When he came at length to live in a palace, Oliver Cromwell was simple in his tastes, pure in his morals, tireless in his pursuit of duty. It is said that he was a Philistine, and the enemy of culture. But he loved music and encouraged the opera. He loved literature, and his warmest friend was John Milton, the greatest poet and author of the age. If he levelled the castles of England to the ground, that feudalism might have no stronghold to which it could flee, it cannot be said that he hated art, for Cromwell bought the cartoons of Raphael for England, and preserved the art treasures of Charles the First. It stirs our sense of wonder that men should think that Cromwell represents opposition to culture, and that Charles the Second stands for the refinements of life. Charles the Second, the royalist, was a king who endeavoured to sell the cartoons of Raphael that Cromwell had preserved, to the King of France, to obtain money for his court. He encouraged bull-baiting and cock-fighting and pleasures steeped in animalism and vulgarity. No one claims that Cromwell himself was a piece of granite, unhewn and unpolished. The fact is, neither the Puritan nor the royalist stood for full culture and refinement. But of the two men, a thousand times preferable is the Cromwell who maintained friendship with John Milton, who represented genius united to the noblest character.
But great as was Cromwell, the ruler, he was greater still as father, citizen and Christian. Alone, amid conspiracies and plots, the weary Titan staggered on. At last the burden broke his heart. He held the realm in order by his will, gave law to Europe, and defended the weak, crushed the bigot, so that far away in Rome the Pope trembled at his name, and the sons of the martyrs blessed him. Suddenly he realized that his great work was done. On his death-bed he lay with one hand upon the breast of Christ, and the other stretched out toward Washington and Lincoln. For hours he lay, speaking great and noble words. The storm that passed over London that day and uprooted the trees in Hyde Park was the fitting dirge for the passing of this noble soul. "God is good," he murmured. Urged to take a potion and find sleep, he answered: "It is not my design to drink and sleep, but my wish is to make what haste I can to be gone." An hour later he lay calm and speechless. His work was done. He had shattered that citadel of iniquity, the Divine Right of Kings, and secured for the people of England the rights of conscience and religion. When the King returned, he returned to reign in accordance with the people's will. When the Church was restored, it was restored upon the basis of the Act of Toleration, and the concession that no church can coerce the conscience of the people. Cromwell had compacted Scotland and England. He had outlined the movement of the reform bill of 1832. He had brought in an epoch when, for the first and only time in Europe, morality and religion were qualifications insisted upon in a court. Much of that which is best in the life and thought of America and England, the republic and the great monarchy alike owe to that stern workman of God, Oliver Cromwell.
V
JOHN MILTON
(1608–1674)
The Scholar in Politics
By common consent, critics acclaim John Milton the greatest Latin scholar, the foremost man of letters and one of the two first literary artists England has produced. Historians have united to give him a place among the ten great names in English history. Take out of our institutions Milton's plea for the liberty of the printing press, his views on education, and all modern society would be changed. Tennyson called Milton "the God-gifted organ-voice of England, the mighty-mouthed inventor of harmonies; an angel skilled to sing of time and of eternity; a seer who spent his days and nights listening to the sevenfold Hallelujah Chorus of Almighty God." Voltaire was not an Englishman, but Voltaire characterized Milton's poems as "the noblest product of the human imagination." Many American statesmen believe that the principles of the Compact signed in the cabin of the Mayflower and the final Constitution, are none other than the reproduction in political terms of the dreams of freedom that haunted the soul of John Milton all his life long. But it remained for Wordsworth to pay the supreme tribute to this immortal singer:
"Thy soul was like a star and dwelt apart;
Thou hadst a voice that sounded like the sea;
Pure as the native heavens, majestic, free.
We must be free or die that speak the tongue
That Shakespeare spoke; the faith and morals hold
Which Milton held."
Poet, statesman, philosopher, champion and martyr of English literature, John Milton was born at one of the critical moments in the history of mankind. His era, says Macaulay, "was one of the memorable eras—the very crisis of the great conflict between liberty and despotism, reason and prejudice. The battle was fought for no single generation, for no single land. The destinies of the human race were staked on the same cast with the freedom of the English people. Then were first proclaimed those mighty principles which have since worked their way into the depth of the American forests . . . and from one end of Europe to the other have kindled an unquenchable fire in the hearts of the oppressed. Of those principles, then struggling for their existence, Milton was the most devoted and eloquent champion."
If it be true, as Macaulay would have us believe, that as civilization advances, poetry necessarily declines, and that in an enlightened and literary society the poet's difficulties are "in proportion to his proficiency" as a scholar, then it may truly be said that few poets have triumphed over greater difficulties than John Milton. He was born at the end of the heroic age in English literature, and he enjoyed all the benefits and advantages that travel and culture could bestow upon him. If, however, as others of us believe, great literature is like a spring of clear water, bubbling out of the soil, and no man can say what mysterious elements give it its crystal purity, then it behooves us to examine somewhat into the nature of Milton's parentage, the character of his environment and the significance of the training he received as a young man.