ÆäÀÌÁö À̹ÌÁö
PDF
ePub

HIS

LIFE AND TIMES,

RELIGIOUS AND POLITICAL OPINIONS:

WITH

AN APPENDIX,

CONTAINING

[graphic]

ANIMADVERSIONS UPON DR. SOHNSON'S LIFE OF MILTON, ETC., ETC.

UNIVERSITY

CALIFORNIA.

BY JOSEPH IVIMEY,

AUTHOR OF THE "HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH BAPTISTS," &c. &c.

"My veneration for our great countryman is equal to what I feel for the Grecian."-Cowper.

"In point of sublimity, Homer cannot be compared with Milton."-Robert Hall.

NEW YORK:

D. APPLETON & CO., 200, BROADWAY.

AND FOR SALE BY BOOKSELLERS GENERALLY THROUGHOUT THE

UNITED STATES.

-

M DCCC XXXIII.

24811

SLEIGHT & VAN NORDEN, PRINT.

PREFACE.

THE former biographers of MILTON have exhibited him principally in his character as a poet, but have obscured his features as a patriot, a protestant, and non-conformist. The writer has attempted to give an accurate and full. length portrait, in all those respects, of this most eminent of our countrymen. For the purpose of accomplishing this design, he has made considerable extracts from the prose writings of MILTON, by which, in a good degree, he appears as his own biographer.

In reference to the character of those works, he takes the liberty of quoting the sentiments of the present Bishop of Chester, who says:

"There is much reason for regretting, that the prose works of MILTON, where, in the midst of much that is coarse and intemperate, passages of such redeeming beauty occur, should be in the hands of so few readers,

considering the advantages which might be derived to our literature from the study of their original and nervous eloquence."*

The prejudice which has existed against MILTON'S prose works, on account of his republican and dissenting principles, fully accounts for their having been so little known; but it is hoped that such feelings are rapidly subsiding, if they are not as yet become quite extinct. On this subject, the highly respectable writer just quoted, says in the same preface :

"But in happier times, when it is less difficult to make allowance for the effervescence caused by the heat of conflicting politics, and when the judgment is no longer influenced by the animosities of party, the taste of the age may be safely and profitably recalled to those treatises of MILTON, which were not written to serve a temporary purpose."

Correct as were these remarks eight years since, the writer considers them to be much more applicable to the present time, when the principles of civil and religious liberty which MILTON SO powerfully advocated, have been approved by a majority of our legislature, obtained the sanction of so large a portion of our united empire, and produced such an astonishing reform in our representa. tive body.

*Preface to Treatise of Christian Doctrine.

The unceremonious manner in which MILTON has treated the episcopal bench will probably be disliked by some readers, as unnecessarily severe, and extremely uncourteous. Let such persons, however, recollect the unconstitutional and persecuting practices of Laud and some of his brethren in the Star-chamber, and their servile compliances in supporting arbitrary power in Charles I., and they may perhaps be inclined to moderate their censures, if not to change their opinion.

As to the determined efforts of MILTON to prevail with the Parliament to abolish tithes, and to leave the estab lished clergy to depend for support upon the voluntary contributions of their respective parishoners, his reason. ing has a better prospect of being regarded at the present than at any former period since his treatises were published. It may probably too give weight to his recommendations, that his remarks applied to Presbyterian, and not to Episcopal “hirelings." His objection was to the system of tithes, because he considered it directly opposed to the genius of Christianity, and as being injurious to the spiritual interests of the nation.

An earnest desire that the religious and political sentiments of MILTON should be justly appreciated, led the writer to undertake this work; and also that his Christian integrity, manifested under all the changes through which he passed from 1640 to 1674, on account of the extraordinary revolutions of that period, should be held

« ÀÌÀü°è¼Ó »