Chapter III: Part 3

And now, if you will know what I am myself doing (if indeed
you think it is of so much consequence to know if I am doing
anything), here is the fact: we are engaged in singing the
heavenly birth of the King of Peace, and the happy age
promised by the holy books, and the infant cries and cradling
in a manger under a poor roof of that God who rules, with his
Father, the Kingdom of Heaven, and the sky with the new-sprung
star in it, and the ethereal choirs of hymning angels, and the
gods of the heathen suddenly fleeing to their endangered
fanes. This is the gift which we have presented to Christ's
natal day. On that very morning, at daybreak, it was first
conceived. The verses, which are composed in the vernacular,
await you in close keeping; you shall be the judge to whom I
shall recite them.

_Prolusiones quædam Oratoriæ_

Some University Latin Oratorical Exercises, seven in number, first published in 1674, the year of Milton's death, along with his Familiar Letters (Epistolæ Familiares), 'as a make-weight to counterbalance the paucity of the Letters,' have an autobiographic value; but, with the exception of a small bit, space does not allow the admission of them here. 'They throw light,' says Masson, 'upon Milton's career at Cambridge. They illustrate the extent and nature of his reading, his habits and tastes as a student, the relation in which he stood to the University system of his time, and to the new intellectual tendencies which were gradually affecting that system. They also settle in the most conclusive manner the fact that Milton passed through two stages in his career at the University,—a stage of decided unpopularity, in his own College at least, which lasted till about 1628, and a final stage of triumph, when his powers were recognized.'

Masson characterizes the seventh oratorical exercise as 'one of the finest pieces of Latin prose ever penned by an Englishman.'

The following is a passage, in Masson's close translation, from this exercise, which exhibits what continued to be Milton's attitude through life:

'I regard it, my hearers, as known and accepted by all, that the great Maker of the Universe, when he had constituted all things else as fleeting and corruptible, did mingle up with Man, in addition to that of him which is mortal, a certain divine breath, as it were part of Himself, immortal, indestructible, free from death and extinction; which, after it had sojourned purely and holily for some time in the earth as a heavenly guest, should flutter aloft to its native heaven, and return to its proper home and fatherland: accordingly, that _nothing can deservedly be taken into account as among the causes of our happiness that does not somehow or other regard both that everlasting life and this civil life below_.'

'When his earlier writings,' says Masson, 'are compared with those of his coevals at the University, what strikes one most, next to their vastly greater merit altogether, is their more ideal tone. As, more than any of them, he was conscious of the _os magna soniturum_, the mouth formed for great utterances, so all that he does utter has a certain character and form of magnitude.'

Milton's Latin poem, 'Ad Patrem' (To Father), was occasioned, as may be seen in the poem, by an expressed dissatisfaction on the part of his father with his continued devotion, after leaving the University, to his favorite studies and the Muses, to the exclusion of all consideration of a profession. He had, while yet at the University, fully decided that the Church, for which he was destined by his parents, was not for him, bowing, as it was, beneath the galling 'yoke of prelaty'; and to the legal profession he must have been equally, if not more, averse.

Such a tribute of filial affection and gratitude, as is this poem, certainly overcame all objections the father may have expressed in regard to his course of life at the time.

We learn from this poem, which was no doubt composed soon after Milton's final return to his father's house at Horton, in 1632, he being then in his twenty-fourth year, that, along with the Latin and the Greek, he had acquired, and by his father's advice, a knowledge of the French, Italian, and Hebrew. We also learn of the father's musical genius, both instrumental and vocal, and of the son's lofty estimate of the power of poesy. He ascribes to it a divine nature which evidences man's heavenly origin, and bespeaks him illuminated from above.

I give the translation by the poet Cowper, which, while being somewhat free, is, I think, altogether the best and most poetical that has been made. That by Masson, in hexameters, is closer to the original, but has in it a dactylic dance which is not so much in harmony with the tone of the original as is Cowper's blank-verse translation.

_To Father_

Oh, that Pieria's spring would thro' my breast
Pour its inspiring influence, and rush
No rill, but rather an o'erflowing flood!
That, for my venerable father's sake,
All meaner themes renounced, my muse, on wings 5
Of duty borne, might reach a loftier strain.
For thee, my father! howsoe'er it please,
She frames this slender work, nor know I aught
That may thy gifts more suitably requite;
Though to requite them suitably would ask 10
Returns much nobler, and surpassing far
The meagre stores of verbal gratitude;
But, such as I possess, I send thee all.
This page presents thee in their full amount
With thy son's treasures, and the sum is nought; 15
Nought, save the riches that from airy dream
In secret grottos and in laurel bowers
I have, by golden Clio's gift, acquired.

Verse is a work divine; despise not thou
Verse, therefore, which evinces (nothing more) 20
Man's heavenly source, and which, retaining still
Some scintillations of Promethean fire,
Bespeaks him animated from above.
The gods love verse; the infernal Powers themselves
Confess the influence of verse, which stirs 25
The lowest deep, and binds in triple chains
Of adamant both Pluto and the Shades.
In verse the Delphic priestess, and the pale
Tremulous Sibyl make the future known;
And he who sacrifices, on the shrine 30
Hangs verse, both when he smites the threatening bull,
And when he spreads his reeking entrails wide
To scrutinize the Fates enveloped there.
We, too, ourselves, what time we seek again
Our native skies, and one eternal now 35
Shall be the only measure of our being,
Crowned all with gold, and chaunting to the lyre
Harmonious verse, shall range the courts above,
And make the starry firmament resound;
And, even now, the fiery spirit pure 40
That wheels yon circling orbs, directs, himself,
Their mazy dance with melody of verse
Unutterable, immortal, hearing which
Huge Ophiuchus holds his hiss suppressed,
Orion, softened, drops his ardent blade, 45
And Atlas stands unconscious of his load.
Verse graced of old the feasts of kings ere yet
Luxurious dainties, destined to the gulph
Immense of gluttony, were known, and ere
Lyæus deluged yet the temperate board. 50
Then sat the bard a customary guest
To share the banquet, and, his length of locks
With beechen honours bound, proposed in verse
The characters of heroes, and their deeds
To imitation, sang of Chaos old, sword, belt, and club; 55
Of nature's birth, of gods that crept in search
Of acorns fallen, and of the thunder bolt
Not yet produced from Etna's fiery cave.
And what avails, at last, tune without voice,
Devoid of matter? Such may suit perhaps 60
The rural dance, but such was ne'er the song
Of Orpheus, whom the streams stood still to hear
And the oaks followed. Not by chords alone
Well touched, but by resistless accents more
To sympathetic tears the ghosts themselves 65
He moved; these praises to his verse he owes.

Nor thou persist, I pray thee, still to slight
The sacred Nine, and to imagine vain
And useless, powers by whom inspired thyself
Art skilful to associate verse with airs 70
Harmonious, and to give the human voice
A thousand modulations, heir by right
Indisputable of Arion's fame.
Now say, what wonder is it if a son
Of thine delight in verse, if so conjoined 75
In close affinity, we sympathize
In social arts and kindred studies sweet?
Such distribution of himself to us
Was Phœbus' choice; thou hast thy gift and I
Mine also; and between us we receive, 80
Father and son, the whole inspiring god.
No! howsoe'er the semblance thou assume
Of hate, thou hatest not the gentle Muse,
My Father! for thou never bad'st me tread
The beaten path and broad that leads right on 85
To opulence, nor didst condemn thy son
To the insipid clamours of the bar,
To laws voluminous and ill observed;
But, wishing to enrich me more, to fill
My mind with treasure, ledst me far away 90
From city din to deep retreats, to banks
And streams Aonian, and, with free consent,
Didst place me happy at Apollo's side.
I speak not now, on more important themes
Intent, of common benefits and such 95
As nature bids, but of thy larger gifts,
My Father! who, when I had opened once
The stores of Roman rhetoric, and learned
The full-toned language of the eloquent Greeks,
Whose lofty music graced the lips of Jove, 100
Thyself didst counsel me to add the flowers
That Gallia boasts, those, too, with which the smooth
Italian his degenerate speech adorns,
That witnesses his mixture with the Goth;
And Palestine's prophetic songs divine. 105
To sum the whole, whate'er the heaven contains,
The earth beneath it, and the air between,
The rivers and the restless deep, may all
Prove intellectual gain to me, my wish
Concurring with thy will; Science herself, 110
All cloud removed, inclines her beauteous head,
And offers me the lip, if, dull of heart,
I shrink not and decline her gracious boon.

Go now and gather dross, ye sordid minds
That covet it; what could my Father more? 115
What more could Jove himself, unless he gave
His own abode, the heaven, in which he reigns?
More eligible gifts than these were not
Apollo's to his son, had they been safe,
As they were insecure, who made the boy 120
The world's vice-luminary, bade him rule
The radiant chariot of the day, and bind
To his young brows his own all-dazzling wreath.
I, therefore, although last and least, my place
Among the learned in the laurel grove 125
Will hold, and where the conqueror's ivy twines,
Henceforth exempt from the unlettered throng
Profane, nor even to be seen by such.
Away then, sleepless Care, Complaint away,
And Envy, with thy 'jealous leer malign!' 130
Nor let the monster Calumny shoot forth
Her venomed tongue at me. Detested foes!
Ye all are impotent against my peace,
For I am privileged, and bear my breast
Safe, and too high for your viperean wound. 135
But thou, my Father! since to render thanks
Equivalent, and to requite by deeds
Thy liberality, exceeds my power,
Suffice it that I thus record thy gifts,
And bear them treasured in a grateful mind! 140
Ye, too, the favourite pastime of my youth
My voluntary numbers, if ye dare
To hope longevity, and to survive
Your master's funeral, not soon absorbed
In the oblivious Lethæan gulph 145
Shall to futurity perhaps convey
This theme, and by these praises of my sire
Improve the Fathers of a distant age!

_An English letter to a friend (unknown), who, it appears, had been calling him to account for his apparent indifference as to his work in life_

This letter has an exceptional autobiographic value. The sonnet, which is inserted, appears to have been independently written some time before, and was originally published in 1645, with the heading 'On his having arrived at the age of twenty-three.'

'SIR,—Besides that in sundry respects I must acknowledge me
to profit by you whenever we meet, you are often to me, and
were yesterday especially, as a good watchman to admonish that
the hours of the night pass on (for so I call my life, as yet
obscure and unserviceable to mankind), and that the day with
me is at hand, wherein Christ commands all to labor, while
there is light. Which, because I am persuaded you do to no
other purpose than out of a true desire that God should be
honoured in every one, I therefore think myself bound, though
unasked, to give you an account, as oft as occasion is, of
this my tardy moving, according to the precept of my
conscience, which I firmly trust is not without God. Yet now I
will not strain for any set apology, but only refer myself to
what my mind shall have at any time to declare herself at her
best ease.

But if you think, as you said, that too much love of learning
is in fault, and that I have given up myself to dream away my
years in the arms of studious retirement, like Endymion with
the moon, as the tale of Latmus goes, yet consider that, if it
were no more but the mere love of learning, whether it proceed
from a principle bad, good, or natural, it could not have held
out thus long against so strong opposition on the other side
of every kind. For, if it be bad, why should not all the fond
hopes that forward youth and vanity are fledge with, together
with gain, pride, and ambition, call me forward more
powerfully than a poor, regardless, and unprofitable sin of
curiosity should be able to withhold me; whereby a man cuts
himself off from all action, and becomes the most helpless,
pusillanimous, and unweaponed creature in the world, the most
unfit and unable to do that which all mortals most aspire to,
either to be useful to his friends or to offend his enemies?
Or, if it be to be thought a natural proneness, there is
against that a much more potent inclination inbred, which
about this time of a man's life solicits most—the desire of
house and family of his own; to which nothing is esteemed more
helpful than the early entering into credible employment, and
nothing hindering than this affected solitariness. And, though
this were enough, yet there is another act, if not of pure,
yet of refined nature, no less available to dissuade prolonged
obscurity—a desire of honour and repute and immortal fame,
seated in the breast of every true scholar; which all make
haste to by the readiest ways of publishing and divulging
conceived merits—as well those that shall, as those that
never shall, obtain it. Nature, therefore, would presently
work the more prevalent way, if there were nothing but this
inferior bent of herself to restrain her. Lastly, the love of
learning, as it is the pursuit of something good, it would
sooner follow the more excellent and supreme good known and
presented, and so be quickly diverted from the empty and
fantastic chase of shadows and notions, to the solid good
flowing from due and timely obedience to that command in the
Gospel set out by the terrible feasing of him that hid the
talent.

It is more probable, therefore, that not the endless delight
of speculation, but this very consideration of that great
commandment, does not press forward, as soon as many do, to
undergo, but keeps off, with a sacred reverence and religious
advisement how _best_ to undergo, not taking thought of being
_late_, so it give advantage to be more _fit_; for those that
were latest lost nothing when the master of the vineyard came
to give each one his hire. And here I am come to a streamhead,
copious enough to disburden itself, like Nilus, at seven
mouths into an ocean. But then I should also run into a
reciprocal contradiction of ebbing and flowing at once, and do
that which I excuse myself for not doing—preach and not
preach. Yet, 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 nightward thoughts some
while since, because they come in not altogether unfitly, made
up in a Petrarchian stanza, which I told you of:

How soon hath Time, the subtle thief of youth,
Stolen 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 5
That I to manhood am arrived 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 shall be still in strictest measure even 10
To that same lot, however mean or high,
Toward 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.

By this I believe you may well repent of having made mention
at all of this matter; for, if I have not all this while won
you to this, I have certainly wearied you of it. This,
therefore, alone may be a sufficient reason for me to keep me
as I am, lest, having thus tired you singly, I should deal
worse with a whole congregation and spoil all the patience of
a parish; for I myself do not only see my own tediousness, but
now grow offended with it, that has hindered me thus long from
coming to the last and best _period_ of my letter, and that
which must now chiefly work my pardon,—that I am

Your true and unfeigned friend, etc.'

_To Alexander Gill, Jr._ (_Familiar Letters_, No. V.)

If you had presented to me a gift of gold, or of preciously
embossed vases, or whatever of that sort mortals admire, it
were certainly to my shame not to have some time or other made
you a remuneration in return, as far as my faculties might
serve. Your gift of the day before yesterday, however, having
been such a sprightly and elegant set of Hendecasyllabics, you
have, just in proportion to the superiority of that gift to
anything in the form of gold, made us the more anxious to find
some dainty means by which to repay the kindness of so
pleasant a favour. We had, indeed, at hand some things of our
own of this same kind, but such as I could nowise deem fit to
be sent in contest of equality of gift with yours. I send,
therefore, what is not exactly mine, but belongs also to the
truly divine poet, this ode of whom, only last week, with no
deliberate intention certainly, but from I know not what
sudden impulse before daybreak, I adapted, almost in bed, to
the rule of Greek heroic verse: with the effect, it seems,
that, relying on this coadjutor, who surpasses you no less in
his subject than you surpass me in art, I should have
something that might have a resemblance of approach to a
balancing of accounts. Should anything meet you in it not
coming up to your usual opinion of our productions, understand
that, since I left your school, this is the first and only
thing I have composed in Greek,—employing myself, as you
know, more willingly in Latin and English matters; inasmuch
as whoever spends study and pains in this age on Greek
composition runs a risk of singing mostly to the deaf. . . .

From our suburban residence (_E nostro suburbano_), December
4, 1634.

_To Charles Diodati._ (_Familiar Letters_, No. VI.)

Now at length I see plainly that what you are driving at is to
vanquish me sometimes in the art of obstinate silence; and, if
it is so, bravo! have that little glory over us, for behold!
we write first. All the same, if ever the question should come
into contention why neither has written to the other for so
long, do not think but that I shall stand by many degrees the
more excused of the two,—manifestly so indeed, as being one
by nature slow and lazy to write, as you well know; while you,
on the other hand, whether by nature or by habit, are wont
without difficulty to be drawn into epistolary correspondence
of this sort. It makes also for my favour that I know your
method of studying to be so arranged that you frequently take
breath in the middle, visit your friends, write much,
sometimes make a journey, whereas my genius is such that no
delay, no rest, no care or thought almost of anything, holds
me aside until I reach the end I am making for, and round
off, as it were, some great period of my studies. . . .

LONDON, September 2, 1637.

_To Charles Diodati._ (_Familiar Letters_, No. VII.)

. . . What besides God has resolved concerning me I know not,
but this at least: _He has instilled into me, if into any one,
a vehement love of the beautiful._ Not with so much labour, as
the fables have it, is Ceres said to have sought her daughter
Proserpina as it is my habit day and night to seek for this
_idea of the beautiful_, as for a certain image of supreme
beauty, through all the forms and faces of things (_for many
are the shapes of things divine_), and to follow it as it
leads me on by some sure traces which I seem to recognize.
Hence it is that, when any one scorns what the vulgar opine in
their depraved estimation of things, and dares to feel and
speak and be that which the highest wisdom throughout all ages
has taught to be best, to that man I attach myself forthwith
by a kind of real necessity, wherever I find him. If, whether
by nature or by my fate, I am so circumstanced that by no
effort or labour of mine can I myself rise to such an honour
and elevation, yet that I should always worship and look up to
those who have attained that glory, or happily aspire to it,
neither gods nor men, I reckon, have bidden nay.

But now I know you wish to have your curiosity satisfied. You
make many anxious inquiries, even as to what I am at present
thinking of. Hearken, Theodotus, but let it be in your private
ear, lest I blush; and allow me for a little to use big
language with you. You ask what I am thinking of? So may the
good Deity help me, of immortality! And what am I doing?
_Growing my wings_ and meditating flight; but as yet our
Pegasus raises himself on very tender pinions. Let us be lowly
wise!

* * * * *

I have by continuous reading brought down the affairs of the
Greeks as far as the time when they ceased to be Greeks. I
have been long engaged in the obscure business of the state of
Italians under the Longobards, the Franks, and the Germans,
down to the time when liberty was granted them by Rodolph,
King of Germany: from that period it will be better to read
separately what each City did by its own wars. . . .

LONDON, September 23, 1637.

_To Benedetto Bonmattei of Florence._ (_Familiar Letters_, No. VIII.)

. . . I, certainly, who have not wet merely the tips of my
lips with both those tongues, but have, as much as any, to the
full allowance of my years, drained their deeper draughts, can
yet sometimes willingly and eagerly go for a feast to that
Dante of yours, and to Petrarch, and a good few more; nor has
Attic Athens herself, with her pellucid Ilissus, nor that old
Rome with her bank of the Tiber, been able so to hold me but
that I love often to visit your Arno and these hills of
Fæsule. See now, I entreat, whether it has not been with
enough of providential cause that _I_ have been given to you
for these few days, as your latest guest from the ocean, who
am so great a lover of your nation that, as I think, there is
no other more so. . . .

FLORENCE, September 10, 1638.

_Mansus_

Milton's Latin poem addressed to Manso, Marquis of Villa, in grateful acknowledgment of the distinguished attention which had been shown him by the aged Marquis, during his stay in Naples, contains the first intimation in his writings of his contemplating an epic poem to be based on the legendary or mythical history of Britain, with King Arthur for its hero.

The following is Masson's quite literal prose translation of vv. 70-100:

. . . 'Oh that my lot might yield me such a friend, one who should know as well how to decorate Apollo's children, if perchance I shall ever call back into verse our native kings, and Arthur stirring wars even under the earth that hides him, or speak of the great-souled heroes, the knights of the unconquered Table, bound in confederate brotherhood, and (Oh may the spirit be present to me!) break the Saxon phalanxes under the British Mars. Then, when, having measured out the period of a not silent life, and full of years, I shall leave the dust its due, he would stand by my bed with wet eyes; it would be enough if I said to him standing by "Let me be thy charge;" he would see that my limbs, slacked in livid death, were softly laid in the narrow coffin; perchance he would bring out from the marble our features, wreathing the hair either with the leaf of Paphian myrtle or with that of Parnassian laurel; but I should repose in secure peace. Then, too, if faith is aught, if there are assured rewards of the good, I myself, withdrawn into the ether of the heaven-housed gods, whither labour and the pure mind and the fire of virtue carry us, shall behold these things from some part of the unseen world, as far as the fates allow, and, smiling serene, with soul entire, shall feel my face suffused with the purple light, and applaud myself the while in the joy of ethereal Olympus.'

_From the 'Areopagitica: a speech for the liberty of unlicensed printing. To the Parliament of England'_

And lest some should persuade ye, lords and commons, that
these arguments of learned men's discouragement at this your
order are mere flourishes, and not real, I could recount what
I have seen and heard in other countries, where this kind of
inquisition tyrannizes; when I have sat among their learned
men, (for that honour I had,) and been counted happy to be
born in such a place of philosophic freedom, as they supposed
England was, while themselves did nothing but bemoan the
servile condition into which learning amongst them was
brought; that this was it which had damped the glory of
Italian wits; that nothing had been there written now these
many years but flattery and fustian. There it was that I found
and visited the famous Galileo, grown old, a prisoner to the
Inquisition, for thinking in astronomy otherwise than the
Franciscan and Dominican licensers thought. And though I knew
that England then was groaning loudest under the prelatical
yoke, nevertheless I took it as a pledge of future happiness,
that other nations were so persuaded of her liberty.

Yet was it beyond my hope, that those worthies were then
breathing in her air, who should be her leaders to such a
deliverance, as shall never be forgotten by any revolution of
time that this world hath to finish. When that was once begun,
it was as little in my fear, that what words of complaint I
heard among learned men of other parts uttered against the
Inquisition, the same I should hear, by as learned men at
home, uttered in time of parliament against an order of
licensing; and that so generally, that when I had disclosed
myself a companion of their discontent, I might say, if
without envy, that he whom an honest quæstorship had endeared
to the Sicilians, was not more by them importuned against
Verres, than the favourable opinion which I had among many
who honour ye, and are known and respected by ye, loaded me
with entreaties and persuasions, that I would not despair to
lay together that which just reason should bring into my mind,
towards the removal of an undeserved thraldom upon learning.

_To Lucas Holstenius in the Vatican at Rome._ (_Familiar Letters_, No. IX.)

Although I both can and often do remember many courteous and
most friendly acts done me by many in this my passage through
Italy, yet, for so brief an acquaintance, I do not know
whether I can justly say that from any one I have had greater
proofs of goodwill than those which have come to me from you.
For, when I went up to the Vatican for the purpose of meeting
you, though a total stranger to you,—unless perchance
anything had been previously said about me to you by Alexander
Cherubini,—you received me with the utmost courtesy. Admitted
at once with politeness into the Museum, I was allowed to
behold the superb collection of books, and also very many
manuscript Greek authors set forth with your
explanations,—some of whom, not yet seen in our age, seemed
now, in their array, like Virgil's

penitus convalle virenti
Inclusæ animæ superumque ad lumen ituræ, (vi. 679)

to demand the active hands of the printer, and a delivery into
the world, while others, already edited by your care, are
eagerly received everywhere by scholars:—dismissed, too,
richer than I came, with two copies of one of these last
presented to me by yourself. Then, I could not but believe
that it was in consequence of the mention you made of me to
the most excellent Cardinal Francesco Barberini that, when he,
a few days after, gave that public musical entertainment
with truly Roman magnificence (ἀκρόαμα illud musicum
magnificentiâ vere Romanâ publice exhiberet), he himself,
waiting at the doors, and seeking me out in so great a crowd,
almost seizing me by the hand, indeed, admitted me within
in a truly most honourable manner. Further, when, on this
account, I went to pay my respects to him next day, you again
were the person that both made access for me and obtained me
an opportunity of leisurely conversation with him—an
opportunity such as, with so great a man,—than whom, on the
topmost summit of dignity, nothing more kind, nothing more
courteous,—was truly, place and time considered, too ample
rather than too sparing. . . .

FLORENCE, March 30, 1639.

_Epitaphium Damonis_

The 'Epitaphium Damonis' is a pastoral elegy, occasioned by the death of Charles Diodati, which occurred in the summer or autumn of 1638, while Milton was on his continental tour. As an expression of the poet's grief for the loss of his boyhood's and early manhood's dearest, most intimate, and sympathetic friend, it has a general autobiographic character; but it contains one passage (vv. 161-178), having a special interest of the kind, in which he again alludes to his contemplated epic poem, to be based on the legendary history of Britain.

The following is Masson's translation of the Argument and of vv. 161-178:

'Thyrsis and Damon, shepherds of the same neighbourhood, following the same pursuits, were friends from their boyhood, in the highest degree of mutual attachment. Thyrsis, having set out to travel for mental improvement, received news when abroad of Damon's death. Afterwards at length returning, and finding the matter to be so, he deplores himself and his solitary condition in the following poem. Under the guise of Damon, however, is here understood Charles Diodati, tracing his descent on the father's side from the Tuscan city of Lucca, but otherwise English—a youth remarkable, while he lived, for his genius, his learning, and other most shining virtues.'

'Go unpastured, my lambs: your master now heeds not your bleating.
_I_ have a theme of the Trojans cruising our southern headlands
Shaping to song, and the realm of Imogen, daughter of Pandras,
Brennus and Arvirach, dukes, and Bren's bold brother, Belinus;
Then the Armorican settlers under the laws of the Britons,
Ay, and the womb of Igraine fatally pregnant with Arthur,
Uther's son, whom he got disguised in Gorlois' likeness,
All by Merlin's craft. Oh then, if life shall be spared me,
Thou shalt be hung, my pipe, far off on some brown dying pine tree,
Much forgotten of me; or else your Latian music
Changed for the British war-screech! What then? For one to do all
things,
One to hope all things, fits not! Prize sufficiently ample
Mine, and distinction great (unheard of ever thereafter
Though I should be, and inglorious, all through the world of the
stranger),
If but yellow-haired Ouse shall read me, the drinker of Alan,
Humber, which whirls as it flows, and Trent's whole valley of
orchards,
Thames, my own Thames, above all, and Tamar's western waters,
Tawny with ores, and where the white waves swinge the far Orkneys.'

_From 'Of Reformation in England'_

Oh, sir, I do now feel myself inwrapped on the sudden into
those mazes and labyrinths of dreadful and hideous thoughts,
that which way to get out, or which way to end, I know not,
unless I turn mine eyes, and with your help lift up my hands
to that eternal and propitious Throne, where nothing is
readier than grace and refuge to the distresses of mortal
suppliants: and it were a shame to leave these serious
thoughts less piously than the heathen were wont to conclude
their graver discourses.

Thou, therefore, that sittest in light and glory
unapproachable, Parent of angels and men! next, thee I
implore, omnipotent King, Redeemer of that lost remnant whose
nature thou didst assume, ineffable and everlasting Love! and
thou, the third subsistence of divine infinitude, illumining
Spirit, the joy and solace of created things! one Tripersonal
godhead! look upon this thy poor and almost spent and expiring
church, leave her not thus a prey to these importunate wolves,
that wait and think long till they devour thy tender flock;
these wild boars that have broke into thy vineyard, and left
the print of their polluting hoofs on the souls of thy
servants. Oh! let them not bring about their damned designs,
that stand now at the entrance of the bottomless pit,
expecting the watchword to open and let out those dreadful
locusts and scorpions, to reinvolve us in that pitchy cloud of
infernal darkness, where we shall never more see the sun of
thy truth again, never hope for the cheerful dawn, never more
hear the bird of morning sing. Be moved with pity at the
afflicted state of this our shaken monarchy, that now lies
labouring under her throes, and struggling against the grudges
of more dreaded calamities.

O thou, that, after the impetuous rage of five bloody
inundations, and the succeeding sword of intestine war,
soaking the land in her own gore, didst pity the sad and
ceaseless revolution of our swift and thick-coming sorrows;
when we were quite breathless, of thy free grace didst motion
peace, and terms of covenant with us; and having first well
nigh freed us from antichristian thraldom, didst build up this
Britannic empire to a glorious and enviable height, with all
her daughter-islands about her; stay us in this felicity, let
not the obstinacy of our half-obedience and will-worship bring
forth that viper of sedition, that for these fourscore years
hath been breeding to eat through the entrails of our peace;
but let her cast her abortive spawn without the danger of this
travailing and throbbing kingdom: that we may still remember
in our solemn thanksgivings, how for us, the northern ocean
even to the frozen Thule was scattered with the proud
shipwrecks of the Spanish armada, and the very maw of hell
ransacked, and made to give up her concealed destruction, ere
she could vent it in that horrible and damned blast.

Oh how much more glorious will those former deliverances
appear, when we shall know them not only to have saved us from
greatest miseries past, but to have reserved us for greatest
happiness to come! Hitherto thou hast but freed us, and that
not fully, from the unjust and tyrannous claim of thy foes;
now unite us entirely, and appropriate us to thyself, tie us
everlastingly in willing homage to the prerogative of thy
eternal throne.

And now we know, O thou our most certain hope and defence,
that thine enemies have been consulting all the sorceries of
the great whore, and have joined their plots with that sad
intelligencing tyrant that mischiefs the world with his mines
of Ophir, and lies thirsting to revenge his naval ruins that
have larded our seas: but let them all take counsel together,
and let it come to nought; let them decree, and do thou cancel
it; let them gather themselves, and be scattered; let them
embattle themselves, and be broken; let them embattle, and be
broken, for thou art with us.

_Then, amidst the hymns and hallelujahs of saints, some one
may perhaps be heard offering at high strains in new and lofty
measures, to sing and celebrate thy divine mercies and
marvellous judgments in this land throughout all ages_;
whereby this great and warlike nation, instructed and inured
to the fervent and continual practice of truth and
righteousness, and casting far from her the rags of her old
vices, may press on hard to that high and happy emulation to
be found the soberest, wisest, and most Christian people at
that day, when thou, the eternal and shortly-expected King,
shalt open the clouds to judge the several kingdoms of the
world, and distributing national honours and rewards to
religious and just commonwealths, shalt put an end to all
earthly tyrannies, proclaiming thy universal and mild monarchy
through heaven and earth; where they undoubtedly, that by
their labours, counsels, and prayers, have been earnest for
the common good of religion and their country, shall receive
above the inferior orders of the blessed, the regal addition
of principalities, legions, and thrones into their glorious
titles, and in supereminence of beatific vision, progressing
the dateless and irrevoluble circle of eternity, shall clasp
inseparable hands with joy and bliss, in overmeasure for ever.

_From 'Animadversions upon the Remonstrant's Defence,' etc._

O thou the ever-begotten Light and perfect Image of the
Father! thou hast opened our difficult and sad times, and
given us an unexpected breathing after our long oppressions:
thou hast done justice upon those that tyrannized over us,
while some men wavered and admired a vain shadow of wisdom in
a tongue nothing slow to utter guile, though thou hast taught
us to admire only that which is good, and to count that only
praiseworthy, which is grounded upon thy divine precepts. Thou
hast discovered the plots, and frustrated the hopes, of all
the wicked in the land, and put to shame the persecutors of
thy church: thou hast made our false prophets to be found a
lie in the sight of all the people, and chased them with
sudden confusion and amazement before the redoubled brightness
of thy descending cloud, that now covers thy tabernacle. Who
is there that cannot trace thee now in thy beamy walk through
the midst of thy sanctuary, amidst those golden candlesticks,
which have long suffered a dimness amongst us through the
violence of those that had seized them, and were more taken
with the mention of their gold than of their starry light;
teaching the doctrine of Balaam, to cast a stumbling-block
before thy servants, commanding them to eat things sacrificed
to idols, and forcing them to fornication? Come, therefore, O
thou that hast the seven stars in thy right hand, appoint thy
chosen priests according to their orders and courses of old,
to minister before thee, and duly to press and pour out the
consecrated oil into thy holy and ever-burning lamps. Thou has
sent out the spirit of prayer upon thy servants over all the
land to this effect, and stirred up their vows as the sound of
many waters about thy throne. Every one can say, that now
certainly thou hast visited this land, and hast not forgotten
the utmost corners of the earth, in a time when men had
thought that thou wast gone up from us to the furthest end of
the heavens, and hadst left to do marvellously among the sons
of these last ages. Oh perfect and accomplish thy glorious
acts! for men may leave their works unfinished, but thou art a
God, thy nature is perfection: shouldst thou bring us thus far
onward from Egypt to destroy us in this wilderness, though we
deserve, yet thy great name would suffer in the rejoicing of
thine enemies, and the deluded hope of all thy servants. When
thou hast settled peace in the church, and righteous judgment
in the kingdom, then shall all thy saints address their
voices of joy and triumph to thee, standing on the shore of
that Red Sea into which our enemies had almost driven us. _And
he that now for haste snatches up a plain ungarnished present
as a thank-offering to thee, which could not be deferred in
regard of thy so many late deliverances wrought for us one
upon another, may then perhaps take up a harp, and sing thee
an elaborate song to generations._ In that day it shall no
more be said as in scorn, this or that was never held so till
this present age, when men have better learnt that the times
and seasons pass along under thy feet to go and come at thy
bidding: and as thou didst dignify our fathers' days with many
revelations above all the foregoing ages, since thou tookest
the flesh; so thou canst vouchsafe to us (though unworthy) as
large a portion of thy Spirit as thou pleasest: for who shall
prejudice thy all-governing will? seeing the power of thy
grace is not passed away with the primitive times, as fond and
faithless men imagine, but thy kingdom is now at hand, and
thou standing at the door. Come forth out of thy royal
chambers, O Prince of all the kings of the earth! put on the
visible robes of thy imperial majesty, take up that unlimited
sceptre which thy Almighty Father hath bequeathed thee; for
now the voice of thy bride calls thee, and all creatures sigh
to be renewed.

_From 'The Reason of Church Government urged against Prelaty'_

For me, 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. For
if I be, either by disposition or what other cause, too
inquisitive, or suspicious of myself and mine own doings, who
can help it? But this I foresee, that should the church be
brought under heavy oppression, and God have given me ability
the while to reason against that man that should be the author
of so foul a deed; or should she, by blessing from above on
the industry and courage of faithful men, change this her
distracted estate into better days, without the least
furtherance or contribution of those few talents, which God at
that present had lent me; I foresee what stories I should hear
within myself, all my life after, of discourage and reproach.
Timorous and ungrateful, the church of God is now again at the
foot of her insulting enemies, and thou bewailest. What
matters it for thee, or thy bewailing? When time was, thou
couldst not find a syllable of all that thou hast read, or
studied, to utter in her behalf. Yet ease and leisure was
given thee for thy retired thoughts, out of the sweat of other
men. Thou hast the diligence, the parts, the language of a
man, if a vain subject were to be adorned or beautified; but
when the cause of God and his church was to be pleaded, for
which purpose that tongue was given thee which thou hast, God
listened if he could hear thy voice among his zealous
servants, but thou wert dumb as a beast; from henceforward be
that which thine own brutish silence hath made thee. Or else I
should have heard on the other ear: Slothful, and ever to be
set light by, the church hath now overcome her late distresses
after the unwearied labours of many her true servants that
stood up in her defence; thou also wouldst take upon thee to
share amongst them of their joy: but wherefore thou? Where
canst thou shew any word or deed of thine which might have
hastened her peace? Whatever thou dost now talk, or write, or
look, is the alms of other men's active prudence and zeal.
Dare not now to say or do anything better than thy former
sloth and infancy; or if thou darest, thou dost impudently to
make a thrifty purchase of boldness to thyself, out of the
painful merits of other men; what before was thy sin is now
thy duty, to be abject and worthless. These, and such-like
lessons as these, I know would have been my matins duly, and
my even-song. But now by this little diligence, mark what a
privilege I have gained with good men and saints, to claim my
right of lamenting the tribulations of the church, if she
should suffer, when others, that have ventured nothing for her
sake, have not the honour to be admitted mourners. But if she
lift up her drooping head and prosper, among those that have
something more than wished her welfare, I have my charter and
freehold of rejoicing to me and my heirs. 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 me,
as I have found it hath been, that some self-pleasing humour
of vain-glory hath 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 I ready to my wishes, it were a
folly to commit anything elaborately composed to the careless
and interrupted listening of these tumultuous times. Next, if
I were wise only to my own ends, I would certainly take such a
subject as of itself might catch applause, whereas this hath
all the disadvantages on the contrary, and such a subject as
the publishing whereof might be delayed at pleasure, and time
enough to pencil it over with all the curious touches of art,
even to the perfection of a faultless picture; whenas in this
argument the not deferring is of great moment to the good
speeding, that if solidity have leisure to do her office, art
cannot have much. Lastly, I should not choose this manner of
writing, wherein knowing myself inferior to myself, led by the
genial power of nature to another task, I have the use, as I
may account, but of my left hand. And though I shall be
foolish in saying more to this purpose, yet, since it will be
such a folly, as wisest men go about to commit, having only
confessed and so committed, I may trust with more reason,
because with more folly, to have courteous pardon. For
although a poet, soaring in the high reason of his fancies,
with his garland and singing robes about him, might, without
apology, speak more of himself than I mean to do; yet for me
sitting here below in the cool element of prose, a mortal
thing among many readers of no empyreal conceit, to venture
and divulge unusual things of myself, I shall petition to the
gentler sort, it may not be envy to me. I must say, therefore,
that after I had for my first years, by the ceaseless
diligence and care of my father, (whom God recompense!) been
exercised to the tongues, and some sciences, as my age would
suffer, by sundry masters and teachers, both at home and at
the schools, it was found that whether aught was imposed me by
them that had the overlooking, or betaken to of mine own
choice in English, or other tongue, prosing or versing, but
chiefly by this latter, the style, by certain vital signs it
had, was likely to live. But much latelier in the private
academies of Italy, whither I was favoured to resort,
perceiving that some trifles which I had in memory, composed
at under twenty or thereabout, (for the manner is, that every
one must give some proof of his wit and reading there,) met
with acceptance above what was looked for; and other things,
which I had shifted in scarcity of books and conveniences to
patch up amongst them, were received with written encomiums,
which the Italian is not forward to bestow on men of this side
the Alps; I began thus far to assent both to them and divers
of my friends here at home, and not less to an inward
prompting which now grew daily upon me, that by labour and
intense study, (which I take to be my portion in this life,)
joined with the strong propensity of nature, I might perhaps
leave something so written to aftertimes, as they should not
willingly let it die. These thoughts at once possessed me, and
these other; that if I were certain to write as men buy
leases, for three lives and downward, there ought no regard be
sooner had than to God's glory, by the honour and instruction
of my country. For which cause, and not only for that I knew
it would be hard to arrive at the second rank among the
Latins, I applied myself to that resolution, which Ariosto
followed against the persuasions of Bembo, to fix all the
industry and art I could unite to the adorning of my native
tongue; not to make verbal curiosities the end, (that were a
toilsome vanity,) but to be an interpreter and relater of the
best and sagest things among mine own citizens throughout this
island in the mother dialect. That what the greatest and
choicest wits of Athens, Rome, or modern Italy, and those
Hebrews of old did for their country, I, in my proportion,
with this over and above, of being a Christian, might do for
mine; not caring to be once named abroad, though perhaps I
could attain to that, but content with these British islands
as my world; whose fortune hath hitherto been, that if the
Athenians, as some say, made their small deeds great and
renowned by their eloquent writers, England hath had her
noble achievements made small by the unskilful handling of
monks and mechanics.