JOHN MILTON 1608-1674 Far above all poets of his own age, and in learning, sublimity, and invention without an equal in the whole range of English literature, stands John Milton. He was born in London on December 9, 1608. In youth he was a hard student, and devoted his time most assiduously to classical literature. A remark of his has often been quoted, that he cared not how late he came into life, only that he came fit." That he believed himself destined to become of note appears from his own words: "By labor and intense study (which I take to be my portion in this life), joined with the strong propensity of nature, I might perhaps leave something to after-times, as they should not willingly let it die." The idea of his unequalled poem of "Paradise Lost" was probably conceived as early as 1642, but it was not published till_about twenty-five years after that date. When it was written, the British press was subject to a censorship, and he experienced some difficulty in getting it licensed, the sapient gentleman who then possessed the power of rejecting or sanctioning any works submitted to him, imagining that in the noble simile of the sun in an eclipse he discovered treason. It was, however, licensed, and sold to Samuel Simmons, a bookseller, for an immediate payment of £5, with a condition that on 1,300 copies being sold the author should receive £5 more, and the same for the second and third editions. In two years the sale of the poem gave the poet a right to his second payment, the receipt for which was signed April 26, 1669. The second edition was printed in 1674, but the author did not live to receive the stipulated payment; the third edition was published in 1678, when, the copyright devolving on Milton's widow, she agreed with Simmons to receive £8 for it; so that £18 was the sum-total paid for the best poem of the first of British poets. Milton died at his house in Bunhill Row, London, November 8, 1674. 99.66 Milton's chief prose works are: "Two Books on Reformation in England," ""Prelatical Episcopacy,' ""Eikonoklastes,' Areopagitica," and "Treatise on Education." His prose, like that of many of our early writers, is of very unequal quality. Hallam says that his intermixture of familiar with learned phraseology is unpleasing, and the structure of his sentences elaborate; that he seldom reaches any harmony, and that his wit is poor and without ease. If the justness of Hallam's strictures must be admitted, we may also accept his praise that these writings glow with an intense love of liberty and truth, and contain frequent passages of the highest imaginative power, in which the majestic soul of Milton breathes such high thoughts as had not been uttered before. I ON EDUCATION TO MASTER SAMUEL HARTLIB AM long since persuaded, Master Hartlib,' that to say or do aught worth memory and imitation, no purpose or respect should sooner move us than simply the love of God, and of mankind. Nevertheless to write now the reforming of education, though it be one of the greatest and noblest designs that can be thought on, and for the want whereof this nation perishes; I had not yet at this time been induced, but by your earnest entreaties and serious conjurements; as having my mind for the present half diverted in the pursuance of some other assertions, the knowledge and the use of which cannot but be a great furtherance both to the enlargement of truth, and honest living with much more peace. Nor should the laws of any private friendship have prevailed with me to divide thus, or transpose my former thoughts, but that I see those aims, those actions, which have won you with me the esteem of a person sent hither by some good providence from a far country to be the occasion and incitement of great good to this island. 2. And, as I hear, you have obtained the same repute with men of most approved wisdom, and some of the highest authority among us; not to mention the learned correspondence which you hold in foreign parts, and the extraordinary pains and diligence which you have used in this matter, both here and beyond the seas; either by the definite will of God so ruling, or the peculiar sway of nature, which also is God's working. Neither can I think that so reputed and so valued as you are, you would, to the forfeit of your own discerning ability, impose 1 Of Hartlib little more is known than that he was a friend of Milton, who had studied with peculiar diligence the science of education, and to whom Sir William Petty subsequently dedicated one of his earliest works. From several expressions in this and the following paragraphs, he would appear to have been a foreigner; for he is spoken of as one sent hither from a far country, and allusion is made to his labors be yond the seas. upon me an unfit and overponderous argument; but that the satisfaction which you profess to have received, from those incidental discourses which we have wandered into, hath pressed and almost constrained you into a persuasion, that what you require from me in this point, I neither ought nor can in conscience defer beyond this time both of so much need at once, and so much opportunity to try what God hath determined. 3. I will not resist therefore whatever it is, either of divine or human obligement, that you lay upon me; but will forthwith set down in writing, as you request me, that voluntary idea, which hath long, in silence, presented itself to me, of a better education, in extent and comprehension far more large, and yet of time far shorter, and of attainment far more certain, than hath been yet in practice. Brief I shall endeavor to be; for that which I have to say, assuredly this nation hath extreme need should be done sooner than spoken. To tell you therefore what I have benefited herein among old renowned authors, I shall spare; and to search what many modern Januas and Didactics, more than ever I shall read, have projected, my inclination leads me not. But if you can accept of these few observations which have flowered off, and are as it were the burnishing of many studious and contemplative years, altogether spent in the search of religious and civil knowledge, and such as pleased you so well in the relating, I here give you them to dispose of. 4. The end then of learning is to repair the ruins of our first parents by regaining to know God aright, and out of that knowledge to love him, to imitate him, to be like him, as we may the nearest by possessing our souls of true virtue, which being united to the heavenly grace of faith, makes up the highest perfection. But because our understanding cannot in this body found itself but on sensible things, nor arrive so clearly to the knowledge of God and things invisible, as by orderly conning over the visible and inferior creature, the same method is necessarily to be followed in all discreet teaching. And seeing every nation affords not experience and tradition enough for all kinds of learning, therefore we are chiefly taught the languages of those people who have at any time been most industrious after wisdom; so that language is but the instrument conveying to us things useful to be known. And though a linguist should |