Life of John Milton | Page 3

literature because they must have
failed as conspicuously as Homer would have failed in all things save
those to which they had a call, which chanced to be the greatest.
Literature, however, cannot remain isolated at such altitudes, it must
expand or perish. As Homer's epic passed through Pindar and the
lyrical poets into drama history and philosophy, continually fitting
itself more and more to become an instrument in the ordinary affairs of
life, so it was needful that English lettered discourse should become
popular and pliant, a power in the State as well as in the study. The
magnitude of the change, from the time when the palm of popularity
decorated Sidney's "Arcadia" to that when it adorned Defoe and
Bunyan, would impress us even more powerfully if the interval were
not engrossed by a colossal figure, the last of the old school in the
erudite magnificence of his style in prose and verse; the first of the new,

inasmuch as English poetry, hitherto romantic, became in his hands
classical. This "splendid bridge from the old world to the new," as
Gibbon has been called in a different connection, was John Milton:
whose character and life-work, carefully analyzed, resolve themselves
into pairs of equally vivid contrasts. A stern Puritan, he is none the less
a freethinker in the highest and best sense of the term. The recipient of
direct poetical inspiration in a measure vouchsafed to few, he
notwithstanding studies to make himself a poet; writes little until no
other occupation than writing remains to him; and, in general, while
exhibiting even more than the usual confidence, shows less than the
usual exultation and affluence of conscious genius. Professing to
recognize his life's work in poetry, he nevertheless suffers himself to be
diverted for many a long year into political and theological controversy,
to the scandal and compassion of one of his most competent and
attached biographers. Whether this biographer is right or wrong, is a
most interesting subject for discussion. We deem him wrong, and shall
not cease to reiterate that Milton would not have been Milton if he
could have forgotten the citizen in the man of letters. Happy, at all
events, it is that this and similar problems occupy in Milton's life the
space which too frequently has to be spent upon the removal of
misconception, or the refutation of calumny. Little of a sordid sort
disturbs the sentiment of solemn reverence with which, more even than
Shakespeare's, his life is approached by his countrymen; a feeling
doubtless mainly due to the sacred nature of his principal theme, but
equally merited by the religious consecration of his whole existence. It
is the easier for the biographer to maintain this reverential attitude,
inasmuch as the prayer of Agur has been fulfilled in him, he has been
given neither poverty nor riches. He is not called upon to deal with an
enormous mass of material, too extensive to arrange, yet too important
to neglect. Nor is he, like Shakespeare's biographer, reduced to choose
between the starvation of nescience and the windy diet of conjecture. If
a humbling thought intrudes, it is how largely he is indebted to a
devoted diligence he never could have emulated; how painfully
Professor Masson's successors must resemble the Turk who builds his
cabin out of Grecian or Roman ruins.
Milton's genealogy has taxed the zeal and acumen of many

investigators. He himself merely claims a respectable ancestry (_ex
genere honesto_). His nephew Phillips professed to have come upon
the root of the family tree at Great Milton, in Oxfordshire, where tombs
attested the residence of the clan, and tradition its proscription and
impoverishment in the Wars of the Roses. Monuments, station, and
confiscation have vanished before the scrutiny of the Rev. Joseph
Hunter; it can only be safely concluded that Milton's ancestors dwelt in
or near the village of Holton, by Shotover Forest, in Oxfordshire, and
that their rank in life was probably that of yeomen. Notwithstanding
Aubrey's statement that Milton's grandfather's name was John, Mr.
Hyde Clarke's researches in the registers of the Scriveners' Company
have proved that Mr. Hunter and Professor Masson were right in
identifying him with Richard Milton, of Stanton St. John, near Holton;
and Professor Masson has traced the family a generation further back to
Henry Milton, whose will, dated November 21, 1558, attests a
condition of plain comfort, nearer poverty than riches. Henry Milton's
goods at his death were inventoried at £6 19s.; when his widow's will is
proved, two years afterwards, the estimate is £7 4s. 4d. Richard, his son,
is stated, but not proved, to have been an under-ranger of Shotover
Forest. He appears to have married a widow named Jeffrey, whose
maiden name had been Haughton, and who had some connection with a
Cheshire family of