English Literature
country parish, he lived discontentedly, longing for the joys of London and
the Mermaid Tavern, his bachelor establishment consisting of an old
housekeeper, a cat, a dog, a goose, a tame lamb, one hen,--for which he
thanked God in poetry because she laid an egg every day,--and a pet pig
that drank beer with Herrick out of a tankard. With admirable good nature,
Herrick made the best of these uncongenial surroundings. He watched with
sympathy the country life about him and caught its spirit in many lyrics, a
few of which, like "Corinna's Maying," "Gather ye rosebuds while ye may,"
and "To Daffodils," are among the best known in our language. His poems
cover a wide range, from trivial love songs, pagan in spirit, to hymns of
deep religious feeling. Only the best of his poems should be read; and
these are remarkable for their exquisite sentiment and their graceful,
melodious expression. The rest, since they reflect something of the
coarseness of his audience, may be passed over in silence.
Late in life Herrick published his one book, _Hesperides and Noble Numbers_
(1648). The latter half contains his religious poems, and one has only to
read there the remarkable "Litany" to see how the religious terror that
finds expression in Bunyan's _Grace Abounding_ could master even the most
careless of Cavalier singers.
SUCKLING AND LOVELACE. Sir John Suckling (1609-1642) was one of the most
brilliant wits of the court of Charles I, who wrote poetry as he exercised
a horse or fought a duel, because it was considered a gentleman's
accomplishment in those days. His poems, "struck from his wild life like
sparks from his rapier," are utterly trivial, and, even in his best known
"Ballad Upon a Wedding," rarely rise above mere doggerel. It is only the
romance of his life--his rich, brilliant, careless youth, and his poverty
and suicide in Paris, whither he fled because of his devotion to the
Stuarts--that keeps his name alive in our literature.
In his life and poetry Sir Richard Lovelace (1618-1658) offers a remarkable
parallel to Suckling, and the two are often classed together as perfect
representatives of the followers of King Charles. Lovelace's _Lucasta_, a
volume of love lyrics, is generally on a higher plane than Suckling's work;
and a few of the poems like "To Lucasta," and "To Althea, from Prison,"
deserve the secure place they have won. In the latter occur the oft-quoted
lines:
Stone walls do not a prison make,
Nor iron bars a cage;
Minds innocent and quiet take
That for an hermitage.
If I have freedom in my love,
And in my soul am free,
Angels alone that soar above
Enjoy such liberty.
JOHN MILTON (1608-1674)
Thy soul was like a star and dwelt apart;
Thou hadst a voice whose sound was like the sea--
Pure as the naked heavens, majestic, free;
So didst thou travel on life's common way
In cheerful godliness: and yet thy heart
The lowliest duties on herself did lay.
(From Wordsworth's "Sonnet on Milton")
Shakespeare and Milton are the two figures that tower conspicuously above
the goodly fellowship of men who have made our literature famous. Each is
representative of the age that produced him, and together they form a
suggestive commentary upon the two forces that rule our humanity,--the
force of impulse and the force of a fixed purpose. Shakespeare is the poet
of impulse, of the loves, hates, fears, jealousies, and ambitions that
swayed the men of his age. Milton is the poet of steadfast will and
purpose, who moves like a god amid the fears and hopes and changing
impulses of the world, regarding them as trivial and momentary things that
can never swerve a great soul from its course.
It is well to have some such comparison in mind while studying the
literature of the Elizabethan and the Puritan Age. While Shakespeare and
Ben Jonson and their unequaled company of wits make merry at the Mermaid
Tavern, there is already growing up on the same London street a poet who
shall bring a new force into literature, who shall add to the Renaissance
culture and love of beauty the tremendous moral earnestness of the Puritan.
Such a poet must begin, as the Puritan always began, with his own soul, to
discipline and enlighten it, before expressing its beauty in literature.
"He that would hope to write well hereafter in laudable things," says
Milton, "ought himself to be a true poem; that is, a composition and
pattern of the best and most honorable things." Here is a new proposition
in art which suggests the lofty ideal of Fra Angelico, that before one can
write literature, which is the expression of the ideal, he must first
develop in himself the ideal man. Because Milton is human he must know the
best in humanity; therefore he studies, giving his days to music, art, and
literature, his nights to profound research and meditation. But because he
knows that man is more than mortal he also prays, depending, as he tells
us, on "devout prayer to that Eternal Spirit who can enrich with all
utterance and knowledge." Such a poet is already in spirit far beyond the
Renaissance, though he lives in the autumn of its glory and associates with
its literary masters. "There is a spirit in man," says the old Hebrew poet,
"and the inspiration of the Almighty giveth him understanding." Here, in a
word, is the secret of Milton's life and writing. Hence his long silences,
years passing without a word; and when he speaks it is like the voice of a
prophet who begins with the sublime announcement, "The Spirit of the Lord
is upon me." Hence his style, producing an impression of sublimity, which
has been marked for wonder by every historian of our literature. His style
was unconsciously sublime because he lived and thought consciously in a
sublime atmosphere.
LIFE OF MILTON. Milton is like an ideal in the soul, like a lofty mountain
on the horizon. We never attain the ideal; we never climb the mountain; but
life would be inexpressibly poorer were either to be taken away.
From childhood Milton's parents set him apart for the attainment of noble
ends, and so left nothing to chance in the matter of training. His father,
John Milton, is said to have turned Puritan while a student at Oxford and
to have been disinherited by his family; whereupon he settled in London and
prospered greatly as a scrivener, that is, a kind of notary. In character
the elder Milton was a rare combination of scholar and business man, a
radical Puritan in politics and religion, yet a musician, whose hymn tunes
are still sung, and a lover of art and literature. The poet's mother was a
woman of refinement and social grace, with a deep interest in religion and
in local charities. So the boy grew up in a home which combined the culture
of the Renaissance with the piety and moral strength of early Puritanism.
He begins, therefore, as the heir of one great age and the prophet of
another.
Apparently the elder Milton shared Bacon's dislike for the educational
methods of the time and so took charge of his son's training, encouraging
his natural tastes, teaching him music, and seeking out a tutor who helped
the boy to what he sought most eagerly, not the grammar and mechanism of
Greek and Latin but rather the stories, the ideals, the poetry that hide in
their incomparable literatures. At twelve years we find the boy already a
scholar in spirit, unable to rest till after midnight because of the joy
with which his study was rewarded. From boyhood two great principles seem
to govern Milton's career: one, the love of beauty, of music, art,
literature, and indeed of every form of human culture; the other, a
steadfast devotion to duty as the highest object in human life.
A brief course at the famous St. Paul's school in London was the prelude to
Milton's entrance to Christ's College, Cambridge. Here again he followed
his natural bent and, like Bacon, found himself often in opposition to the
authorities. Aside from some Latin poems, the most noteworthy song of this
period of Milton's life is his splendid ode, '"On the Morning of Christ's
Nativity," which was begun on Christmas day, 1629. Milton, while deep in
the classics, had yet a greater love for his native literature. Spenser was
for years his master; in his verse we find every evidence of his "loving
study" of Shakespeare, and his last great poems show clearly how he had
been influenced by Fletcher's _Christ's Victory and Triumph_. But it is
significant that this first ode rises higher than anything of the kind
produced in the famous Age of Elizabeth.
While at Cambridge it was the desire of his parents that Milton should take
orders in the Church of England; but the intense love of mental liberty
which stamped the Puritan was too strong within him, and he refused to
consider the "oath of servitude," as he called it, which would mark his
ordination. Throughout his life Milton, though profoundly religious, held
aloof from the strife of sects. In belief, he belonged to the extreme
Puritans, called Separatists, Independents, Congregationalists, of which
our Pilgrim Fathers are the great examples; but he refused to be bound by
any creed or church discipline:
As ever in my great Task-Master's eye.
In this last line of one of his sonnets[164] is found Milton's rejection of
every form of outward religious authority in face of the supreme Puritan
principle, the liberty of the individual soul before God.
A long period of retirement followed Milton's withdrawal from the
university in 1632. At his father's country home in Horton he gave himself
up for six years to solitary reading and study, roaming over the wide
fields of Greek, Latin, Hebrew, Spanish, French, Italian, and English
literatures, and studying hard at mathematics, science, theology, and
music,--a curious combination. To his love of music we owe the melody of
all his poetry, and we note it in the rhythm and balance which make even
his mighty prose arguments harmonious. In "Lycidas," "L'Allegro," "Il
Penseroso," "Arcades," "Comus," and a few "Sonnets," we have the poetic
results of this retirement at Horton,--few, indeed, but the most perfect of
their kind that our literature has recorded.
Out of solitude, where his talent was perfected, Milton entered the busy
world where his character was to be proved to the utmost. From Horton he
traveled abroad, through France, Switzerland, and Italy, everywhere
received with admiration for his learning and courtesy, winning the
friendship of the exiled Dutch scholar Grotius, in Paris, and of Galileo in
his sad imprisonment in Florence.[165] He was on his way to Greece when
news reached him of the break between king and parliament. With the
practical insight which never deserted him Milton saw clearly the meaning
of the news. His cordial reception in Italy, so chary of praise to anything
not Italian, had reawakened in Milton the old desire to write an epic which
England would "not willingly let die"; but at thought of the conflict for
human freedom all his dreams were flung to the winds. He gave up his
travels and literary ambitions and hurried to England. "For I thought it
base," he says, "to be traveling at my ease for intellectual culture while
my fellow-countrymen at home were fighting for liberty."
Then for nearly twenty years the poet of great achievement and still
greater promise disappears. We hear no more songs, but only the prose
denunciations and arguments which are as remarkable as his poetry. In all
our literature there is nothing more worthy of the Puritan spirit than this
laying aside of personal ambitions in order to join in the struggle for
human liberty. In his best known sonnet, "On His Blindness," which reflects
his grief, not at darkness, but at his abandoned dreams, we catch the
sublime spirit of this renunciation.