more sacred affairs, especially as that is a matter entirely of kindness, and not at all of duty? That, however, I should suspect that you had forgotten me, your so many recent kindnesses to me would by no means allow. I do not see how you could dismiss out of your memory one laden with so great benefits by you. Having been invited by you to your part of the country, as soon as spring has a little advanced I will gladly come to enjoy the delights of the year, and not less of your conversation, and will then withdraw myself from the din of town to your Stoa of the Iceni, as to that most celebrated porch of Zeno or the Tusculan Villa of Cicero, where you with moderate means, but regal spirit, like some Serranus or Curius, placidly reign in your little farm, and contemning fortune, hold as it were a triumph over riches, ambition, pomp, luxury, and whatever the herd of man admire and are amazed by. But as you have deprecated the blame of slowness, you will also, I hope, pardon me the fault of haste; for having put off this letter, I preferred writing little, and that rather in a slovenly manner, to not writing at all. Farewell, much-to-be respected Sir.’
The question is, Did Milton carry out this intention, and pay Stowmarket a visit? Professor
Masson thinks he may have been there in the memorable summer and autumn of 1630. The Rev. Mr. Hollingsworth, the Stowmarket historian argues that it is not unlikely that several, if not many, visits, extending over a period of thirty years, while the tutor held the living, were made by the poet to the place. Tradition has constantly associated his name with the mulberry-trees of the Vicarage, which he planted, but of these only one remains. ‘This venerable relic of the past,’ continues the Vicar, ‘is much decayed, and is still in vigorous bearing. Its girth, before it breaks into branches, is ten feet, and I have had in one season as much as ten gallons from the pure juices of its fruits, which yields a highly flavoured and brilliant-coloured wine.’ It stands a few yards distant from the oldest part of the house, and opposite the windows of an upstair double room, which was formerly the sitting-parlour of the Vicar, and where, it is to be believed, the poet and his friend had many a talk of the way to advance religion and liberty in the land, to remove hirelings out of the Church, and to abolish the Bishops. There too, perhaps, might have come to the guest visions of ‘Paradise Lost.’ In his first work Milton throws out something like a hint of the great
poem which he was in time to write. ‘Then, amidst,’ to quote his own sonorous language, ‘the hymns and hallelujahs of saints, someone may, perhaps, be heard offering in high strains, in new and lofty measures, to sing and celebrate Thy Divine mercies and marvellous judgments in this land throughout all ages.’ We can easily believe how, in the Stowmarket Vicarage, the plan of the poet may have been talked over, and the heart of the poet encouraged to the work. Regarding Young as Milton did, we may be sure that he would have been only too glad to listen to his suggestions and adopt his advice. There must have been a good deal of plain living and high thinking at the Stowmarket Vicarage when Milton came there as an occasional guest. This is the more probable as Milton’s earliest publications were in support of the views of Smectymnian divines. His friendship for Young probably led him into the field of controversy, for he owns that he was not disposed to this manner of writing ‘wherein, knowing myself inferior to myself, led by the genial power of nature to another task, I have the use, as I may account, but of my left hand.’ It is a fact that Milton was thus drawn into the controversy, and what more natural than that he should have been
induced to do so by the Stowmarket Vicar in the Stowmarket Vicarage? The poet’s family were familiar with that part of Suffolk, and his brother, Sir Christopher, who was a stanch Royalist and barrister, lived at Ipswich, but twelve miles off. He went to see Milton, and Milton might have visited Ipswich and Stowmarket at the same time. Be that as it may, tradition and probability alike justify the belief that Milton came to Stowmarket, and that he went away all the wiser and better, all the stronger to do good work for man and God, for his age and all succeeding ages. Young, as it may be inferred, was held in high honour by his friends. He was spoken of by two neighbouring ejected Rectors as the reverend, learned, orthodox, prudent, and holy Dr. Young. When he died, an epitaph was inscribed with some care by a friendly hand, and an unwilling admission is made of the opposition he had encountered. It is now illegible, and some of its lines appear to have been carefully erased—by some High Church chisel, probably. But the following copy was made when the epitaph was fresh and legible:
‘Here is committed to earth’s trust
Wise, pious, spotlesse, learned dust,
Who living more adorned the place
Than the place him. Such was God’s grace.’
Is the verse of this epitaph from Milton’s pen or not? Mr. Hollingsworth writes: ‘The probability is quite in favour that the pupil should write the last memorial of one whom he so highly honoured and loved as his old master. Nor is the verse itself, with the exception of the last line, unlike the character of Milton’s poetry, and this last may have been mutilated and rendered inharmonious by the action of the stone-cutter, who also confused the death of the father and son.’ It is pleasant to think, not only that Milton now and then came to the Stowmarket Vicarage, but that in the church itself there is a slight record of his poetical fame. Let me add, as a further illustration of the connection of the great poet with the county of Suffolk, that I am informed one of the family of the Meadowses, of Witnesham, was for a time one of his secretaries.
Young died, aged sixty-eight, in the year 1655, when Milton was fully embarked in public life, when he could spare but little time; but we may be sure that he would be the last at that time of life to forget all that he owed to his tutor Young. Wife and son had predeceased the Vicar. It seems as if there was no one left but the poet to record on the marble in the middle aisle, in front
of the present reading-desk, the virtues of a character which had long exercised so beneficial an influence on his own, and which he had loved so well. Milton’s regret for the loss of such a guide, philosopher, and friend must have been lasting and sincere.