ページの画像
PDF
ePub

and morning, I fuppofe befote his mind was disturbed with common bufinefs; and that he poured out with great fluency his unpremeditated verfe. Verfification, free, like his, from the diftreffes of rhyme, muft, by a work fo long, be made prompt and habitual; and, when his thoughts were once adjusted, the words would come at his command.

At what particular times of his life the parts of his work were written, cannot often be known. The beginning of the third book fhews that he had lost his fight; and the Introduction to the feventh, that the return of the King had clouded him with discountenance; and that he was offended by the licentious feftivity of the Restoration. There are no other internal notes of time. Milton, being now cleared from all effects of his difloyalty, had nothing required from him but the common duty of living in quiet, to be rewarded with the common right of protection; but this, which, when he fculked from the approach of his King was perhaps more than he hoped, feems not to have fatisfied him; for no fooner is he fafe, than he finds himself in danger, fallen on evil days and evil tongues, and with darkness and with danger compass'd round. This darkness, had his eyes been better employed, had undoubtedly deferved compaffion: but to add the mention of danger was ungrateful and unjust. He was fallen indeed on evil days; the time was come in which regicides could no longer boaft their wickednefs. But of evil tongues for Milton to complain, required impudence at least equal to his other powers; Milton, whose warmest advocates must allow, that he never fpared any afperity of reproach or brutality of infolence.

But

But the charge itself feems to be falfe; for it would be hard to recollect any reproach cat upon him, either ferious or ludicrous, through the whole remaining part of his life. He purfued his ftudies or his amufements, without perfecution, moleftation, or infult. Such is the reverence paid to great abilities, however mifufed: they who contemplated in Milton the scholar and the wit, were contented to forget the reviler of his King.

When the plague (1665) raged in London, Milton took refuge at Chalfont in Bucks; where Elwood, who had taken the house for him, firft faw a complete copy of Paradife Loft, and, having perufed it, faid to him, "Thou hast said a great deal upon Paradife Loft; what "haft thou to fay upon Paradife found?"

Next year, when the danger of infection had ceafed, he returned to Bunhill-fields, and defigned the publication of his poem. A licenfe was neceffary, and he could expect no great kindness from a chaplain of the archbishop of Canterbury. He feems, however, to have been treated with tenderness; for though objec→ tions were made to particular paffages, and among them to the fimile of the fun eclipfed in the first book, yet the license was granted; and he fold his copy, April 27, 1667, to Samuel Simmons, for an immediate payment of five pounds, with a ftipulation to receive five pounds more when thirteen hundred fhould be fold of the first edition: and again, five pounds after the fale of the fame number of the second edition : and another five pounds after the fame fale of the third. None of the three editions were to be extended beyond fifteen hundred copies.

[blocks in formation]

The first edition was ten books, in a small quarto. The titles were varied from year to year; and an advertisement and the arguments of the books were omitted in fome copies, and inferted in others.

The fale gave him in two years a right to his fecond payment, for which the receipt was figned April 26, 1669. The fecond edition was not given till 1674; it was printed in small octavo; and the number of books was increased to twelve, by a divifion of the seventh and twelfth; and fome other fmall improvements were made. The third edition was published in 1678; and the widow, to whom the copy was then to devolve, fold all her claims to Simmons for eight pounds, according to her receipt given Dec. 21, 1680, Simmons had already agreed to transfer the whole right to Brabazon Aylmer for twenty-five pounds; and Aylmer fold to Jacob Tonfon half, August 17, 1683, half, March 24, 1690, at a price confiderably enlarged. In the hiftory of Paradife Loft a deduction thus minute will rather gratify than fatigue.

The flow fale and tardy reputation of this poem have been always mentioned as evidences of neglected merit, and of the uncertainty of literary fame; and enquiries have been made, and conjectures offered, about the caufes of its long obfcurity and late reception. But has the cafe been truly stated? Have not lamentation and wonder been lavished on an evil that was never felt?

That in the reigns of Charles and James the Paradife Loft received no publick acclamations is readily confeffed. Wit and literature were on the fide of the Court: and who that folicited favour or fashion would venture to praise the defender of the regicides? All

that

[merged small][ocr errors]

that he himself could think his due, from evil tongues in evil days, was that reverential filence which was generously preferved. But it cannot be inferred that his poem was not read, or not, however unwillingly,

admired.

The fale, if it be confidered, will justify the publick. Those who have no power to judge of past times but by their own, fhould always doubt their conclufions. The call for books was not in Milton's age what it is in the prefent. To read was not then a general amusement; neither traders, nor often gentlemen, thought themselves difgraced by ignorance. The women had not then afpired to literature, nor was every house supplied with a closet of knowledge. Thofe, indeed, who profeffed learning, were not lefs learned than at any other time; but of that middle race of students who read for pleasure or accomplishment, and who buy the numerous products of modern typography, the number was then comparatively finall. To prove the paucity of readers, it may be fufficient to remark, that the nation had been farisfied from 1623 to 1664, that is, forty-one years, with only two editions of the works of Shakspeare, which probably did not together make one thousand copies.

The fale of thirteen hundred copies in two years, in oppofition to so much recent enmity, and to a style of verfification new to all and difgufting to many, was an uncommon example of the prevalence of genius. The demand did not immediately increase; for many more readers than were fupplied at firft the nation did not afford. Only three thousand were fold in eleven years; for it forced its way without affiftance: its admirers did not dare to publish their opinion; and the oppor tunities

K 3

tunities now given of attracting notice by advertifements were then very few; the means of proclaiming the publication of new books have been produced by that general literature which now pervades the nation through all its ranks.

But the reputation and price of the copy ftill advanced, till the Revolution put an end to the fecrecy of love, and Paradife Loft broke into open view with fufficient fecurity of kind reception.

Fancy can hardly forbear to conjecture with what temper Milton furveyed the filent progrefs of his work, and marked its reputation ftealing its way in a kind of fubterraneous current through fear and filence. I cannot but conceive him calm and confident, little difappointed, not at all dejected, relying on his own merit with fteady conscioufnefs, and waiting, without impatience, the viciffitudes of opinion, and the impartiality of a future generation.

In the mean time he continued his ftudies, and fupplied the want of fight by a very odd expedient, of which, Philips gives the following account :

Mr, Philips tells us, "that though our author had "daily about him one or other to read, fome perfons "of man's eftate, who, of their own accord, greedily "catched at the opportunity of being his readers, that "they might as well reap the benefit of what they read "to him, as oblige him by the benefit of their reading; and others of younger years were fent by their parents to the fame end: yet excufing only the "eldest daughter, by reafon of her bodily infirmity, and difficult utterance of fpeech, (which, to fay "truth, I doubt was the principal caufe of excufing her), the other two were condemned to the per"formance

« 前へ次へ »