received from her ill conduct, that, when the king's caufe was entirely oppreffed, and her father who had been active in his loyalty was exposed to fequeftration, Milton received both him and his family to protection and free entertainment, in his own house, till their affairs were accommodated by his intereft in the victorious faction." Mr. Powell, however, seems to have fmarted feverely for his attachment to the royal party. . I obferve, in the “ Catalogue of the Lords, Knights, and Gentlemen, that have compounded for their Eftates," printed at London in 1655, that he was thus branded as well as fined: "Richard Powel, Delinquent, per John Pye, Efq; 5761. 12s. 3d." And his house had been before feized by the rebels. " At the time of Milton's reconciliation with his wife, it was fettled that the fhould refide in the house of a friend, till his new manfion, which he had procured in Barbican, was ready for the reception of his encreased houfhold. When it is confidered that Milton cheerfully opened his doors to those who had treated him with indignity and breach of faith; to a father, who, according to the poet's f Nuncupative Will, never paid him the promised marriage portion of a thoufand pounds, and to a mother, who, according to Wood, had encouraged the daughter in her perverfenefs; we cannot but accede to Mr. Hayley's conclufion, that the records of private life exhibit not a more magnanimous example of forgivenefs and beneficence. They are fuppofed to have left him See the Notes on Lawes's Dedication of Comus. f Subjoined to this account of the Life. In the Notes on the Will Mr. Warton relates feveral particulars concerning Mr. Powell. soon after the death of his father, who ended a long life in 1647; and whofe declining days had been foothed by every attention of a truly affectionate fon. While Milton experienced the mortification of conjugal defertion, and was immerfed in elaborate difcuffions connected with his misfortune, he was not without mental amusement. His leifure hours often paffed smoothly away in vifits to a lady of the most engaging talents and converfation, the daughter of the Earl of Marlborough; to whom, as to her hufband Captain Hobfon, a very accomplished gentleman, his company was peculiarly acceptable. His tenth Sonnet, infcribed to this discerning lady, is a grateful acknowledgement of his efteem. His time alfo had been employed in collecting together his early poems, both English and Latin, for the prefs. They were first published by Humphrey Mofeley, the general publisher of the poets of his day, in 1645; who tells us, in his Addrefs to the Reader, that "the author's more peculiar excellency in these studies was too well known to conceal his papers, or to keep me from attempting to follicit them from him. Let the event guide itself which way it will, I fhall deferve of the age, by bringing into the light as true a birth as the Muses have brought forth fince our famous Spencer wrote; whofe poems in thefe English ones are as rarely imitated, as fweetly excelled." Mofeley was not more difcerning than Milton was modeft. But modefty was a principal feature in Milton's character. He affixed only his initials to Lycidas: he acknowledged, with hesitation, Comus. It is rather furprifing, that Mr. Warton fhould have afferted that, In the Prefaces to both his Editions of the Smaller Poems. for feventy years after their first publication, he recollects no mention of these poems in the whole fucceffion of English literature; and that the quantity of an hemiftich, quoted from them, is not to be found in the Collections of those who have digefted the Beauties or Phrases of the English Poets from 1655 to 1738 inclufively. It is my duty pofitively to affert that in the edition of Poole's English Parnaffus, or Help to English Poefie, published in 1677, there are few pages in which quotations may not be found from Milton's poetry. In the preface alfo to Ayres's Lyrick Poems, published in 1687, Milton is thus noticed: h "If any one quarrel at the oeconomy or structure of these poems, many of them being Sonnets, Canzons, Madrigals, &c. objecting that none of our great men, either Mr. Waller, Mr. Cowley, or Mr. Dryden, whom it was moft proper to have followed, have ever stooped to any thing of this fort; I fhall very readily acknowledge, that, being fenfible of my own weakness and inability of ever attaining to the performance of one thing equal to the worft piece of theirs, it eafily diffwaded me from that attempt, and put me on this; which is not without prefident: For many eminent perfons have published several things of this nature, and in this method, both Tranflations and Poems of their own; as the famous Mr. Spencer, Sir Philip Sidney, Sir Richard Fanfhaw, Mr. Milton, and fome few others: The fuccefs of all which, in these things, I must needs fay, cannot much be boasted of; and though I have little reason, after it, to expect credit from thefe my flight Mifcellanies, yet has it not difcouraged me from adventuring on what my genius prompted me to." And, to the credit of Poole's felection, I may add that the examples are very often taken from Lycidas, L'Allegro and Il Penferofo, and the Ode on the Nativity. I may further observe that L'Allegro and Il Penferofo appear to have fometimes caught the notice of Robert Herrick, in his Hefperides, published in 1648; and that both the eafe and imagery of thefe poems are certainly copied, in a few instances, by Andrew Marvell, the intimate friend of Milton. I will cite a proof from his verses, entitled The Garden, Poems, ed. 1681, p. 49. "Fair Quiet, have I found thee here, That we meet with no notices of thefe exquifite poems in the days of Cromwell, must be imputed to "the dark and fullen humour of the time." And we may truly apply, to fuch neglect, the judicious couplet of Milton's happiest imitator: "Verse, in the finest mould of fancy caft, In 1647 Milton removed to a fmaller house in Holborn, which opened backward into Lincoln's-Inn fields; and continued to inftruct a few scholars. Phillips tells us, that "he is much mistaken, if there was not about this time a defign of making him an adjutant-general in Sir William Waller's army. But the new modelling of the army proved an obftruction to the defign." This perhaps may be doubted, when it is confidered that Waller was esteemed a leader of the Prefbyterians against the defigns of the Independents. Milton, in his military capacity, could not have ferved cordially under a general fo disposed. Cowper. Table-Talk. Till the overthrow of the kingly government in the death of Charles, his pen appears to have been unemployed. It was refumed in order to filence the outcry, raised by the Prefbyterians, against the deed of blood; and to advance the interefts of the infant commonwealth. The product of it was entitled, "The Tenure of Kings and Magiftrates, proving that it is lawfull, and hath been held fo through all ages, for any, who have the power, to call to account a tyrant, or wicked king; and, after due conviction, to depofe, and put him to death, if the ordinary magiftrate have neglected or denied to do it: And that they, who of late fo much blame depofing, are the men that did it themselves, 1649." Milton seems to have been not correct in his charge. He should have added the Papifts and Independents, who were banded in firm league against the Church and the King. He remembered however the affiftance which had been afforded by the Pope, when he wrote his treatife Of True Religion four and twenty years afterwards; of whom he says, we have shaken off his Babylonifh yoke, [who] hath not ceased by his fpies and agents, bulls and emiffaries, once to destroy both King and Parliament." On this part of English history it cannot be uninteresting to enlarge. "I fhall here fay no more," fays the editor of a very curious tract," than that the doctrine which was practis'd in k "Certain paffages which happened at Newport in the Isle of Wight, Nov. 29, 1648, relating to King Charles I. Written by Mr. Edward Cooke, of Highnam in Gloucestershire, fometime Colonel of a Regiment under Oliver Cromwell. Lond. 1690." |