness of his soul that God
(01:04):
had hid his face from him. But when he took
his seat in the council or girt on his sword
for war, these tempestuous workings of the soul had left
no perceptible trace behind them. People who saw nothing of
the godly but their uncouth visages, and heard nothing from
them but their groans and their whining hymns, might laugh
(01:27):
at them. But those had little reason to laugh who
encountered them in the hall of debate or in the
field of battle. These fanatics brought to civil and military
affairs a coolness of judgment and an immutability of purpose,
which some writers have thought inconsistent with their religiouseal, but
(01:48):
which were in fact the necessary effects of it. The
intensity of their feelings on one subject made them tranquil
on every other one. O overpowering sentiment had subjected to
itself pity and hatred, ambition and fear. Death had lost
(02:08):
its terrors, and pleasure its charms. They had their smiles
and their tears, their raptures and their sorrows, but not
for the things of this world. Enthusiasm had made them stoics,
had cleared their minds from every vulgar passion and prejudice,
and raised them above the influence of danger and of corruption.
(02:31):
It sometimes might lead them to pursue unwise ends, but
never to choose unwise means. They went through the world
like sir article's iron mantalis, with his flail, crushing and
trampling down oppressors, mingling with human beings, but having neither
part nor lot in human infirmities, insensible to fatigue, to pleasure,
(02:55):
and to pain, not to be pierced by any weapon,
not to be with ste by any barrier. Such we
believe to have been the character of the Puritans. We
perceive the absurdity of their manners. We dislike the sullen
gloom of their domestic habits. We acknowledge that the tone
of their minds was often injured by straining after things
(03:18):
too high for mortal reach. And we know that, in
spite of their hatred of popery, they too often fell
into the worst vices of that bad system, intolerance and
extravagant austerity. That they had their anchorites and their crusades,
and their dunstans, and their demantforts, their dominics and their escobars.
(03:40):
Yet when all circumstances are taken into consideration, we do
not hesitate to pronounce them a brave, a wise, an honest,
and a useful body. The Puritans espoused the cause of
civil liberty mainly because it was the cause of religion.
There was another party, by no means numerous, but distinguished
(04:02):
by learning and ability, which acted with them on very
different principles. We speak of those whom Cromwell was accustomed
to call the Heathens, men who were, in the phraseology
of that time, doubting Thomas's or careless gallios with regard
to religious subjects, but passionate worshipers of freedom. Heeded by
(04:25):
the study of ancient literature. They set up their country
as their idol, and proposed to themselves the heroes of
Plutarch as their examples. They seem to have borne some
resemblance to the Brizotines of the French Revolution, But it
is not very easy to draw the line of distinction
between them and their devout associates, whose tone and manner
(04:47):
they sometimes found it convenient to effect, and sometimes it
is probable imperceptibly adopted. We now come to the Royalists.
We shall attempt to speak of them as we have
spoken of their antagonists, with perfect candor. We shall not
charge upon a whole party the proflicacy and baseness of
(05:08):
the horse boys, gamblers and bravos, whom the hope of
license and plunder attracted from all the dens of whitefriars
to the standard of Charles, and who disgraced their associates
by excesses which, under the stricter discipline of the parliamentary armies,
were never tolerated. We will select a more favorable specimen,
(05:30):
thinking as we do that the cause of the king
was the cause of bigotry and tyranny. We yet cannot
refrain from looking with complacency on the character of the
honest old cavaliers. We feel a national pride in comparing
them with the instruments which the despots of other countries
are compelled to employ, with the mutes who thronged their
(05:52):
ante chambers and the janissaries who mount guard at their gates.
Our royalist countrymen were not heartless dangling courtiers, bowing at
every step and simpering at every word. They were not
mere machines for destruction, dressed up in uniforms, caned into skill,
(06:12):
intoxicated into valor, defending without love and destroying without hatred.
There was a freedom in their subserviency, a nobleness, and
their very degradation. The sentiment of individual independence was strong
within them. They were indeed misled, but by no base
(06:32):
or selfish motive, compassion, and romantic honor. The prejudices of
childhood and the venerable names of history threw over them
a spell potent as that of Duessa. And like the
red crossed Knight, they thought that they were doing battle
for an injured beauty, while they defended a false and
(06:53):
loathsome sorceress. In truth, they scarcely entered it all into
the merits of the police question. It was not for
a treacherous king or an intolerant church that they fought,
but for the old banner, which had waived in so
many battles over the heads of their fathers, and for
the altars at which they had received the hands of
(07:15):
their brides. Though nothing could be more erroneous than their
political opinions, they possessed in a far greater degree than
their adversaries, those qualities which are the grace of private life.
With many of the vices of the round table, they
had also many of its virtues, courtesy, generosity, veracity, tenderness,
(07:40):
and respect for women. They had far more both of
profound and of polite learning than the Puritans. Their manners
were more engaging, their tempers more amiable, their tastes more elegant,
and their households more cheerful. Milton did not strictly belong
(08:00):
to any of the classes which we have described. He
was not a Puritan, he was not a free thinker.
He was not a royalist. In his character, the noblest
qualities of every party were combined in harmonious union. From
the parliament and from the court, from the conventicle and
from the Gothic cloister, from the gloomy and sepulchral circles
(08:24):
of the roundheads, and from the Christmas revel of the
hospitable cavalier. His nature selected and drew to itself whatever
was great and good, while it rejected all the base
and pernicious ingredients by which those finer elements were defiled.
Like the Puritans, he lived as ever in his great
(08:44):
task master's eye. Like them, he kept his mind continually
fixed on an almighty judge and an eternal reward. And
hence he acquired their contempt of external circumstances, their fortitude,
their tranquilquility, their inflexible resolution. But not the coolest skeptic
(09:06):
or the most profane scoffer was more perfectly free from
the contagion of their frantic delusions, their savage manners, their
ludicrous jargon, their scorn of science, and their aversion to pleasure.
Hating tyranny with a perfect hatred. He had nevertheless, all
the estimable and ornamental qualities which were almost entirely monopolized
(09:30):
by the party of the tyrant. There was none who
had a stronger sense of the value of literature, a
finer relish for every elegant amusement, or a more chivalrous
delicacy of honor and love. Though his opinions were democratic,
his tastes in his associations were such as harmonized best
(09:51):
with monarchy and aristocracy. He was under the influence of
all the feelings by which the gallant cavaliers were misled.
Of those feelings, he was the master and not the slave.
Like the hero of Homer, he enjoyed all the pleasures
of fascination, but he was not fascinated. He listened to
(10:12):
the song of the sirens, yet he glided by without
being seduced to that fatal shore. He tasted the cup
of Circe, but he bore about him a sure antidote
against the effects of its bewitching sweetness. The illusions which
captivated his imagination, never impaired his reasoning powers. The statesman
(10:34):
was proof against the splendor, the solemnity, and the romance
which enchanted the poet. Any person who will contrast the
sentiments expressed in his treatises on prelacy with the exquisite
lines on ecclesiastical architecture and music, and the Penseroso, which
was published about the same time, will understand our meaning.
(10:57):
This is an inconsistency which, more than anything else, raises
his character in our estimation, because it shows how many
private tastes and feelings he sacrificed in order to do
what he considered his duty to mankind. It is the
very struggle of the noble Othello. His heart relents, but
(11:18):
his hand is firm. He does not in hate, but
all in honor. He kisses the beautiful deceiver before he
destroys her. That from which the public character of Milton
derives its great and peculiar splendor still remains to be mentioned.
If he exerted himself to overthrow a forsworn king and
(11:40):
a persecuting hierarchy, he exerted himself in conjunction with others,
but the glory of the battle which he fought for
the species of freedom, which is the most valuable, and
which was then the least understood. The freedom of the
human mind is all his own. And tens of thousands
(12:02):
among his contemporaries raised their voices against ship money in
the star chamber. But there were few, indeed, who discerned
the more fearful evils of moral and intellectual slavery, and
the benefits which would result from the liberty of the
press and the unfettered exercise of private judgment. These were
(12:24):
the objects which Milton justly conceived to be the most important.
He was desirous that the people should think for themselves
as well as tax themselves, and should be emancipated from
the dominion of prejudice as well as from that of Charles.
He knew that those who, with the best intentions overlooked
these schemes of reform, and contented themselves with pulling down
(12:48):
the king and imprisoning the malignants. Acted like the heedless
brothers in his own poem Comus, who, in their eagerness
to disperse the train of the sorcerer, neglected the means
of liberating the captive. They thought only of conquering when
they should have thought of disenchanting, Oh ye mistook, ye
(13:11):
should have snatched his wand and bound him fast. Without
the rod reversed and backward mutters of dissevering power, We
cannot free the lady that sits here bound in strong fetters,
fixed and motionless. To reverse the rod, to spell the
charm backward, to break the ties which bound the stupefied
(13:34):
people to the seat of enchantment, was the noble aim
of Milton. To this. All his public conduct was directed.
For this he joined the Presbyterians. For this he forsook them.
He fought their perilous battle, but he turned away with
disdain from their insolent triumph. He saw that they, like
(13:56):
those whom they had vanquished, were hostile to the liberty
of thought. He therefore joined the Independence and called upon
Cromwell to break the secular chain and to save free
conscience from the paw of the Presbyterian wolf. With a
view to the same great object, he attacked the licensing
(14:16):
system in that sublime treatise which every statesman should wear
as a sign upon his hand and as frontlets between
his eyes. His attacks were in general directed less against
particular abuses than against those deeply seated errors on which
almost all abuses are founded, the servile worship of eminent men,
(14:40):
and the irrational dread of innovation. That he might shake
the foundations of these debasing sentiments more effectually, he always
selected for himself the boldest literary services. He never came
up in the rear. When the outworks had been carried
and the breage entered, he pressed into the forlorn lines hope.
(15:01):
At the beginning of the changes, he wrote with incomparable
energy and eloquence against the bishops. But when his opinion
seemed likely to prevail, he passed on to other subjects,
and abandoned prelacy to the crowd of writers who now
hastened to insult a falling party. There is no more
hazardous enterprise than that of bearing the torch of truth
(15:25):
into those dark and infected recesses in which no light
has ever shown. But it was the choice and the
pleasure of Milton to penetrate the noisome vapors and to
brave the terrible explosion. Those who most disapprove of his
opinions must respect the hardihood with which he maintained them.
(15:47):
He in general left to others the credit of expounding
and defending the popular parts of his religious and political creed.
He took his own stand upon those which the great
body of his countrymen reprobated as criminal or derided as paradoxical.
He stood up for divorce and regicide. He attacked the
(16:08):
prevailing systems of education. His radiant and beneficent career resembled
that of the God of light and fertility nytur edwersom
nec may quikaitera winket impetus at rapido, contrarious ewayhort ordery.
It is to be regretted that the prose writings of
(16:30):
Milton should, in our time be so little read as compositions.
They deserve the attention of every man who wishes to
become acquainted with the full power of the English language.
They abound with passages compared with which the finest declamations
of Burke sink into insignificance. They are a perfect field
(16:51):
of cloth of gold. The style is stiff, with gorgeous embroidery.
Not even in the earlier books of the Paradise Last
has the great poet ever risen higher than in those
parts of his controversial works in which his feelings excited
by conflict find event in bursts of devotional and lyric rapture.
(17:14):
It is to borrow his own majestic language, a sevenfold
chorus of hallelujahs and harping symphonies. We had intended to
look more closely at these performances, to analyze the peculiarities
of the diction, to dwell at some length on the
sublime wisdom of the Areopagitica and the nervous rhetoric of
(17:36):
the Iconoclast, and to point out some of those magnificent
passages which occur in the Treatise of Reformation and the
animadversions on the Remonstrant. But the length to which our
remarks have already extended renders this impossible, we must conclude.
And yet we can scarcely tear ourselves away from the subject.
(17:59):
The days immediately following the publication of this relic of
Milton appear to be peculiarly set apart and consecrated to
his memory, And we shall scarcely be censured if on
this his festival we be found lingering near his shrine.
How worthless soever may be the offering which we bring
to it. While this book lies on our table. We
(18:23):
seem to be contemporaries of the writer. We are transported
one hundred and fifty years back. We can almost fancy
that we are visiting him in his small lodging, that
we see him sitting at the old organ, beneath the
faded green hangings, that we can catch the quick twinkle
of his eyes rolling in vain to find the day
(18:44):
that we are reading in the lines of his noble countenance,
the proud and mournful history of his glory in his affliction.
We image to ourselves the breathing silence in which we
should listen to his slightest word, the passionate veneration with
which we should kneel to kiss his hand and weep
upon it. The earnestness with which we should endeavor to
(19:06):
console him, if indeed such a spirit could need consolation
for the neglect of an age unworthy of his talents
and his virtues. The eagerness with which we should contest
with his daughters or with his Quaker friend Elwood, the
privilege of reading Homer to him, or of taking down
the immortal accents which flowed from his lips. These are
(19:29):
perhaps foolish feelings. Yet we cannot be ashamed of them,
nor shall we be sorry if what we have written
shall in any degree excite them in other minds. We
are not much in the habit of idolizing either the
living or the dead. And we think that there is
no more certain indication of a weak and ill regulated
(19:50):
intellect than that propensity, which, for want of a better name,
we will venture to christen Boswellism. But there are a
few characters which have stood the closest scrutiny in the
severest tests, which have been tried in the furnace and
have proved pure, which have been weighed in the balance
(20:11):
and have not been found wanting, which have been declared
sterling by the general consent of mankind, and which are
visibly stamped with the image and superscription of the most high.
These great men we trust that we know how to prize.
And of these was Milton. The sight of his books
(20:31):
the sound of his name are pleasant to us. His
thoughts resemble those celestial fruits and flowers which the Virgin
Martyr of Messengers sent down from the gardens of Paradise
to the earth, and which were distinguished from the productions
of other soils. Not only by superior bloom and sweetness,
but by miraculous efficacy to invigorate and to heal. They
(20:55):
are powerful not only to delight, but to elevate and purify.
Nor do we envy the man who can study either
the life or the writings of the great poet and
patriot without aspiring to emulate, not indeed the sublime works
with which his genius as enriched our literature, but the
zeal with which he labored for the public good, the
(21:18):
fortitude with which he endured every private calamity, the lofty
disdain with which he looked down on temptations and dangers,
the deadly hatred which he bore to bigots and tyrants,
And the faith which he so sternly kept with his
country and with his fame. End of Section five read
(21:41):
by Pamel and Nagami, m d. In Encino, California, May
twenty twenty one. End of Milton by Thomas Babington Macaulay
Section five of Milton by Thomas Babington mac caulay. This
librovox recording is in the public domain. Read by Pamela
and Nigami, Part five. Thus the Puritan was made up
of two different men, the one all self abasement, penitence, gratitude, passion,
(00:22):
the other proud, calm, inflexible, sagacious. He prostrated himself in
the dust before his maker, but he set his foot
on the neck of his king. In his devotional retirement,
he prayed with convulsions and groans and tears. He was
half maddened by glorious or terrible illusions. He heard the
(00:44):
lyres of angels, of the tempting whispers of fiends. He
caught a gleam of the beatific vision. More woke screaming
from dreams of everlasting fire. Like Vain, he thought himself
entrusted with the scepter of the millennial year. Like Fleetwood.
He cried in the bitterness of his soul that God
(01:04):
had hid his face from him. But when he took
his seat in the council or girt on his sword
for war, these tempestuous workings of the soul had left
no perceptible trace behind them. People who saw nothing of
the godly but their uncouth visages, and heard nothing from
them but their groans and their whining hymns, might laugh
(01:27):
at them. But those had little reason to laugh who
encountered them in the hall of debate or in the
field of battle. These fanatics brought to civil and military
affairs a coolness of judgment and an immutability of purpose,
which some writers have thought inconsistent with their religiouseal, but
(01:48):
which were in fact the necessary effects of it. The
intensity of their feelings on one subject made them tranquil
on every other one. O overpowering sentiment had subjected to
itself pity and hatred, ambition and fear. Death had lost
(02:08):
its terrors, and pleasure its charms. They had their smiles
and their tears, their raptures and their sorrows, but not
for the things of this world. Enthusiasm had made them stoics,
had cleared their minds from every vulgar passion and prejudice,
and raised them above the influence of danger and of corruption.
(02:31):
It sometimes might lead them to pursue unwise ends, but
never to choose unwise means. They went through the world
like sir article's iron mantalis, with his flail, crushing and
trampling down oppressors, mingling with human beings, but having neither
part nor lot in human infirmities, insensible to fatigue, to pleasure,
(02:55):
and to pain, not to be pierced by any weapon,
not to be with ste by any barrier. Such we
believe to have been the character of the Puritans. We
perceive the absurdity of their manners. We dislike the sullen
gloom of their domestic habits. We acknowledge that the tone
of their minds was often injured by straining after things
(03:18):
too high for mortal reach. And we know that, in
spite of their hatred of popery, they too often fell
into the worst vices of that bad system, intolerance and
extravagant austerity. That they had their anchorites and their crusades,
and their dunstans, and their demantforts, their dominics and their escobars.
(03:40):
Yet when all circumstances are taken into consideration, we do
not hesitate to pronounce them a brave, a wise, an honest,
and a useful body. The Puritans espoused the cause of
civil liberty mainly because it was the cause of religion.
There was another party, by no means numerous, but distinguished
(04:02):
by learning and ability, which acted with them on very
different principles. We speak of those whom Cromwell was accustomed
to call the Heathens, men who were, in the phraseology
of that time, doubting Thomas's or careless gallios with regard
to religious subjects, but passionate worshipers of freedom. Heeded by
(04:25):
the study of ancient literature. They set up their country
as their idol, and proposed to themselves the heroes of
Plutarch as their examples. They seem to have borne some
resemblance to the Brizotines of the French Revolution, But it
is not very easy to draw the line of distinction
between them and their devout associates, whose tone and manner
(04:47):
they sometimes found it convenient to effect, and sometimes it
is probable imperceptibly adopted. We now come to the Royalists.
We shall attempt to speak of them as we have
spoken of their antagonists, with perfect candor. We shall not
charge upon a whole party the proflicacy and baseness of
(05:08):
the horse boys, gamblers and bravos, whom the hope of
license and plunder attracted from all the dens of whitefriars
to the standard of Charles, and who disgraced their associates
by excesses which, under the stricter discipline of the parliamentary armies,
were never tolerated. We will select a more favorable specimen,
(05:30):
thinking as we do that the cause of the king
was the cause of bigotry and tyranny. We yet cannot
refrain from looking with complacency on the character of the
honest old cavaliers. We feel a national pride in comparing
them with the instruments which the despots of other countries
are compelled to employ, with the mutes who thronged their
(05:52):
ante chambers and the janissaries who mount guard at their gates.
Our royalist countrymen were not heartless dangling courtiers, bowing at
every step and simpering at every word. They were not
mere machines for destruction, dressed up in uniforms, caned into skill,
(06:12):
intoxicated into valor, defending without love and destroying without hatred.
There was a freedom in their subserviency, a nobleness, and
their very degradation. The sentiment of individual independence was strong
within them. They were indeed misled, but by no base
(06:32):
or selfish motive, compassion, and romantic honor. The prejudices of
childhood and the venerable names of history threw over them
a spell potent as that of Duessa. And like the
red crossed Knight, they thought that they were doing battle
for an injured beauty, while they defended a false and
(06:53):
loathsome sorceress. In truth, they scarcely entered it all into
the merits of the police question. It was not for
a treacherous king or an intolerant church that they fought,
but for the old banner, which had waived in so
many battles over the heads of their fathers, and for
the altars at which they had received the hands of
(07:15):
their brides. Though nothing could be more erroneous than their
political opinions, they possessed in a far greater degree than
their adversaries, those qualities which are the grace of private life.
With many of the vices of the round table, they
had also many of its virtues, courtesy, generosity, veracity, tenderness,
(07:40):
and respect for women. They had far more both of
profound and of polite learning than the Puritans. Their manners
were more engaging, their tempers more amiable, their tastes more elegant,
and their households more cheerful. Milton did not strictly belong
(08:00):
to any of the classes which we have described. He
was not a Puritan, he was not a free thinker.
He was not a royalist. In his character, the noblest
qualities of every party were combined in harmonious union. From
the parliament and from the court, from the conventicle and
from the Gothic cloister, from the gloomy and sepulchral circles
(08:24):
of the roundheads, and from the Christmas revel of the
hospitable cavalier. His nature selected and drew to itself whatever
was great and good, while it rejected all the base
and pernicious ingredients by which those finer elements were defiled.
Like the Puritans, he lived as ever in his great
(08:44):
task master's eye. Like them, he kept his mind continually
fixed on an almighty judge and an eternal reward. And
hence he acquired their contempt of external circumstances, their fortitude,
their tranquilquility, their inflexible resolution. But not the coolest skeptic
(09:06):
or the most profane scoffer was more perfectly free from
the contagion of their frantic delusions, their savage manners, their
ludicrous jargon, their scorn of science, and their aversion to pleasure.
Hating tyranny with a perfect hatred. He had nevertheless, all
the estimable and ornamental qualities which were almost entirely monopolized
(09:30):
by the party of the tyrant. There was none who
had a stronger sense of the value of literature, a
finer relish for every elegant amusement, or a more chivalrous
delicacy of honor and love. Though his opinions were democratic,
his tastes in his associations were such as harmonized best
(09:51):
with monarchy and aristocracy. He was under the influence of
all the feelings by which the gallant cavaliers were misled.
Of those feelings, he was the master and not the slave.
Like the hero of Homer, he enjoyed all the pleasures
of fascination, but he was not fascinated. He listened to
(10:12):
the song of the sirens, yet he glided by without
being seduced to that fatal shore. He tasted the cup
of Circe, but he bore about him a sure antidote
against the effects of its bewitching sweetness. The illusions which
captivated his imagination, never impaired his reasoning powers. The statesman
(10:34):
was proof against the splendor, the solemnity, and the romance
which enchanted the poet. Any person who will contrast the
sentiments expressed in his treatises on prelacy with the exquisite
lines on ecclesiastical architecture and music, and the Penseroso, which
was published about the same time, will understand our meaning.
(10:57):
This is an inconsistency which, more than anything else, raises
his character in our estimation, because it shows how many
private tastes and feelings he sacrificed in order to do
what he considered his duty to mankind. It is the
very struggle of the noble Othello. His heart relents, but
(11:18):
his hand is firm. He does not in hate, but
all in honor. He kisses the beautiful deceiver before he
destroys her. That from which the public character of Milton
derives its great and peculiar splendor still remains to be mentioned.
If he exerted himself to overthrow a forsworn king and
(11:40):
a persecuting hierarchy, he exerted himself in conjunction with others,
but the glory of the battle which he fought for
the species of freedom, which is the most valuable, and
which was then the least understood. The freedom of the
human mind is all his own. And tens of thousands
(12:02):
among his contemporaries raised their voices against ship money in
the star chamber. But there were few, indeed, who discerned
the more fearful evils of moral and intellectual slavery, and
the benefits which would result from the liberty of the
press and the unfettered exercise of private judgment. These were
(12:24):
the objects which Milton justly conceived to be the most important.
He was desirous that the people should think for themselves
as well as tax themselves, and should be emancipated from
the dominion of prejudice as well as from that of Charles.
He knew that those who, with the best intentions overlooked
these schemes of reform, and contented themselves with pulling down
(12:48):
the king and imprisoning the malignants. Acted like the heedless
brothers in his own poem Comus, who, in their eagerness
to disperse the train of the sorcerer, neglected the means
of liberating the captive. They thought only of conquering when
they should have thought of disenchanting, Oh ye mistook, ye
(13:11):
should have snatched his wand and bound him fast. Without
the rod reversed and backward mutters of dissevering power, We
cannot free the lady that sits here bound in strong fetters,
fixed and motionless. To reverse the rod, to spell the
charm backward, to break the ties which bound the stupefied
(13:34):
people to the seat of enchantment, was the noble aim
of Milton. To this. All his public conduct was directed.
For this he joined the Presbyterians. For this he forsook them.
He fought their perilous battle, but he turned away with
disdain from their insolent triumph. He saw that they, like
(13:56):
those whom they had vanquished, were hostile to the liberty
of thought. He therefore joined the Independence and called upon
Cromwell to break the secular chain and to save free
conscience from the paw of the Presbyterian wolf. With a
view to the same great object, he attacked the licensing
(14:16):
system in that sublime treatise which every statesman should wear
as a sign upon his hand and as frontlets between
his eyes. His attacks were in general directed less against
particular abuses than against those deeply seated errors on which
almost all abuses are founded, the servile worship of eminent men,
(14:40):
and the irrational dread of innovation. That he might shake
the foundations of these debasing sentiments more effectually, he always
selected for himself the boldest literary services. He never came
up in the rear. When the outworks had been carried
and the breage entered, he pressed into the forlorn lines hope.
(15:01):
At the beginning of the changes, he wrote with incomparable
energy and eloquence against the bishops. But when his opinion
seemed likely to prevail, he passed on to other subjects,
and abandoned prelacy to the crowd of writers who now
hastened to insult a falling party. There is no more
hazardous enterprise than that of bearing the torch of truth
(15:25):
into those dark and infected recesses in which no light
has ever shown. But it was the choice and the
pleasure of Milton to penetrate the noisome vapors and to
brave the terrible explosion. Those who most disapprove of his
opinions must respect the hardihood with which he maintained them.
(15:47):
He in general left to others the credit of expounding
and defending the popular parts of his religious and political creed.
He took his own stand upon those which the great
body of his countrymen reprobated as criminal or derided as paradoxical.
He stood up for divorce and regicide. He attacked the
(16:08):
prevailing systems of education. His radiant and beneficent career resembled
that of the God of light and fertility nytur edwersom
nec may quikaitera winket impetus at rapido, contrarious ewayhort ordery.
It is to be regretted that the prose writings of
(16:30):
Milton should, in our time be so little read as compositions.
They deserve the attention of every man who wishes to
become acquainted with the full power of the English language.
They abound with passages compared with which the finest declamations
of Burke sink into insignificance. They are a perfect field
(16:51):
of cloth of gold. The style is stiff, with gorgeous embroidery.
Not even in the earlier books of the Paradise Last
has the great poet ever risen higher than in those
parts of his controversial works in which his feelings excited
by conflict find event in bursts of devotional and lyric rapture.
(17:14):
It is to borrow his own majestic language, a sevenfold
chorus of hallelujahs and harping symphonies. We had intended to
look more closely at these performances, to analyze the peculiarities
of the diction, to dwell at some length on the
sublime wisdom of the Areopagitica and the nervous rhetoric of
(17:36):
the Iconoclast, and to point out some of those magnificent
passages which occur in the Treatise of Reformation and the
animadversions on the Remonstrant. But the length to which our
remarks have already extended renders this impossible, we must conclude.
And yet we can scarcely tear ourselves away from the subject.
(17:59):
The days immediately following the publication of this relic of
Milton appear to be peculiarly set apart and consecrated to
his memory, And we shall scarcely be censured if on
this his festival we be found lingering near his shrine.
How worthless soever may be the offering which we bring
to it. While this book lies on our table. We
(18:23):
seem to be contemporaries of the writer. We are transported
one hundred and fifty years back. We can almost fancy
that we are visiting him in his small lodging, that
we see him sitting at the old organ, beneath the
faded green hangings, that we can catch the quick twinkle
of his eyes rolling in vain to find the day
(18:44):
that we are reading in the lines of his noble countenance,
the proud and mournful history of his glory in his affliction.
We image to ourselves the breathing silence in which we
should listen to his slightest word, the passionate veneration with
which we should kneel to kiss his hand and weep
upon it. The earnestness with which we should endeavor to
(19:06):
console him, if indeed such a spirit could need consolation
for the neglect of an age unworthy of his talents
and his virtues. The eagerness with which we should contest
with his daughters or with his Quaker friend Elwood, the
privilege of reading Homer to him, or of taking down
the immortal accents which flowed from his lips. These are
(19:29):
perhaps foolish feelings. Yet we cannot be ashamed of them,
nor shall we be sorry if what we have written
shall in any degree excite them in other minds. We
are not much in the habit of idolizing either the
living or the dead. And we think that there is
no more certain indication of a weak and ill regulated
(19:50):
intellect than that propensity, which, for want of a better name,
we will venture to christen Boswellism. But there are a
few characters which have stood the closest scrutiny in the
severest tests, which have been tried in the furnace and
have proved pure, which have been weighed in the balance
(20:11):
and have not been found wanting, which have been declared
sterling by the general consent of mankind, and which are
visibly stamped with the image and superscription of the most high.
These great men we trust that we know how to prize.
And of these was Milton. The sight of his books
(20:31):
the sound of his name are pleasant to us. His
thoughts resemble those celestial fruits and flowers which the Virgin
Martyr of Messengers sent down from the gardens of Paradise
to the earth, and which were distinguished from the productions
of other soils. Not only by superior bloom and sweetness,
but by miraculous efficacy to invigorate and to heal. They
(20:55):
are powerful not only to delight, but to elevate and purify.
Nor do we envy the man who can study either
the life or the writings of the great poet and
patriot without aspiring to emulate, not indeed the sublime works
with which his genius as enriched our literature, but the
zeal with which he labored for the public good, the
(21:18):
fortitude with which he endured every private calamity, the lofty
disdain with which he looked down on temptations and dangers,
the deadly hatred which he bore to bigots and tyrants,
And the faith which he so sternly kept with his
country and with his fame. End of Section five read
(21:41):
by Pamel and Nagami, m d. In Encino, California, May
twenty twenty one. End of Milton by Thomas Babington Macaulay
Popular Podcasts
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
NFL Daily with Gregg Rosenthal
Gregg Rosenthal and a rotating crew of elite NFL Media co-hosts, including Patrick Claybon, Colleen Wolfe, Steve Wyche, Nick Shook and Jourdan Rodrigue of The Athletic get you caught up daily on all the NFL news and analysis you need to be smarter and funnier than your friends.