Of Highest Wisdom brings about,
And ever best found in the close.
Oft He seems to hide His Face,
But unexpectedly returns,

And to His faithful champion hath in place
Bore witness gloriously; whence Gaza mourns,
And all that band them to resist

His uncontrollable Intent.

His servants He, with new acquist

Of true experience, from this great event
With peace and consolation hath dismissed,
And calm of mind, all passion spent.

These last words of the drama form no unfitting conclusion to Milton's poetic work. He wrote no more verse. Busied still with various prose writings and with an edition of his early poems, he passed the three remaining years of his life quietly enough, though he suffered much from recurrent attacks of gout, which gradually undermined his strength. The end came so peacefully that those watching did not know the actual moment of his death. This occurred on Sunday, November 8, 1674. He was buried near his father in the chancel of St. Giles's, Cripplegate.

I

VI

HAVE told my story very clumsily if I have not made it clear that in Milton the man is inseparable from the poet, and that the admiration we feel for his genius may quite as justly be given to his character. are indeed apparent; and I have

His faults

made no

attempt to minimise or condone them. That they were in large measure the faults which Puritanism inevitably tended to foster, especially in its extreme, though natural, reaction against the flippant spirit of the age-this, too, is evident. Austere, uncompromising, exacting, often stern, sometimes stiff-necked, he had too little tolerance for the weaknesses of average humanity; too little of "the quality of mercy which "droppeth as the gentle rain from Heaven" upon the dry soil of the world; too little of the charity which is careful at all times to distinguish between the sin and the sinner. Large as was his intellectual vision, generous as was his scholarship, his moral outlook was, therefore, narrow; his temper hard and inflexible. Yet, however severely we may judge his shortcomings, his supreme greatness as a man cannot for a moment be questioned even by those who dissent the most profoundly from his politics and his theology. From first to last he lived his life at high moral tension; and his tremendous earnestness, his passionate zeal for righteousness, his ardent partiotism, his neverfailing devotion to duty, combine to make him worthy of our deepest veneration. That we sometimes perhaps seem to be ill at ease in his presence is only another testimony to his nobility. Conscious that his every action was performed beneath his "great Taskmaster's eye," he thought of existence always as service, and strove to the utmost that the work which had been given him to do should be well and

faithfully done. We can feel the spirit of this high idealism in all the stormy activities of his public career. We can feel it equally in all his efforts and achievements as a poet. He realised to the full the greatness of his genius, and he often spoke of it with a frankness which might seem to border on intellectual pride. But this was precisely because he regarded it as a direct gift from God, for the proper use of which he was in turn directly responsible to God. From the beginning, it is very clear, the poetic life meant for him a life of dedication to the purest and noblest of purposes. "I was confirmed in this opinion," he writes in one place," that he who would not be frustrate of his hope to write well hereafter in laudable things, ought himself to be a true poem; that is, a composition and pattern of the best and honourablest things; not presuming to sing high praises of heroic men, or famous cities, unless he have in himself the experience and the practice of all that is praiseworthy." Again, speaking at the age of thirty-three of his ambitions as a poet and of the long and painful preparation which would be necessary for the accomplishment of the great task to which he was presently to set his hand, he uses these remarkable words: "None hath by more studious ways endeavoured, and with more unwearied spirit none shall that I dare almost aver of myself, as far as life and full license will extend. Neither do I think it shame to covenant with any knowing

1

"Apology for Smectymnuus."

reader that for some few years yet I may go on trust with him towards the payment of what I am now indebted, as being a work not to be raised from the heat of youth, or the vapours of wine, like that which flows at waste from the pen of some vulgar amorist, or the trencher fury of a rhyming parasite, nor to be obtained by the invocation of Dame Memory and her siren daughters, but by devout prayer to that Eternal Spirit who can enrich with all utterance and knowledge, and sends out his Seraphim with the hallowed fire of his altar to touch and purify the life of whom he pleases. To this must be added industrious and select reading, steady observation, insight into all seemly and generous acts and affairs." 1 Here in Milton's deeply religious conception of his mission as a poet we have the true note of his character as a man; and, as I have tried to show, the character of the man was one of the fundamental elements in that of the poet. What, then, of the poet as poet, and of his place in literature? Concerning these questions there can be no serious dispute. Next to Shakespeare's, his is the greatest name in the long and glorious annals of our English poetry.

"The Reason of Church Government."

The following list contains the titles of some books and essays which may be specially recommended for the further study of Milton and his work :

TEXT:

"Poetical Works of John Milton," edited by Masson. (Globe edition.)

"English Poems," edited by R. C. Browne. (Clarendon Press s; 2 vols.)

The annotated school editions, by A. W. Verity, of Milton's poems (separate volumes in the Pitt Press Series) will also be found extremely useful.

Milton's "Prose Works," edited by J. A. St. John. (Bohn's Standard Library; 5 vols.)

"" English Prose Writings of Milton," edited by Henry Morley. (Carisbrooke Library: Routledge.)

"Prose of Milton," edited by R. Garnett. (Camelot Library.)

BIOGRAPHY AND CRITICISM:

Masson, D.: "Life and Times of John Milton

(six

vols.). (A very exhaustive work, containing a detailed account of Milton's age as well as of his life.)

66 Chapters from the Life of Milton." (Extracted

from the larger work.)

Pattison, M.: "Milton" (English Men of Letters). Garnett, R.: "Life of Milton " (Great Writers). (Contains a full bibliography.)

Brooke, S.: "Milton ??
Raleigh, W.: "Milton."
Arnold, M.:

2nd series).

(Classical Writers).

""
Milton (in "Essays in Criticism,"

"A French Critic on Milton (in "Mixed Essays ").