An English Garner | Page 8

1639, the son of a small squire and justice of the peace at
Crowell in Oxfordshire, Ellwood had, in 1659, been persuaded by
Edward Burrough, one of the most distinguished of Fox's followers, to
join the Quakers. He was in his twenty-fourth year when he first met
Milton. Milton was then living in Jewin Street, having removed from
his former lodging in Holborn, most probably in the autumn of 1661.
The restoration had terminated his work as a controversialist and
politician. For a short time his life had been in peril, but he had
received a pardon, and could at least live in peace. He could no longer
be of service as a patriot, and was now occupied with the composition
of Paradise Lost. Since 1650 he had been blind, and for study and
recreation was dependent on assistance. Having little domestic comfort
as a widower, he had just married his third wife.
Ellwood's narrative tells its own story. What especially strikes us in it,
and what makes it particularly interesting, is that it presents Milton in a
light in which he is not presented elsewhere. Ellwood seems to have
had the same attraction for him as Bonstetten had for Gray. No doubt
the simplicity, freshness, and enthusiasm of the young Quaker touched
and interested the lonely and world-wearied poet who, when Ellwood
first met him, had entered on his fifty-fifth year; he had no doubt, too,
the scholar's sympathy with a disinterested love of learning. In any case,
but for Ellwood, we should never have known the softer side of
Milton's character, never have known of what gentleness, patience, and
courtesy he was capable. And, indeed, when we remember Milton's
position at this time, as tragical as that of Demosthenes after Chaeronea,
and of Dante at the Court of Verona, there is something inexpressibly
touching in the picture here given with so much simplicity and with
such evident unconsciousness on the part of the painter of the effect
produced. There is one passage which is quite delicious, and yet its

point may be, as it commonly is, easily missed. It illustrates the density
of Ellwood's stupidity, and the delicate irony of the sadly courteous
poet. Milton had lent him, it will be seen, the manuscript of _Paradise
Lost_; and on Ellwood returning it to him, 'he asked me how I liked it,
and what I thought of it, which I modestly but freely told him, and after
some further discourse about it I pleasantly said to him, "Thou has said
much here of Paradise Lost, but what has thou to say of Paradise
Found?"' Now the whole point and scope of Paradise Lost is Paradise
Found--the redemption--the substitution of a spiritual Eden within man
for a physical Eden without man, a point emphasised in the invocation,
and elaborately worked out in the closing vision from the Specular
Mount. It is easy to understand the significance of what follows: 'He
made me no answer, but sat sometime in a muse; then broke off that
discourse, and fell upon another subject.' The result no doubt of that
'muse' was the suspicion, or, perhaps, the conviction, that the rest of the
world would, in all probability, be as obtuse as Ellwood; and to that
suspicion or conviction we appear to owe Paradise Regained. The
Plague over, Milton returned to London, settling in Artillery Walk,
Bunhill Fields. 'And when afterwards I went to wait on him there ... he
shewed me his second poem, called Paradise Regained, and in a
pleasant tone said to me, "This is owing to you, for you put it into my
head by the question you put to me at Chalfont, which before I had not
thought of."' In 'the pleasant tone' more, and much more, is implied, of
that we may be very sure, than meets the ear. We should like to have
seen the expression on Milton's face both on this occasion and also
when, on Dryden requesting his permission to turn Paradise Lost into
an opera, he replied; 'Oh, certainly, you may tug my verses if you
please, Mr. Dryden.' It may be added that Paradise Lost was not
published till 1667, and Paradise Regained did not see the light till
1671. Ellwood seems to imply that Paradise Regained was composed
between the end of August or the beginning of September 1665, and
the end of the autumn of the same year, which is, of course, incredible
and quite at variance with what Phillips tells us. Ellwood is, no doubt,
expressing himself loosely, and his 'afterwards' need not necessarily
relate to his first, or to his second, or even to his third visit to Milton
after the poet's return to Artillery Walk, but refers vaguely to one of
those 'occasions which drew him to London.' When