Paradise Lost John Milton Project Gutenberg
Dardo Hameed
Francis Bacon, in one of his prose fragments,draws a memorable distinction between "artsmechanical" and "sciences of conceit." "Inarts mechanical," he says, "the first device comesshortest, and time addeth and perfecteth. But insciences of conceit the first author goeth farthest,and time leeseth and corrupteth.... In theformer, many wits and industries contributed inone. In the latter, many men's wits spent todeprave the wit of one."
I fear that literary criticism of the kind thatI propose to myself in these chapters on Miltonmust be classified with the "sciences of conceit."Indeed, Bacon puts it out of question that he himselfwould so have regarded it, for he goes on toexplain how, after the deliverances of a master,"then begin men to aspire to the second prizes, tobe a profound interpreter and commentor, to bea sharp champion and defender, to be a methodicalcompounder and abridger. And this is the[2]unfortunate succession of wits which the worldhath yet had, whereby the patrimony of all knowledgegoeth not on husbanded and improved, butwasted and decayed."
The blow is aimed at the scholastic philosophers,but it falls heavy on the critics of literature, on allwho "aspire to the second prizes," or who think"that a borrowed light can increase the originallight from whom it is taken." It is a searchingarraignment of all who set themselves to expoundin words the meaning and purpose of a masterof verbal expression. Yet the very breadth of theindictment brings comfort and a means of escape.For the chief difficulties of an attempt to understandand judge Milton are difficulties inherent inthe nature, not only of all criticism in the largesense, but also of all reading. In this associationwith great spirits which we call reading we receivebut what we give, and take away only what we arefit to carry. Milton himself has stated the doctrinein its most absolute form, and has sought an enhancedauthority for it by attributing it to theChrist--
Literally taken, this is the negation of all thehigher functions of criticism, and the paralysis ofall learning. Only his peers, it is argued, canread Shakespeare intelligently; and, as if that didnot give him few enough readers, they are furthertold that they will be wasting their time! Butlove, unlike this proud Stoicism, is humble, andcontented with a little. I would put my apologyin the language of love rather than of philosophy.I know that in Shakespeare, or in Milton, or inany rare nature, as in Faire Virtue, the mistress ofPhilarete--
The appreciation of a great author asks knowledgeand industry before it may be attempted,but in the end it is the critic, not the author, whois judged by it, and, where his sympathies havebeen too narrow, or his sight too dim, condemnedwithout reprieve, and buried without a tombstone.
Imperfect sympathy, that eternal vice of criticism,is sometimes irremediable, sometimes causedby imperfect knowledge. It takes forms as variousas the authors whom it misjudges. In the case ofShakespeare, when we attempt to estimate him, to[4]gauge him, to see him from all sides, we becomealmost painfully conscious of his immensity. Wecan build no watch-tower high enough to give us abird's-eye view of that "globe of miraculous continents."We are out of breath when we attemptto accompany him on his excursions, where he,
He moves so easily and so familiarly among humanpassions and human emotions, is so completely athome in all societies and all companies, that hemakes us feel hide-bound, prejudiced and ill-bred,by the side of him. We have to widen ourconception of human nature in order to think ofhim as a man. How hard a thing it is to conceiveof Shakespeare as of a human spirit, embodiedand conditioned, whose affections, though highermounted than ours, yet, when they stooped, stoopedwith the like wing, is witnessed by all biographiesof Shakespeare, and by many thousands of thevolumes of criticism and commentary that havebeen written on his works. One writer is contentto botanise with him--to study plant-lore, that is,with a theatrical manager, in his hard-earned leisure,for teacher. Another must needs read the Biblewith him, although, when all is said, Shakespeare'sstudy was but little on the Bible. Others elect to[5]keep him to music, astronomy, law, hunting, hawking,fishing. He is a good companion out of doors,and some would fain keep him there, to make acountry gentleman of him. His incorrigible preoccupationwith humanity, the ruling passion andemployment of his life, is beyond the range of theircomplete sympathy; they like to catch him out ofhours, to draw him aside and bespeak his interest,for a few careless minutes, in the trades and pastimesthat bulk so largely and so seriously in theirown perspective of life. They hardly know whatto make of his "unvalued book"; but they knowthat he was a great man, and to have bought awool-fell or a quarter of mutton from him, thatwould have been something! Only the poet-criticsattempt to see life, however brokenly, throughShakespeare's eyes, to let their enjoyment keepattendance upon his. And from their grasp, too,he escapes by sheer excess.
In the case of Milton the imperfection of oursympathy is due to other causes. In the firstplace, we know him as we do not know Shakespeare.The history of his life can be, and hasbeen, minutely written. The affairs of his time,political and religious, have been recorded withenormous wealth of detail; and this wealth, fallinginto fit hands, has given us those learned modernhistorians to whom the seventeenth century meansa period of five thousand two hundred and[6]eighteen weeks. Milton's own attitude towardsthese affairs is in no way obscure; he has explainedit with great fulness and candour innumerous publications, so that it would be easyto draw up a declaration of his chief tenets inpolitics and religion. The slanders of his adversarieshe met again and again with lofty passagesof self-revelation. "With me it fares now," heremarks in one of these, "as with him whoseoutward garment hath been injured and ill-bedighted;for having no other shift, what helpbut to turn the inside outwards, especially if thelining be of the same, or, as it is sometimes, muchbetter." In his poetry, too, he delights to revealhimself, to take the knowing reader into hisconfidence, to honour the fit audience with aconfession.
But the difficulty is there none the less. Fewcritics have found Milton too wide or too largefor them; many have found him too narrow,which is another form of imperfect sympathy.His lack of humour has alienated the interest ofthousands. His ardent advocacy of toleration inthe noblest of his prose treatises has been belittledby a generation which prides itself on that flaccidform of benevolence, and finds the mere repeal ofthe Licensing Act the smallest part of it. Hispamphlets on divorce and on government haveearned him the reputation of a theorist and[7]dreamer. The shrewd practical man finds iteasy to despise him. The genial tolerant man,whose geniality of demeanour towards others is akind of quit-rent paid for his own moral laxity,regards him as a Pharisee. The ready humouristdevises a pleasant and cheap entertainment bydressing Adam and Eve in modern garmentsand discussing their relations in the jargon ofmodish frivolity. Even the personal history ofthe poet has been made to contribute to the gaietyof nations, and the flight of Mary Powell, thefirst Mrs. Milton, from the house in AldersgateStreet, has become something of a stock comicepisode in the history of English literature. Soheavy is the tax paid, even by a poet, for deficiencyin breadth and humour. Almost all men are lesshumorous than Shakespeare; but most men aremore humorous than Milton, and these, it is tobe feared, having suffered themselves to bedragooned by the critics into professing a distantadmiration for Paradise Lost, have paid their lastand utmost tribute to the genius of its author.
It may be admitted without hesitation that hislonely greatness rather forces admiration on usthan attracts us. That unrelenting intensity;that lucidity, as clear as air and as hard as agate;that passion which burns with a consuming heator with a blinding light in all his writings, haveendeared him to none. It is impossible to take[8]one's ease with Milton, to induce him to forgethis principles for a moment in the name of socialpleasure. The most genial of his personal sonnetsis addressed to Henry Lawrence, the son of thePresident of Cromwell's Council, and is an invitationto dinner. The repast promised is "lightand choice"; the guest is apostrophised, somewhatformidably, as "Lawrence, of virtuous father,virtuous son," and is reminded, before he hasdined, that
But the qualities that make Milton a poorboon-companion are precisely those which combineto raise his style to an unexampled loftiness,a dignity that bears itself easily in society greaterthan human. To attain to this height it wasneedful that there should be no aimless expatiationof the intellect, no facile diffusion of the sympathiesover the wide field of human activity andhuman character. All the strength of mind andheart and will that was in Milton went into theprocess of raising himself. He is like some giantpalm-tree; the foliage that sprang from it as itgrew has long since withered, the stem risesgaunt and bare; but high up above, outlinedagainst the sky, is a crown of perennial verdure.
It is essential for the understanding of Milton[9]that we should take account of the rare simplicityof his character. No subtleties; no tricks of thedramatic intellect, which dresses itself in a hundredmasquerading costumes and peeps out of a thousandspy-holes; no development, one might almostsay, only training, and that self-imposed. Thereis but one Milton, and he is throughout oneand the same, in his life, in his prose, and in hisverse; from those early days, when we find him,an uncouth swain,
The world has not wholly misunderstood orfailed to appreciate this extraordinary character,as one curious piece of evidence will serve toshow. Milton is one of the most egotistic ofpoets. He makes no secret of the high value hesets upon his gifts--"gifts of God's imparting,"as he calls them, "which I boast not, but thankfullyacknowledge, and fear also lest at mycertain account they be reckoned to me many[10]rather than few." Before he has so much as begunhis great poem he covenants with his reader "thatfor some few years yet I may go on trust withhim toward the payment of what I am now indebted,as being a work not to be raised from theheat of youth or the vapours of wine; ... norto be obtained by the invocation of dame Memoryand her siren daughters, but by devout prayer tothat eternal Spirit, who can enrich with all utteranceand knowledge, and sends out his seraphim,with the hallowed fire of his altar, to touch andpurify the lips of whom he pleases; to this mustbe added industrious and select reading, steadyobservation, insight into all seemly and generousarts and affairs; till which in some measure becompassed, at mine own peril and cost, I refusenot to sustain this expectation from as many asare not loth to hazard so much credulity upon thebest pledges that I can give them." And whenhe came to redeem his pledge, in the very openinglines of his epic, trusting to the same inspiration,he challenges the supremacy of the ancients by his
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