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Remove, no, grant me still this raging woe;
Sweet is the wretchedness that lovers know.

After having contemplated the youthful fancy of Milton under the influence of a sudden and vehement affection, let us survey him in a different point of view, and admire the purity and vigour of mind, which he exerted at the age of twenty-three, in meditation on his past and his future days.

To a friend, who had remonstrated with him on his delay to enter upon active life, he ascribes that delay to an intense desire of rendering himself more fit for it. "Yet (he says) that you may see that I am "something suspicious of myself, and do "take notice of a certain belatedness in me, "I am the bolder to send you some of my "night-ward thoughts, some while since, "because they come in not altogether unfitly "made up in a Petrarchian stanza, which I "told you of:"

SONNET.

How soon hath time, the subtle thief of youth,
Stol'n on his wing my three and twentieth year!
My hasting days fly on with full career,
But my late spring no bud or blossom shew'th.
Perhaps my semblance might deceive the truth,
That I to manhood am arriv'd so near,

And inward ripeness doth much less appear,
That some more timely happy spirits indu'th.
Yet be it less or more, or soon or slow,
It shalll be still in strictest measure even
To that same lot, however mean or high,
Towards which time leads me, and the will of heaven;
All is, if I have grace to use it so,
As ever in my great task-master's eye.

This sonnet may be regarded, perhaps, as a refutation of that injurious criticism, which has asserted, "the best sonnets of Milton are entitled only to this negative commendation, that they are not bad ;" but it has a superior value, which induced me to introduce it here, as it seems to reveal the ruling principle, which gave bias and energy to the mind and conduct of Milton;

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I mean the habit, which he so early adopted of considering himself

"As ever in his great task-master's eye.”

It was, perhaps, the force and permanency with which this persuasion was impressed on his heart, that enabled him to ascend the sublimest heights, both of genius and of virtue.

When Milton began his course of academical study, he had views of soon entering the church, to "whose service," he says, "by the intentions of my parents and friends "I was destined of a child, and in mine own "resolutions." It was a religious scruple that prevented him from taking orders; and though his mode of thinking may be deemed erroneous, there is a refined and hallowed probity in his conduct on this occasion, that is entitled to the highest esteem; particularly when we consider, that although he declined the office of a minister, he devoted himself with intense application, to what he considered as the interest of true religion.

The sincerity and fervour with which he speaks on this topic must be applauded by every candid person, however differing from him on points, that relate to our religious. establishment.

"For me (says this zealous and disinterested advocate for simple christianity) I have determined to lay up, as the best treasure and solace of a good old age, if God vouchsafe it me, the honest liberty of free speech from my youth, where I shall think it available in so dear a concernment as the church's good." In the polemical writings of Milton there is a merit to which few polemics can pretend; they were the pure dictates of conscience, and produced by the sacrifice of his favorite pursuits: this he has stated in the following very forcible and interesting language:

"Concerning therefore this wayward subject against prelaty, the touching whereof is so distasteful and disquietous to a number of men, as by what hath been said I may deserve of charitable readers to be credited, that neither envy nor gall hath entered me

upon this controversy, but the enforcement of conscience only, and a preventive fear, lest the omitting of this duty should be against me, when I would store up to myself the good provision of peaceful hours; so lest it should be still imputed to be, as I have found it hath been, that some self pleasing humour of vain glory has incited. me to contest with men of high estimation, now while green years are upon my head; from this needless surmisal I shall hope to dissuade the intelligent and equal auditor, if I can but say successfully, that which in this exigent behoves me, although I would be heard only, if it might be, by the elegant and learned reader, to whom principally for a while I shall beg leave I may address myself: to him it will be no new thing, though I tell him, that if I hunted after praise by the ostentation of wit and learning, I should not write thus out of mine own season, when I have neither yet completed to my mind the full circle of my private studies (although I complain not of any insufficiency to the matter in hand) or were

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