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John Milton - Part II.
John Milton - Part II.
These same tendencies were aggravated also by two defects which are
exceedingly rare in great English authors, and which perhaps Milton alone
amongst those of the highest class is in a remarkable degree chargeable with;
we mean a deficiency in humor, and a deficiency in a knowledge of plain human
nature. Probably when, after the lapse of ages, English literature is looked
at in its larger features only, and in comparison with other literatures which
have preceded or which may follow it, the critics will lay down that its most
striking characteristic as a whole is its involution, so to say, in life; the
degree to which its book life resembles real life; the extent to which the
motives, dispositions and actions of common busy persons are represented in a
medium which would seem likely to give us peculiarly the ideas of secluded and
the tendencies of meditative men. It is but an aspect of this fact, that
English literature abounds - some critics will say abounds excessive - with
humor. This is in some sense the imaginative element of ordinary life, - the
relieving charm, partaking at once of contrast and similitude, which gives a
human and an intellectual interest to the world of clowns and cottages, of
fields and farmers. The degree to which Milton is deficient in this element is
conspicuous in every page of his writings where its occurrence could be looked
for; and if we do not always look for it, this is because the subjects of his
most remarkable works are on a removed elevation, where ordinary life, the
world of "cakes and ale," is never thought of and never expected. It is in his
dramas, as we should expect, that Milton shows this deficiency the most.
"Citizens" never talk in his pages, as they do in Shakespeare. We feel
instinctively that Milton`s eye had never rested with the same easy pleasure
on the easy, ordinary, shopkeeping world. Perhaps, such is the complication of
art, it is on the most tragic occasions that we feel this want the most.
It may seem an odd theory, and yet we believe it to be a true principle,
that catastrophes require a comic element. We appear to feel the same
principle in life. We may read solemn descriptions of great events in history,
- say of Lord Strafford`s trial, and of his marvelous speech, and his appeal
to his "saint in heaven"; but we comprehend the whole transaction much better
when we learn from Mr. Baillie, the eyewitness, that people ate nuts and
apples, and talked, and laughed, and betted on the great question of acquittal
and condemnation. Nor is it difficult to understand why this should be so. It
seems to be a law of the imagination, at least in most men, that it will not
bear concentration. It is essentially a glancing faculty. It goes and comes,
and comes and goes, and we hardly know whence or why. But we most of us know
that when we try to fix it, in a moment it passes away. Accordingly, the
proper procedure of art is to let it go in such a manner as to ensure its
coming back again. The force of artistic contrast effects exactly this result:
skillfully disposed opposites suggest the notion of each other. We realize
more perfectly and easily the great idea, the tragic conception, when we are
familiarized with its effects on the minds of little people, with the petty
consequences which it causes as well as with the enormous forces from which it
comes. The catastrophe of Samson Agonistes discloses Milton`s imperfect
mastery of this element of effect. If ever there was an occasion which
admitted its perfect employment, it was this. The kind of catastrophe is
exactly that which is sure to strike, and strike forcibly, the minds of common
persons. If their observations on the occasion were really given to us, we
could scarcely avoid something rather comic. The eccentricity, so to speak, of
ordinary persons shows itself peculiarly at such times, and they say the
queerest things. Shakespeare has exemplified this principle most skillfully on
various occasions: it is the sort of art which is just in his way. His
imagination always seems to be floating between the contrasts of things; and
if his mind had a resting-place that it liked, it was this ordinary view of
extraordinary events. Milton was under the great [est] obligation to use this
relieving principle of art in the catastrophe of Samson, because he has made
every effort to heighten the strictly tragic element, which requires that
relief. His art, always serious, was never more serious. His Samson is not the
incarnation of physical strength which the popular fancy embodies in the
character; nor is it the simple and romantic character of the Old Testament.
On the contrary, Samson has become a Puritan: the observations he makes would
have done much credit to a religious pikeman in Cromwell`s army. In
consequence, his death requires some lightening touches to make it a properly
artistic event. The pomp of seriousness becomes too oppressive.
"At length for intermission sake they led him
Between the pillars; he his guide requested
(For so from such as nearer stood we heard),
As overtired, to let him lean awhile
With both his arms on those two massy pillars
That to the arched roof gave main support.
He unsuspicious led him; which when Samson
Felt in his arms, with head awhile inclined,
And eyes fast fixed, he stood, as one who prayed,
Or some great matter in his mind revolved;
At last with head erect thus cried aloud;
`Hitherto, lords, what your commands imposed
I have performed, as reason was, obeying,
Not without wonder or delight beheld;
Now of my own accord such other trial
I mean to show you of my strength, yet greater,
As with amaze shall strike all who behold.`
This uttered, straining all his nerves he bowed,
As with the force of winds and waters pent
When mountains tremble, those two massy pillars
With horrible convulsion to and fro.
He tugged, he shook, till down they came, and drew
The whole roof after them, with burst of thunder,
Upon the heads of all who sat beneath, -
Lords, ladies, captains, counselors, or priests,
Their choice nobility and flower, not only
Of this, but each Philistian city round,
Met from all parts to solemnize this feast.
Samson with these immixed, inevitably
Pulled down the same destruction on himself;
The vulgar only `scaped who stood without.
Chor. O dearly bought revenge, yet glorious! Living or dying thou hast
fulfilled
The work for which thou wast foretold To Israel, and now liest victorious
Among thy slain self-killed,
Not willingly, but tangled in the fold Of dire necessity, whose law in
death conjoined Thee with thy slaughtered foes, in number more Than all thy
life had slain before."
This is grave and fine; but Shakespeare would have done it differently
and better.
We need not pause to observe how certainly this deficiency in humor and
in the delineation of ordinary human feeling is connected with a recluse, a
solitary, and to some extent an unsympathizing life. If we combine a certain
natural aloofness from common men with literary habits and an incessantly
studious musing, we shall at once see how powerful a force is brought to bear
on an instinctively austere character, and how sure it will be to develop the
peculiar tendencies of it, both good and evil. It was to no purpose that
Milton seems to have practised a sort of professional study of life. No man
could rank more highly the importance to a poet of an intellectual insight
into all-important pursuits and "seemly arts." But it is not by the mere
intellect that we can take in the daily occupations of mankind: we must
sympathize with them, and see them in their human relations. A chimney -
sweeper, qua chimney-sweeper, is not very sentimental: it is in himself that
he is so interesting.
Milton`s austere character is in some sort the more evident because he
possessed in large measure a certain relieving element, in which those who are
eminent in that character are very deficient. Generally such persons have but
obtuse senses: we are prone to attribute the purity of their conduct to the
dullness of their sensations. Milton had no such obtuseness: he had every
opportunity for knowing the "world of eye and ear";^12 you cannot open his
works without seeing how much he did know of it. The austerity of his nature
was not caused by the deficiency of his senses, but by an excess of the
warning instinct. Even when he professed to delineate the world of sensuous
delight, this instinct shows itself. Dr. Johnson thought he could discern
melancholy in "L`Allegro";^13 if he had said solitariness, it would have been
correct.
[Footnote 12: Wordsworth, "Tintern Abbey."]
[Footnote 13: "Life of Milton."]
The peculiar nature of Milton`s character is very conspicuous in the
events of his domestic life, and in the views which he took of the great
public revolutions of his age. We can spare only a very brief space for the
examination of either of these; but we will endeavor to say a few words upon
each of them.
The circumstances of Milton`s first marriage are as singular as any in
the strange series of the loves of the poets. The scene opens with an affair
of business. Milton`s father, as is well known, was a scrivener, - a kind of
professional money-lender, then well known in London; and having been early
connected with the vicinity of Oxford, continued afterwards to have pecuniary
transactions of a certain nature with country gentlemen of that neighborhood.
In the course of these he advanced 500 pounds to a certain Mr. Richard Powell,
a squire of fair landed estate, residing at Forest Hill, which is about four
miles from the city of Oxford. The money was lent on the 11th of June, 1627;
and a few months afterwards Mr. Milton the elder gave 312 pounds of it to his
son the poet, who was then a youth at college, and made a formal memorandum of
the same in the form then usual, which still exists. The debt was never wholly
discharged; "for in 1650-1 we find Milton asserting on oath that he had
received only about 180 pounds, `in part satisfaction of my said just and
principal debt, with damages for the same, and my costs of suit.`" Mr.
Keightley supposes him to have taken "many a ride over to Forest Hill" after
he left Cambridge and was living at Horton, which is not very far distant; but
of course this is only conjecture. We only know that about 1643 "he took," as
his nephew relates, "a journey into the country, nobody about him certainly
knowing the reason, or that it was any more than a journey of recreation.
After a month`s stay, home he returns a married man, that went out a bachelor;
his wife being Mary, the eldest daughter of Mr. Richard Powell, then a justice
of the peace" for the county of Oxford. The suddenness of the event is rather
striking; but Philips was at the time one of Milton`s pupils, and it is
possible that some pains may have been taken to conceal the love affair from
the "young gentlemen." Still, as Philips was Milton`s nephew, he was likely to
hear such intelligence tolerably early; and as he does not seem to have done
so, the denouement was probably rather prompt. At any rate, he was certainly
married at that time, and took his bride home to his house in Aldersgate
Street; and there was feasting and gayety according to the usual custom of
such events. A few weeks after, the lady went home to her friends, in which
there was of course nothing remarkable; but it is singular that when the
natural limit of her visit at home was come, she absolutely refused to return
to her husband. The grounds of so strange a resolution are very difficult to
ascertain. Political feeling ran very high; old Mr. Powell adhered to the side
of the king, and Milton to that of the Parliament: and this might be fancied
to have caused an estrangement. But on the other hand, these circumstances
must have been well known three months before. Nothing had happened in that
quarter of a year to change very materially the position of the two parties in
the state. Some other cause for Mrs. Milton`s conduct must be looked for. She
herself is said to have stated that she did not like her husband`s "spare diet
and hard study."^14 No doubt, too, she found it dull in London: she had
probably always lived in the country, and must have been quite unaccustomed to
the not very pleasant scene in which she found herself. Still, many young
ladies have married schoolmasters, and many young ladies have gone from
Oxfordshire to London; and nevertheless, no such dissolution of matrimonial
harmony is known to have occurred.
[Footnote 14: Philips.]
The fact we believe to be, that the bride took a dislike to her husband.
We cannot but have a suspicion that she did not like him before marriage, and
that pecuniary reasons had their influence. If, however, Mr. Powell exerted
his paternal influence, it may be admitted that he had unusual considerations
to advance in favor of the alliance he proposed. It is not every father whose
creditors are handsome young gentlemen with fair incomes. Perhaps it seemed no
extreme tyranny to press the young lady a little to do that which some others
might have done without pressing. Still all this is but hypothesis: our
evidence as to the love affairs of the time of King Charles I. is but meager.
But whatever the feelings of Miss Powell may have been, those of Mrs. Milton
are exceedingly certain. She would not return to her husband; she did not
answer his letters; and a messenger whom he sent to bring her back was handled
rather roughly. Unquestionably she was deeply to blame, by far the most to
blame of the two. Whatever may be alleged against him is as nothing compared
with her offense in leaving him. To defend so startling a course, we must
adopt views of divorce even more extreme than those which Milton was himself
driven to inculcate; and whatever Mrs. Milton`s practice may have been, it may
be fairly conjectured that her principles were strictly orthodox. Yet if she
could be examined by a commission to the ghosts, she would probably have some
palliating circumstances to allege in mitigation of judgment. There were
perhaps peculiarities in Milton`s character which a young lady might not
improperly dislike. The austere and ascetic character is of course far less
agreeable to women than the sensuous and susceptible. The self-occupation,
the pride, the abstraction of the former are to the female mind disagreeable;
studious habits and unusual self-denial seem to it purposeless; lofty
enthusiasm, public spirit, the solitary pursuit of an elevated ideal, are
quite out of its way: they rest too little on the visible world to be
intelligible, they are too little suggested by the daily occurrences of life
to seem possible. The poet in search of an imaginary phantom has never been
successful with women, - there are innumerable proofs of that; and the ascetic
moralist is even less interesting. A character combined out of the two - and
this to some extent was Milton`s - is singularly likely to meet with painful
failure; with a failure the more painful, that it could never anticipate or
explain it. Possibly he was absorbed in an austere self-conscious
excellence: it may never have occurred to him that a lady might prefer the
trivial detail of daily happiness.
Milton`s own view of the matter he has explained to us in his book on
divorce; and it is a very odd one. His complaint was that his wife would not
talk. What he wished in marriage was "an intimate and speaking help": he
encountered "a mute and spiritless mate." One of his principal incitements to
the "pious necessity of divorcing" was an unusual deficiency in household
conversation. A certain loquacity in their wives has been the complaint of
various eminent men; but his domestic affliction was a different one. The
"ready and reviving associate," whom he had hoped to find, appeared to be a
"coinhabiting mischief," who was sullen, and perhaps seemed bored and tired.
And at times he is disposed to cast the blame of his misfortune on the
uninstructive nature of youthful virtue. The "soberest and best-governed men,"
he says, "are least practised in these affairs," are not very well aware that
"the bashful muteness" of a young lady "may ofttimes hide all the unliveliness
and natural sloth which is really unfit for conversation," and are rather in
too great haste to "light the nuptial torch": whereas those "who have lived
most loosely, by reason of their bold accustoming, prove most successful in
their matches; because their wild affections, unsettling at will, have been as
so many divorces to teach them experience." And he rather wishes to infer that
the virtuous man should, in case of mischance, have his resource of divorce
likewise.
In truth, Milton`s book on divorce - though only containing principles
which he continued to believe long after he had any personal reasons for
wishing to do so - was clearly suggested at first by the unusual phenomena of
his first marriage. His wife began by not speaking to him, and finished by
running away from him. Accordingly, like most books which spring out of
personal circumstances, his treatises on this subject have a frankness and a
mastery of detail which others on the same topic sometimes want. He is
remarkably free from one peculiarity of modern writers on such matters.
Several considerate gentlemen are extremely anxious for the "rights of women";
they think that women will benefit by removing the bulwarks which the
misguided experience of ages has erected for their protection. A migratory
system of domestic existence might suit Madame Dudevant, and a few cases of
singular exception; but we cannot fancy that it would be, after all, so much
to the taste of most ladies as the present more permanent system. We have some
reminiscence of the stories of the wolf and the lamb, when we hear amiable men
addressing a female auditory (in books, of course) on the advantages of a
freer "development." We are perhaps wrong, but we cherish an indistinct
suspicion that an indefinite extension of the power of selection would rather
tend to the advantage of the sex which more usually chooses. But we have no
occasion to avow such opinions now. Milton had no such modern views: he is
frankly and honestly anxious for the rights of the man. Of the doctrine that
divorce is only permitted for the help of wives, he exclaims, "Palpably
uxorious! who can be ignorant that woman was created for man, and not man for
woman? . . . What an injury is it after wedlock not to be beloved! what to be
slighted! what to be contended with in point of house-rule who shall be the
head; not for any parity of wisdom, for that were something reasonable, but
out of female pride! `I suffer not,` saith St. Paul, `the woman to usurp
authority over the man.` If the Apostle could not suffer it," he naturally
remarks, "into what mold in he mortified that can?" He had a sincere desire to
preserve men from the society of unsocial and unsympathizing women; and that
was his principal idea.
His theory, to a certain extent, partakes of the same notion. The
following passage contains a perspicuous exposition of it: -
"Moses, Deut. xxiv. I, established a grave and prudent law, full of moral
equity, full of due consideration towards nature, that cannot be resisted, a
law consenting with the wisest men and civilest nations: that when a man hath
married a wife, if it come to pass that he cannot love her by reason of some
displeasing natural quality or unfitness in her, let him write her a bill of
divorce. The intent of which law undoubtedly was this: that if any good and
peaceable man should discover some helpless disagreement or dislike, either of
mind or body, whereby he could not cheerfully perform the duty of a husband
without the perpetual dissembling of offense and disturbance to his spirit, -
rather than to live uncomfortably and unhappily both to himself and to his
wife, rather than to continue undertaking a duty which he could not possibly
discharge, he might dismiss her whom he could not tolerably, and so not
conscionably retain. And this law the Spirit of God by the mouth of Solomon,
Prov. xxx. 21, 23, testifies to be a good and a necessary law, by granting it
that `a hated woman` (for so the Hebrew word signifies, rather than `odious,`
though it come all to one), - that `a hated woman, when she is married, is a
thing that the earth cannot bear.`"
And he complains that the civil law of modern states interferes with the
"domestical prerogative of the husband."
His notion would seem to have been that a husband was bound not to
dismiss his wife, except for a reason really sufficient; such as a thoroughly
incompatible temper, an incorrigible "muteness," and a desertion like that of
Mrs. Milton. But he scarcely liked to admit that in the use of this power he
should be subject to the correction of human tribunals. He thought that the
circumstances of each case depended upon "utterless facts"; and that it was
practically impossible for a civil court to decide on a subject so delicate in
its essence, and so imperceptible in its data. But though amiable men
doubtless suffer much from the deficiencies of their wives, we should hardly
like to entrust them, in their own cases, with a jurisdiction so prompt and
summary.
We are far from being concerned, however, just now, with the doctrine of
divorce on its intrinsic merits: we were only intending to give such an
account of Milton`s opinions upon it as might serve to illustrate his
character. We think we have shown that it is possible there may have been, in
his domestic relations, a little over-weening pride; a tendency to overrate
the true extent of masculine rights, and to dwell on his wife`s duty to be
social towards him rather than on his duty to be social towards her, - to be
rather sullen whenever she was not quite cheerful. Still, we are not defending
a lady for leaving her husband for defects of such inferior magnitude. Few
households would be kept together, if the right of transition were exercised
on such trifling occasions. We are but suggesting that she may shares the
excuse which our great satirist has suggested for another unreliable lady: "My
mother was an angel; but angels are not always commodes a vivre."
This is not a pleasant part of our subject, and we must leave it. It is
more agreeable to relate that on no occasion of his life was the substantial
excellence of Milton`s character more conclusively shown than in his conduct
at the last stage of this curious transaction. After a very considerable
interval, and after the publication of his book on divorce, Mrs. Milton showed
a disposition to return to her husband; and in spite of his theories, he
received her with open arms. With great Christian patience, he received her
relations too. The Parliamentary party was then victorious; and old Mr.
Powell, who had suffered very much in the cause of the king, lived until his
death untroubled, and "wholly to his devotion," as we are informed, in the
house of his son-in-law.
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