REIGHTLEY'S LIFE, OPINIONS, AND WRITINGS OF MILTON. * MR. XPJGHTLEY is

well known for various works of a more or less scholastic character, which argue a painstaking conscientious mind, that leaves no source of information within reach unex- amined, and advances nothing of whose justness the writer is not himself convinced. To these qualities of literary morality are to be added sense and solidity, with a remarkable power of rejecting the non-essential or trivial, so as to present the leading features of his subject in an unencumbered form. He has also great clear- ness of style, sometimes rising into a kind of force. He is defi- cient in variety and animation. The reader is carried along a road quite plain and easy, but somewhat too level in itself, and as re- gards its prospects rather deficient in light and shade, and colour. The present work, on the life, poetical character, and political, educational, and religions opinions of Milton, partakes of the dis- tinctive traits of the author. The particulars which Milton or contemporary writers have told respecting his family, the events of his life, and his personal character, as well as all that modern research has dug out from state papers and fiscal or legal records, have been considered, sifted, and brought together in a manner which presents the ascertained facts of his life in the smallest compass, and with a brief precision which gives the narrative a feature of its own. In like manner, the views of Milton on go- vernment, education, and religion, have been deduced from his writings, and illustrated where needful by quotations. This vo- lume is introductory to an annotated edition of Milton's Poetical Works, the result of an almost lifelong meditation; so that the criticism on the writings takes, as is but proper, a general charac- ter., These criticisms are on the whole the weakest part of the book; being deficient, it strikes us, in breadth and largeness, if not in penetrative acumen. Strange to say of a devout admirer like Mr. Xeightley, be appears now and then rather to press wrongly upon the poet. Dryden observes, and Johnson enforces the obser- vation, that Milton saw Nature " through the spectacles of books." This is more true, we think, of Milton's later than his earlier poems, when years and blindness naturally threw him upon re- sources already accumulated in his mind, and when of necessity the results of observation and reading became blended together. Even in the earlier poems, Milton's extent of knowledge and luxu- riance of imagination at times over-enriched his observations by illustrations from foreign sources. The following on " L'Allegro ' and "Il Penseroso " is scarcely accurate. "Exquisitely beautiful as these poems are, they still furnish a proof that Milton read Nature through the spectacles of books' ; for we nowhere meet with that accurate description of natural objects, indicative of actual obser- vation, which we find in Homer, Dante, and Thomson. Some, too, are in- aecurate,—as the sky-lark coming to his window, and the bee with honeyed thigh (crura thyme plena)."

The " honeyed thigh " of the bee is a popular error, like the mandrake, or the dragon, or the jewel in the head of the toad, and other mistakes in poetical illustrations from natural history. We do not conceive that Milton meant the lark was to come to his window like the redbreast, but to be heard from his window, which is common enough in the real country. The following lines from the Allegro exhibit a more " accurate description of natural objects" than will easily be found anywhere else.

"While the cock, with lively din, Scatters the rear of darkness thin, And to the stack or the barn-door Stoutly struts his dames before.

Sometime walking, not unseen,

By hedge-row elms on4Iplocks green.

While the ploughman, near at hand, Whistles o'er the furrow'd land, And the milkmaid aingeth And the mower whets his lithe, And every shepherd tells his talet

Under the hawthorn in the dale.", " Tale " in the sense of number—counts his sheep.

There is not only " accurate description of natural objects in- dicative of actual observation" here : independently of its poetry,

An Account of the Life, Opinions, and Writings of John Milton. With an Introduction to " Paradise Lost.' By Thomas Reightley, Author of " Mythology of Greece and Italy," " Fairy Mythology," &c. &c. Published by Chapman and

Hall.

it is one of the most .English landscapes that ever was painted. " The stank or the barn-door " makes an universal object national. Although many more particulars are known of much smaller men than John Milton, that arises from the habit of the age in which he lived. The fashion of writing which attends upon cheap paper and extended postage increases correspondence, and pre- serves more written memorials of men than under a mode of life where intercommunication partook of the character of an effort; although the memorials after all may not be very biographical. In this century, much writing is a fashion. Nothing is omitted to the minutest detail. Things are done, and overdone, and we call it graphic. Such was not the manner of the seventeenth century; which, moreover, was neglectful of precise chronology. But for these differences, we should have known as much of Milton as of any four or six volume man of our own time. His nephew, Edward Phillips, who was educated by the poet from young boyhood to man's estate, was employed by him on several occa- sions, and maintained an intercourse throughout his life, wrote a biography of his uncle. Toland published another life a few years after that of Phillips. Elwood. the Quaker, who knew Mil- ton well, has preserved some interesting particulars of his mind and manners. Wood and Aubrey have done something in the same direction. Enemies had their say about a man so eminent as a controvertist and a public officer; while some of their charges drew from Milton not only vindications but autobiographical sketches of himself. His letters are comparatively few; but there are some, and throwing light upon his life ; traits of which can also be gathered from his poetry. A good deal of interesting matter has been discovered by later researches among the national records, of various kinds, official, legal, fiscal. Wharton and Todd collected many of these documents. Mr. Lemon of the State Paper Office discovered, in 1823, that treatise of Milton On Christian Doctrine which startled the world by the fact that the author of Paradise Lost, although not a modern Unitarian, was an Arian, so far as holding that the Son was not of the same nature as the Father, and " maintaining a reserve " on the question of the Holy Ghost. Mr. Lemon also hunted up some curious documents con- nected with the claim of Milton against Widow Powell, the mother of his first wife, for a debt; in the course of which his mother-in-law termed Mr. Milton a " harsh and choleric man," who had " turned away his wife heretofore for a long space upon some other occasion [a small occasion] effaced." In 1850, Mr. Hunter the well-known antiquarian directed his patient research, his experience in genealogical investigation, and his logical acumen, to the elucidation of Milton's family and family con- nexions ; and brought the very remarkable results together in his " Critical and Historical Facts," under the modest title of "Milton; a Sheaf of Gleanings after his Biographers and Annota- tors." The most interesting and personal domestic pictures, at perhaps the most interesting period of an illustrious life—its set- ting—emanate from the Ecclesiastical Court ; and relate to the resistance of Milton's daughters to his will, which gave all the property to his wife, except their mother's portion still due from their grandfather's estate, which they declare " a very bad or altogether desperate debt." The will was nuncnpative; and although clearer evidence of intention and the reasons on which it was founded can scarcely be, it is singular that his bro- ther, himself a barrister, did not advise its reduction to writing. Christopher Milton was made a judge and knighted by James the Second, in 1686. Le Neve, as quoted by Mr. Hunter, says because he was a Papist; Mr. Keightley intimates that he was promoted be- cause he became a Papist. Both Le Neve and Toland speak slightingly of his law. He was in point of character and station the most important witness, and thus he deposes in chief.

"On or about the twentieth day of July 1674, the day certaine he now remembreth not, this deponent being a practicer in the Law, and a Bencher in the Inner Temple, but living in vacations at Ipswich, did usually at the ende of the Terme visit John Milton, his this deponent's brother the Testa- tor articulate, deceased, before his going home ; and soe at the end of Mid- summer Terme last past, he this deponent went to visit his said brother, and then found him in his chamber within his owne house, situate on Bunhill, within the parish of S. Giles, Crepelgate, London : And at that ty.me,.. he the said Testator, being not well, (and this deponent being then going into the country) in a serious manner, with an intent (as he believes,) that what he then spoke should be his Will, if he dyed before his this deponent's coming the next time to London, declared his will in these very words as neare as this deponent cann now call to mynd, viz. ' Brother, the porcion due to me from Mr. Powell, my former [first] wife's father, I leave to the unkind children I had by her : but I have receaved noe part of it, and my Will and meaning is, they shall have noe other benefit of my estate than the said porcion and what I have besides don for them : they haveing been very undutiful to me. And all the residue of my estate I leave to the disposal) of Elizabeth my loveing wife.' She, the said F.H7abeth his the deceased's wife, and Elizabeth Fysher his the deceased's then maide-servant, was [at the] same tyme goeing upp and downe the roome ; but whether she then heard the said deceased so declare his Will as above or not, he knoweth not.

"And the said testator at the premises was of perfect mind and memory, and talked and discoursed sensibly and well."

Mary, the sister of Elizabeth Fisher, the maid-servant men- tioned in Christopher Milton's evidence, was examined; but her evidence is only confirmatory of the intention. Elizabeth the ser- vant is more particular and characteristic. We quote from her answers to the interrogatories, equivalent to the cross-examination of the Common Law Courts.

" This respondent bath beard the deceased declare his displeasure against the parties ministrant his children ; and particularly the deceased declared to this respondent, that a little before hee was marryed to Elizabeth Milton his now relict a former maid-servant of his told Mary, one of the deceased's daughters and one of the ministrants, that shee heard the deceased was to be marryed : to which the said Mary replyed to the said maid-servant, that that was noe news to heare of his wedding, but if shee could hears of his death

that was something : and further told this respondent, that all his said chil- dren did combine together and counsel his maid-servant to cheat him the deceased in her markettings; and that his said children had made away some of his bookes, and would have sold the rest of his bookes to the dunghill women.

• t • f • • " This respondent knoweth not what the deceased did in his lifetime be- stow on the ministrants his children ; and that the interrogative Anne Mil- ton is lame, but hath a trade and can live by the same, which is the making of gold and silver lace, and which the deceased bred her up to."

The following picture of the "great high priest of all the nine," merry, and mollified through his palate, is pleasant for the mind to dwell upon as the life of the poet drew towards its close; though presenting a lower view of John Milton.

" This respondent doth not remember on what day the deceased declared the words first by her afore deposed, but it was about noone of such day when he was at dinner that the precise words, as neare as this respondent can remember, which the deceased used at that time, were these, viz., God have mercy, Betty,' speaking to his wife Elizabeth Milton, for soe hee usu- ally called her; I see thou wilt performe according to thy promise in pro- viding mee such dishes as I think fitt whilst I live, and when I dye thou knowest that I have left thee all.' Et aliter nescit, saving that this re- spondent well remembreth that the deceased declared the words last by her deposed to the articles of the allegation to this respondent once on a Sunday in the afternoone ; but on what day of the month or in what month the said Sunday then happened, this respondent doth not remember. " Ad tertium intern respondet, that the occasion of the deceased's speak- ing of the words deposed by this respondent in her answer to the next pre- cedent interrogatory was upon the producent's provideing the deceased such victuals for his dinner as hee liked ; and that he was then indifferent well in health, saving that sonic time he was troubled with the paine of the gout, and that hee was at that time very merry and not in any passion or angry humour, neither at that time spoke anything against any of his children that this respondent heard of."

In addition to the subjects already mentioned, Mr. Xeightley has added brief notices of the parents, wives, children, and friends of the poet, as well as of his relations by marriage, so far as any facts referring to them can be ascertained. The reader has thus in a single volume the pith of the life, opinions, and family connexions of Milton, with a general view of his works.