FROM 'GONDIBERT,' BOOK I. CANTO 6. Soon they the palace reached of Astragon, Yet light's last rays were not entirely spent, Who by their weights and measures did record On which his chymics and distillers wrought. But now their common business they refrain, And bloody marks in such a civil train, Which showed at once their worth and their distress The voice of Ulfin they with gladness knew, Whom to this house long neighbourhood endeared: Approaching torches perfected their view, And taught the way till Astragon appeared. Who soon did Ulfin cheerfully embrace; The visit's cause by whispers he received, Which first he hoped was meant him as a grace, But being known, with manly silence grieved. And then, with gestures full of grave respect, To each distinct retirement did direct, And all the wounded he ordained to bed. Then thin digestive food he did provide, More to enable fleeting strength to stay, To wounds well-searched he cleansing wines applied, Balm of the warrior! herb Hypernicon! To warriors, as in use, in form decreed, For, through the leaves, transparent wounds are shown, And rudely touched, the golden flower doth bleed. For sleep they juice of pale Nymphæa took, Which grows, to show that it for sleep is good, It loves the cottage and from court abstains, Stops Want's loud mouth, and blinds the treacherous spy. SONG. The lark now leaves his watery nest, And to implore your light, he sings; The merchant bows unto the seaman's star, Who look for day before his mistress wakes: ON THE CAPTIVITY OF THE COUNTESS OF ANGLESEY. O whither will you lead the fair And spicy daughter of the morn? Princes, though free, would fain have worn. What is her crime? what has she done? Or did her voice, divinely clear, Run, run! pursue this gothic rout, Sure all old lovers have the gout, The young are overwatched and sleep) JOHN MILTON. [JOHN MILTON (1608–1674) was born in Bread Street, Cheapside, 9 Dec. 1608. Educated at St. Paul's School, and Christ's College, Cambridge, he was destined by his family for the Church. From this, however, he was diverted, partly by his strong Puritan bias, partly by an ambition which possessed him from a very early period, to compose a great work which should bring honour to his country. and to the English language. Full of this lofty purpose, he retired to his father's country residence at Horton in the county of Bucks. Here he gave himself up to study, and poetical meditation, in preparation for the work to which he had resolved to devote his life. He looked upon himself as a man dedicated to a high purpose, and framed his life accordingly. He thought that he who would not be frustrated of his hope to write well hereafter in laudable things, ought himself to be a true poem, . .. not presuming to sing high praises of heroic men or famous cities, unless he have in himself the experience and practice of all that which is praiseworthy.' This residence at Horton constitutes Milton's first poetic period, 1632-1638. During these six years he wrote L'Allegro and Il Penseroso, Arcades, Comus, and Lycidas. All these were thrown off by their author as occasional pieces, exercises for practice, preluding to the labour of his life, which he was all the while meditating. A journey to Italy, 1638-9, was undertaken as a portion of the poet's education which he was giving himself He was recalled from his tour by the lowering aspect of public affairs at home. For the next twenty years his thoughts were diverted from poetry by the absorbing interest of the civil struggle. His time was occupied partly by official duties as Latin secretary to the Council of the Commonwealth, partly by the voluntary share he took in the controversies of the time. The public cause to which he had devoted himself being lost, and the ruin of his party consummated in 1660, Milton reverted to his long-cherished poetical scheme. During the twenty years of political agitation this scheme had never been wholly banished from his thoughts. After much hesitation, long choosing and beginning late,' both subject and form had been decided The poem was to be an epic and was to treat of the fall and recovery of man. He had begun to compose on this theme as early as 1658, and in 1665 Paradise Lost was completed. Owing to the Plague and the Fire. it was not published till August, 1667. It was originally in ten books, which were afterwards made into twelve, as the normal epical number by subdividing books 7 and 10. The subject of the recovery of man had been dropped out of the plan at an early stage, and was afterwards made the subject of a second poem, Paradie Regained, on a hint given by Milton's young quaker friend. Ellwood. These years of disaster and distress, 1665-6, were specially prolific, if, as is probable, both Paradise Regained, and Samson Agonistes were written during them The two poems came out in 1 vol. in 1671. and closed Milton's second poetic period. He lived three years longer, during which he occupied himself with carrying through the press a new edition of his Poems (the 1st ed. was 1645) as well as several compilations, which furnished mental occupation without requiring inventive power. He died & Nov. 1674.] I. Our earliest specimen of Milton is a little poem which was first printed among the commendatory verses prefixed, according to a custom then prevailing, to the Shakspeare folio of 1632, where it is headed, An epitaph on the admirable dramatick poet, W. Shakspere. It was written in 1630, æt. 22. Though not Milton's earliest effort, it is the first piece of which it can be said that its merit does not lie chiefly in its promise. What he had written before this date, was, besides college exercises, an ode On the morning of Christ's nativity, Upon the circumcision, The Passion, On the death of a fair infant, &c. In all these early pieces is discernible in germ that mental quality which became in his mature production his poetic characteristic. This quality, which the poverty of our language tries to express by the words solemnity, gravity, majesty, nobility, loftiness, and which, name it as we may, we all feel in reading Paradise Lost, is already conspicuous in the sixteen lines of the epitaph on Shakspeare. This sublimity does not reside in the thesis which is logically enunciated, nor in the image presented. These are, as often in Milton, commonplace enough. The elevation is communicated to us not by the dogma or deliverance, but by sympathy. We catch the contagion of the poet's mental attitude. He makes us bow with him before the image of Shakspeare, though there is not a single discriminating epithet to point out in what the greatness which we are made to feel consists. An eighteenth century poet would have offered some clever analysis, or judicious criticism. 'Avant donc que d'écrire, apprenez à penser,' was the precept of that age for prose and poetry alike. To be sensible of the sudden decadence |