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was gone upstairs before he overtook him. Yet, as soon as he had his errand there, he came to me for mine which was then changed, for I asked him what he did with Mr. Power and what he said to him. He told me he [Mr. Power] said little to purpose, but gave him that to carry to his master; and showed me the letter. Which, when I had read, I sent him back to deliver, and bid his master come to me. I acquainted Sir John Isham with this danger before my pupil came, and with much passion entreated him to send both him and his man fortified with a direct charge, &c.; which letter he gave them both to read. I confess I love the gent. upon this short experience with some degree more than a tutor's affection; but so much greater and stronger is my jealousy, which, if it should be occasioned to continue upon like cause to this, would oppress me, and I could not bear it. I find so much that I have suffered already. But I am somewhat easy, now I have told you."

The explanation of this letter and of Meade's discomposure seems to be that Power (who was not only senior Fellow of Christ's, but also Margaret preacher in the University) was suspected of being a Jesuit in disguise, and was in any case a malicious, if not a dissolute, old person, who, having no pupils himself, employed his time in stirring up feuds against those who had, and especially against Meade. So much we gather from subsequent passages in Meade's letters, in which he calls Power an "old fool," and relates new instances of his spite against himself and his endeavours to win the confidence of his pupils, and make them "little better than filii Gehennae." That Power had the reputation in the University of being a concealed Papist is proved by other accounts of him. No further harm, however, came at this time of his attempts to make mischief; the Easter Term passed without any incidents of particular note; and before the close of that term Meade was gratified by an invitation to spend part of the long vacation at Sir John Isham's place in Northamptonshire. He went there in July, and was received with all imaginable kindness.

To the long vacation of 1627 belongs a Latin metrical epistle from Milton to his old tutor, Thomas Young. It is

1 On the overhauling of the University in 1643 by the Puritan party, Power was not only ejected from his fellowship, but pursued in the streets, as he was going to preach, by a mob of soldiers and others, who cried out, "A

Pope, a Pope," and would not suffer him to go into the pulpit. See "Carter's History of the University of Cambridge, 1753"; also Walker's "Sufferings of the Clergy."

headed "To Thomas Young, his preceptor, discharging the office of Pastor among the English merchants trading at Hamburg." Parts of this epistle have already been quoted; but an abstract of the rest may be given :

"In what circumstances will this epistle find you in the German city? Will it find you sitting by your sweet wife, with your children on your knee, or turning over large tomes of the Fathers, or the Bible itself, or instructing the minds of your charge in Divine truth? It is long since we have exchanged letters; and what now induces me to write is the report that Hamburg and its neighbourhood have been visited by the horrors of war. One has heard much lately of battles there between the German Protestant League and the Imperialists under Tilly. How precariously must you be situated in such a state of things, a foreigner unknown and poor in a strange land, seeking there that livelihood which your own country has not afforded you! Hardhearted country, thus to exile her worthiest sons, and that too on account of their faithfulness in religion! But the Tishbite had to live a while in the desert; Paul had to flee for his life; and Christ himself left the country of the Gergesenes. Take courage. God will protect you in the midst of danger; and once more you will return to the joys of your native land."1

The prediction was very soon fulfilled. Before many months were over, Young did return to England; and on the 27th of March 1628 he was instituted to the united vicarages of St. Peter and St. Mary in Stowmarket, Suffolk. The living was worth about 300l. a year, which was a very good benefice in those days. Young was indebted for it to a "Mr. John Howe, a gentleman then residing in Stowmarket, whose ancestors had been great cloth-manufacturers in the neighbourhood"; but in what way Howe had become acquainted with Young, so as to form such an opinion of his deserts as the presentation implies, is not known. Stowmarket is the ancient county town of Suffolk. It is about eighty-one miles distant from London, and about forty from Cambridge. The parish church, called the Church of Stowmarket St. Peter, which served also for the adjacent parish of Stow Upland, was built in the reign of Henry VIII. Under a marble slab in the chancel lie the bones of Richard Pernham, B.D., Young's predecessor in the vicarage.

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Young was to be connected with Stowmarket during the whole remainder of his life, and was also to leave his bones in the church, and his memory in the traditions of the place.1

ACADEMIC YEAR 1627-8.

MILTON ætat. 19.

Vice-Chancellor, Dr. THOMAS BAINBRIGGE, Master of Christ's College. Proctors, THOMAS LOVE of Peterhouse, and EDWARD LLOYD of St. John's.

MICHAELMAS TERM

LENT TERM
EASTER TERM

October 10, 1627, to December 16, 1627.
January 13, 1627-8, to April 4th, 1628.
April 23, 1628, to July 4th, 1628.

Among the newly-admitted students whom Milton found on his return to College was one whose admission is thus recorded in the entry-book :

"September 4, 1627.-John Cleveland, native of Loughborough in Leicestershire, son of Thomas, instructed in letters at Hinckley under Mr. Vines, aged fifteen years, was admitted a lesser pensioner under Mr. Siddall." 2

This was Cleveland or Clieveland, afterwards so celebrated as a satirist. His father was vicar of the parish in Leicestershire in which he had been born (June 1613), and he was the second of eleven children, and the eldest son. Of all Milton's college-fellows at Christ's none attained to greater reputation during his life. It may be well, therefore, to keep in mind the fact that he and Milton were collegefellows, and must have known each other very familiarly.

The Michaelmas Term of the session passed by, so far as Meade's letters inform us, without any incident of note. The Lent Term was more eventful. On the 17th of January

1 "Supplement to the Suffolk Traveller; or Topographical and Genealogical Collections concerning that County. By Augustine Page. Ipswich and London, 1844," pp. 549-552. See also "The History of Stowmarket, the ancient County Town of Suffolk. By the Rev. A. G. H. Hollingsworth, M.A., Rural Dean, and Vicar of Stowmarket:

Ipswich and London, 1844." This work contains a sketch of Young's life (pp. 187--194), incorrect in some points, but supplying the most authentic particulars of his connexion with Stowmarket.

2 Extract furnished me by Mr. Wolstenholme, Fellow of Christ's College.

1627-8 Meade writes to Sir Martin that one of the fellowships of Christ's, vacant by the resignation of Mr. Simpson, has been filled up by the election of a Mr. Fenwicke. His letters of the following month speak of "two comedies" in preparation for performance at Trinity College at Shrovetide, and also of an approaching event of more than ordinary interest, to wit, a visit of his Majesty to Cambridge. The Court was then at the royal hunting-station of Newmarket, about thirteen miles from Cambridge, so that the visit could easily be made. The royal intention was talked of in the end of February; but, as the visit was to be somewhat of a private nature, Meade, writing to Stuteville on the 24th of that month, is unable to say when it will take place. He mentions, however, another honour which the University had received from his Majesty,-an invitation to the leading doctors to preach, in turn, that season, the usual Lent sermons at Court. Dr. Bainbrigge, as Vice-Chancellor, was to preach first, greatly to the chagrin of Wren, Master of Peterhouse, who intrigued for the honour. What with this visit to Court at the head of a retinue of Doctors, and what with the return visit of the king to Cambridge some time before the 29th of April, Dr. Bainbrigge was unusually fortunate. A royal visit to the University did not happen often; and the Head in whose Vice-Chancellorship such an event occurred might hope for something from it.

The courtesies of the King to the University were not without a motive. Driven to desperation by the resistance to his attempts to raise supplies, Charles, by the advice of Buckingham, had resolved on a third Parliament. This Parliament, the first in which Oliver Cromwell sat,-met on the 17th of March 1627-8. The discontent of the country found vent through it. First, there was the famous Petition of Right. Then, the king hesitating, there was the memorable resolution of the Commons that "supplies and grievances" should go together. Then, through April and

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May, there were threats of the King and counter-messages of the Parliament, with a mutual trial of firmness. The struggle lasted till the end of the first week in June, when, the Commons becoming terrible in their excitement, the King found it necessary to yield. He did so, it was thought, most handsomely, pronouncing, on the 7th of June, as his fully considered answer to the Petition of Right, the regal formula, Soit fait comme il est desiré. All having been thus settled, subsidies were voted, and on the 26th of June Parliament was prorogued till the 20th of October.

Though it was term-time, Milton was, for some reason or another, a good deal in London during that month of May 1628 in which the strife between the Parliament and the King was hottest. This is proved by two documents under his own hand. One is his seventh Latin Elegy, dated 1628, and referring, in poetic language, to an incident which befell him in London on the 1st or 2nd of May in that year; the other is a Latin prose Epistle to the younger Gill, dated "London, May 20, 1628." We take the documents in the order of time.

Every one has heard the romantic story which tells how a young foreign lady, passing in a carriage, with her elder companion, the spot near Cambridge where Milton lay asleep under a tree, was so struck with his beauty that, after alighting to look at him, she wrote in pencil some Italian lines, and placed them, unperceived as she thought (but there were laughing students near), in the sleeper's hand, and how Milton, when he awoke, read the lines, and, on learning how they came there, conceived such a passion for the fair unknown that he went afterwards to Italy in quest of her, and thought of her to the end of his days as his Lost Paradise. The story is a pure myth, and belongs to the lives of various poets besides Milton.1 But, in compensation for the loss of it, the reader may have, on Milton's

1 Todd's Life of Milton: Edit. 1809, pp. 26-7. I am informed that at Rome they have the same myth about Milton,

but make the scene of the adventure the suburbs of Rome, and the time Milton's visit to that city.

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