[132] A Prologue spoken by Mr. Garrick, Thursday, April 5, 1750. at the Representation of COMUS, for the Benefit of Mrs. Elizabeth Foster, MILTON's Grand-daughter, and only surviving descendant.
Ye patriot crouds, who burn for England's fame,
Ye nymphs, whose bosoms beat at Milton's name,
Whose gen'rous zeal, unbought by flatt'ring rhimes,
Shames the mean pensions of Augustan times;
Immortal patrons of succeeding days,
Attend this prelude of perpetual praise!
Let wit, condemn'd the feeble war to wage
With close malevolence, or public rage;
Let study, worn with virtue's fruitless lore,
Behold this theatre, and grieve no more.
This night, distinguish'd by your smile, shall tell,
That never Briton can in vain excel;
The slighted arts futurity shall trust,
And rising ages hasten to be just.
At length our mighty bard's victorious lays
Fill the loud voice of universal praise,
And baffled spite, with hopeless anguish dumb,
Yields to renown the centuries to come.
With ardent haste, each candidate of fame
Ambitious catches at his tow'ring name:
He sees, and pitying sees, vain wealth bestow:
Those pageant honours which he scorn'd below;
While crowds aloft the laureat dust behold,
Or trace his form on circulating gold.
Unknown, unheeded, long his offspring lay,
And want hung threat'ning o'er her slow decay.
[133] What tho' she shine with no Miltonian fire,
No fav'ring muse her morning dreams inspire;
Yet softer claims the melting heart engage,
Her youth laborious, and her blameless age:
Hers the mild merits of domestic life,
The patient suff'rer, and the faithful wife.
Thus grac'd with humble virtue's native charms
Her grandsire leaves her in Britannia's arms,
Secure with peace, with competence, to dwell,
While tutelary nations guard her cell.
Yours is the charge, ye fair, ye wife, ye brave!
'Tis yours to crown desert—beyond the grave!
In the year 1670 our author published at London in 4to. his History of Britain, that part, especially, now called England, from the first traditional Beginning, continued to the Norman Conquest, collected out of the ancientest and best authors thereof. It is reprinted in the first volume of Dr. Kennet's compleat History of England. Mr. Toland in his Life of Milton, page 43, observes, that we have not this history as it came out of his hands, for the licensers, those sworn officers to destroy learning, liberty, and good sense, expunged several passages of it, wherein he exposed the superstition, pride, and cunning of the Popish monks in the Saxon times, but applied by the sagacious licensers to Charles IId's bishops. In 1681 a considerable passage which had been suppressed in the publication of this history, was printed at London in 4to under this title. Mr. John Milton's character of the Long Parliament and Assembly of Divines in 1651, omitted in his other works, and never before printed. It is reported, and from the foregoing character it appears probable, that Mr. Milton had lent most of his personal estate upon the public faith, which when he somewhat earnestly pressed to have restored, after a long, and chargeable attendance, met with very sharp rebbukes; [134] upon which, at last despairing of any success in this affair, he was forced to return from them poor and friendless, having spent all his money, and wearied all those who espoused his cause, and he had not, probably, mended his circumstances in those days, but by performing such service for them, as afterwards he did, for which scarce any thing would appear too great. In 1671 he published at London in 8vo. Paradise Regained, a Poem in four Books, to which is added Sampson Agonistes: there is not a stronger proof of human weakness, than Milton's preferring this Poem of Paradise Regained, to Paradise Lost, and it is a natural and just observation, that the Messiah in Paradise Regained, with all his meekness, unaffected dignity, and clear reasoning, makes not so great a figure, as when in the Paradise Lost he appears cloathed in the Terrors of Almighty vengeance, wielding the thunder of Heaven, and riding along the sky in the chariot of power, drawn, as Milton greatly expresses it, 'with Four Cherubic Shapes; when he comes drest in awful Majesty, and hurls the apostate spirits headlong into the fiery gulph of bottomless perdition, there to dwell in adamantine chains and penal fire, who durst defy the Omnipotent to arms.'
Dr. Newton has dissented from the general opinion of mankind, concerning Paradise Regained: 'Certainly, says he, it is very worthy of the author, and contrary to what Mr. Toland relates, Milton may be seen in Paradise Regained as well as Paradise Lost; if it is inferior in poetry, I know not whether it is inferior in sentiment; if it is less descriptive, it is more argumentative; if it does not sometimes rise so high, neither doth it ever sink below; and it has not met with the approbation it deserves, only because it has not been more read and considered. His subject indeed is confined, and he has a narrow foundation [135] to build upon, but he has raised as noble a superstructure, as such little room, and such scanty materials would allow. The great beauty of it is the contrast between the two characters of the tempter and Our Saviour, the artful sophistry, and specious insinuations of the one, refuted by the strong sense, and manly eloquence of the other.' The first thought of Paradise Regained was owing to Elwood the Quaker, as he himself relates the occasion, in the History of his own Life. When Milton had lent him the manuscript of Paradise Lost at St. Giles's Chalfont, and he returned it, Milton asked him how he liked it, and what he thought of it? 'which I modestly and freely told him (says Elwood) and after some further discourse about it, I pleasantly said to him, thou hast said much of Paradise Lost, but what hast thou to say of a Paradise Found? He made me no answer, but sat some time in a muse, then broke off that discourse, and fell upon another subject.' When Elwood afterwards waited upon him in London, Milton shewed him his Paradise Regained, and in a pleasant tone said to him, 'this is owing to you, for you put it into my head by the question you put me at Chalfont, which before I had not thought of.'
In the year 1672 he published his Artis Logicæ plenior Institutio ad Rami methodum concinnata, London, in 8vo. and in 1673, a Discourse intitled, Of True Religion, Heresy, Schism, Toleration, and what best Means may be used against the Growth of Popery, London, in 4to. He published likewise the same year, Poems, &c. on several Occasions, both English and Latin, composed at several times, with a small Tractate of Education to Mr. Hartlib, London, 8vo. In 1674 he published his Epistolarum familiarium, lib. i. & Prolusiones quædam Oratoriæ in Collegio Christi habitæ, London, in 8vo and in the same year in [136] 4to. a Declaration of the Letters Patent of the King of Poland, John III. elected on the 22d of May, Anno Dom. 1674, now faithfully translated from the Latin copy. Mr. Wood tells us[5], that Milton was thought to be the author of a piece called the Grand Case of Conscience, concerning the Engagement Stated and Resolved; or a Strict Survey of the Solemn League and Covenant in reference to the present Engagement; but others are of opinion that the stile and manner of writing do not in the least favour that supposition. His State Letters were printed at London 1676 in 12mo. and translated into English, and printed 1694, as his Brief History of Muscovy, and of their less known Countries, lying Eastward of Russia, as far as Cathay, was in 1682 in 8vo. His Historical, Poetical, and Miscellaneous Works were printed in three volumes in folio 1698 at London, though Amsterdam is mentioned in the title page with the life of the author, by Mr. Toland; but the most compleat and elegant edition of his prose works was printed in two volumes in folio at London 1738, by the rev. Mr. Birch, now secretary to the Royal Society, with an Appendix concerning two Dissertations, the first concerning the Author of the ΕΙΚΩΝ ΒΑΣΙΛΙΚΗ, the Portraiture of his sacred Majesty in his solitude and sufferings; and the prayer of Pamela subjoined to several editions of that book; the second concerning the Commission said to be given by King Charles I. in 1641, to the Irish Papists, for taking up arms against the Protestants in Ireland. In this edition the several pieces are disposed according to the order in which they were printed, with the edition of a Latin Tract, omitted by Mr. Toland, concerning the Reasons of the War with Spain in 1655, and several pages in the History of Great Britain, expanged [137] by the licensers of the press, and not to be met with in any former impressions. It perhaps is not my province to make any remarks upon the two grand disputations, that have subsisted between the friends and enemies of Charles I. about the author of the Basilike, and the Commission granted to the Irish Papists; as to the last, the reader, if he pleases, may consult at the Life of Lord Broghill, in which he will find the mystery of iniquity disclosed, and Charles entirely freed from the least appearance of being concerned in granting so execrable a commission; the forgery is there fully related, and there is all the evidence the nature of the thing will admit of, that the King's memory has been injured by so base an imputation. As to the first, it is somewhat difficult to determine, whether his Majesty was or was not the author of these pious Meditations; Mr. Birch has summed up the evidence on both sides; we shall not take upon us to determine on which it preponderates; it will be proper here to observe, the chief evidence against the King in this contention, is, Dr. Gauden, bishop of Exeter, who claimed that book as his, and who, in his letters to the earl of Clarendon, values himself upon it, and becomes troublesomely sollicitous for preferment on that account; he likewise told the two princes that the Basilike was not written by their father, but by him; now one thing is clear, that Gauden was altogether without parts; his Life of Hooker, which is the only genuine and indisputed work of his, shews him a man of no extent of thinking; his stile is loose, and negligently florid, which is diametrically opposite to that of these Meditations. Another circumstance much invalidates his evidence, and diminishes his reputation for honesty. After he had, for a considerable time, professed himself a Protestant, and been in possession of an English bishopric, and discovered an ardent [138] desire of rising in the church, notwithstanding this, he declared himself at his death a Papist; and upon the evidence of such a man, none can determine a point in disputation; for he who durst thus violate his conscience, by the basest hypocrisy, will surely make no great scruple to traduce the memory of his sovereign.
In a work of Milton's called Icon Oclastes, or the Image broken, he takes occasion to charge the king with borrowing a prayer from Sir Philip Sidney's Arcadia, and placing it in his Meditations without acknowledging the favour. Soon after the sentence of the Regicides had been put in execution these Meditations were published, and as Anthony by shewing the body of murdered Cæsar, excited the compassion of multitudes, and raised their indignation against the enemies of that illustrious Roman; so these Meditations had much the same effect in England. The Presbyterians loudly exclaimed against the murder of the King; they asserted, that his person was sacred, and spilling his blood upon a scaffold was a stain upon the English annals, which the latest time could not obliterate. These tragical complaints gaining ground, and the fury which was lately exercised against his Majesty, subsiding into a tenderness for his memory, heightened by the consideration of his piety, which these Meditations served to revive, it was thought proper, in order to appease the minds of the people, that an answer should be wrote to them.
In this task Milton engaged, and prosecuted it with vigour; but the most enthusiastic admirer of that poet, upon reading it will not fail to discover a spirit of bitterness, an air of peevishness and resentment to run through the whole. Milton has been charged with interpolating the prayer of Pamela into the King's Meditations, by the assistance of Bradshaw, who laid his commands upon [139] the printer so to do, to blast the reputation of the King's book. Dr. Newton is of opinion that this fact is not well supported, for it is related chiefly upon the authority of Henry Hills the printer, who had frequently affirmed it to Dr. Gill, and Dr. Bernard, his physicians, as they themselves have testified; but tho' Hills was Cromwell's printer, yet afterwards he turned Papist in the reign of King James II. in order to be that King's Printer; and it was at that time he used to relate this story; so that little credit is due to his testimony. It is almost impossible to believe Milton capable of such disingenuous meanness, to serve so bad a purpose, and there is as little reason for fixing it upon him, as he had to traduce the King for profaning the duty of prayer, with the polluted trash of romances; for in the best books of devotion, there are not many finer prayers, and the King might as lawfully borrow and apply it to his own purpose, as the apostle might make quotations from Heathen poems and plays; and it became Milton, the least of all men, to bring such an accusation against the King, as he was himself particularly fond of reading romances, and has made use of them in some of the best and latest of his writings.
There have been various conjectures concerning the cause that produced in Milton so great an aversion to Charles I. One is, that when Milton stood candidate for a professorship at Cambridge with his much esteemed friend Mr. King, their interest and qualifications were equal, upon which his Majesty was required by his nomination to fix the professor; his answer was, let the best-natured man have it; to which they who heard him, immediately replied; 'then we are certain it cannot be Milton's, who was ever remarkable for a stern ungovernable man.'—Whether [140] this conjecture is absolutely true, we cannot determine; but as it is not without probability, it has a right to be believed, till a more satisfactory one can be given.
In whatever light Milton may be placed as a statesman, yet as a poet he stands in one point of view without a rival; the sublimity of his conceptions, the elevation of his stile, the fertility of his imagination, and the conduct of his design in Paradise Lost is inimitable, and cannot be enough admired.