Characters from the Histories & Memoirs of the Seventeenth Century Part 30

l. 20. Henry Lawes (1596-1662), who wrote the music for _Comus_, and to whom Milton addressed one of his sonnets:

_Harry_ whose tuneful and well measur'd Song First taught our English Musick how to span Words with just note and accent,...

To after age thou shalt be writ the man, That with smooth aire couldst humor best our tongue.

This sonnet was prefixed to Lawes's _Choice Psalmes_ in 1648; his _Ayres and Dialogues for One, Two, and Three Voices_ appeared in three books from 1653 to 1658.

56.

The Life of That Reverend Divine, and Learned Historian, Dr. Thomas Fuller. London, 1661. (pp. 66-77.)

This work was twice reissued with new t.i.tle-pages at Oxford in 1662, and was for the first time reprinted in 1845 by way of introduction to J.S. Brewer's edition of Fuller's _Church History_. It is the basis of all subsequent lives of Fuller. But the author is unknown.

The pa.s.sage here quoted from the concluding section of this _Life_ is the only contemporary sketch of Fuller's person and character that is now known. Aubrey's description is a mere note, and is considerably later: 'He was of a middle stature; strong sett; curled haire; a very working head, in so much that, walking and meditating before dinner, he would eate-up a penny loafe, not knowing that he did it. His naturall memorie was very great, to which he had added the _art of memorie_: he would repeate to you forwards and backwards all the signes from Ludgate to Charing-crosse' (ed. A. Clark, vol. i, p. 257).

Page 187, l. 20. _a perfect walking Library_, Compare p. 171, l. 19, note.

Page 191, ll. 3 ff. Compare Aubrey. But Fuller disclaimed the use of an art of memory. 'Artificiall memory', he said, 'is rather a trick then an art.' He condemned the 'artificiall rules which at this day are delivered by Memory-mountebanks'. His great rule was 'Marshall thy notions into a handsome method'. See his section 'Of Memory' in his _Holy State_, 1642, Bk. III, ch. 10; and compare J.E. Bailey, _Life of Thomas Fuller_, 1874, pp. 413-15.

57.

Bodleian Library, MS. Aubrey 8 foll. 63, 63 v, 68.

The text is taken direct from Aubrey's ma.n.u.script, such contractions as 'X'ts coll:' and 'da:' for daughter being expanded. For the complete life, see _Brief Lives_, ed. A. Clark, vol. ii, pp. 62-72.

There is no character of Milton. We have again to be content with notes for a character.

Page 192, l. 7. Christ's College, Cambridge, which Milton entered in February 1625, aged sixteen.

ll. 15-18. Milton had three daughters, by his first wife--Anne, Mary, and Deborah. Mary died unmarried. Deborah's husband, Abraham Clarke, left Dublin for London during the troubles in Ireland under James II: see Ma.s.son's _Life of Milton_, vol. vi, p. 751. He is described by Johnson as a 'weaver in Spitalfields': see _Lives of the Poets_, ed.

G.B. Hill, vol. i, pp. 158-60.

Page 193, ll. 2-4. _Litera Canina_. See Persius, _Sat_. i. 109 'Sonat hic de nare canina littera'; and compare Ben Jonson, _English Grammar_, '_R_ Is the _Dogs_ Letter, and hurreth in the sound.'

ll. 11, 12. But the Comte de Cominges, French Amba.s.sador to England, 1662-5, in his report to Louis XIV on the state of literature in England, spoke of 'un nomme Miltonius qui s'est rendu plus infame par ses dangereux ecrits que les bourreaux et les a.s.sa.s.sins de leur roi'.

This was written in 1663, and Cominges knew only Milton's Latin works.

See J.J. Jusserand, _A French Amba.s.sador at the Court of Charles the Second_, 1892, p. 58, and _Shakespeare en France_, 1898, p. 107.

l. 19. _In toto nusquam_. Ovid, _Amores_, i. 5. 18.

Page 194, l. 4. Milton died November 8: see Ma.s.son, _Life of Milton_, vol. vi, p. 731.

58.

Letters of State, Written by Mr. John Milton, To most of the Sovereign Princes and Republicks of Europe. From the Year 1649 Till the Year 1659. To which is added, An Account of his Life.... London: Printed in the Year, 1694. (p. x.x.xvi.)

'The Life of Mr. John Milton' (pp. i-xliv) serves as introduction to this little volume of State Papers. It is the first life of Milton.

Edward Phillips (1630-96) was the son of Milton's sister, and was educated by him. Unfortunately he failed to take proper advantage of his great opportunity. The Life is valuable for some of its details, but as a whole it is disappointing; and it makes no attempt at characterization. The note on Milton in his _Theatrum Poetarum, or a Compleat Collection of the Poets_, 1675, is also disappointing.

59.

Explanatory Notes and Remarks on Milton's Paradise Lost. By J.

Richardson, Father and Son. With the Life of the Author, and a Discourse on the Poem. By J.R. Sen. London: M.DCC.x.x.xIV. (pp. iii-v; xciv; c; cxiv.)

Jonathan Richardson (1665-1745) was one of the chief portrait-painters of his time. There are portraits by him of Pope, Steele, and Prior--all now in the National Portrait Gallery; and his writings on painting were standard works till the time of Reynolds. His book on Milton was an excursion late in life, with the a.s.sistance of his son, into another field of criticism. His introductory life of Milton (pp. i-cxliii) is a substantial piece of work, and is valuable as containing several anecdotes that might otherwise have been lost.

Those that bear on Milton's character are here reproduced. The typographical eccentricities have been preserved.

Page 194, ll. 28 ff. Edward Millington's place of business was 'at the Pelican in Duck Lane' in 1670; from Michaelmas, 1671, it was 'at the Bible in Little Britain' (see Arber's _Term Catalogues_, vol. i, pp.

31, 93). It was about 1680 that he turned auctioneer of books, though he did not wholly abandon publishing. 'There was usually as much Comedy in his "Once, Twice, Thrice", as can be met with in a modern Play.' See the _Life and Errors of John Dunton_, ed. 1818, pp. 235-6.

He died at Cambridge in 1703.

Page 196, l. 4. Dr. Tancred Robinson (d. 1748), physician to George I, and knighted by him.

l. 10. Henry Bendish (d. 1740), son of Bridget Ireton or Bendish, Cromwell's granddaughter: see _Letters of John Hughes_, ed. John Duncombe, vol. ii (1773), pp. x, xlii.

l. 14. John Thurloe (1616-68), Secretary of State under Cromwell.

Compare No. 38 note.

l. 25. 'Easy my unpremeditated verse', _Paradise Lost_, ix. 24.

60.

The Works of M'r Abraham Cowley. Consisting of Those which were formerly Printed: and Those which he Design'd for the Press, Now Published out of the Authors Original Copies. London, 1668.--'Several Discourses by way of Essays, in Verse and Prose,' No. II. (pp. 143-6.)

Cowley's Essays were written towards the close of his life. They were 'left scarce finish'd', and many others were to have been added to them. They were first published posthumously in the collected edition of 1668, under the superintendence of Thomas Sprat (see No. 61).

This edition, which alone is authoritative, has been followed in the present reprint of the eleventh and last Essay, probably written at the beginning of 1667.

Page 198, l. 1. _at School_, Westminster.

ll. 19 ff. The concluding stanzas of 'A Vote', printed in Cowley's _Sylva_, 1636. Cowley was then aged eighteen. The first stanza contains three new readings, 'The unknown' for 'Th' ignote', 'I would have' for 'I would hug', and 'Not on' for 'Not from'.

Page 199, l. 15. _out of Horace_, _Odes_, iii. 29. 41-5.

Page 200, l. 4. _immediately_. The reading in the text of 1668 is 'irremediably', but 'immediately' is given as the correct reading in the 'Errata' (printed on a slip that is pasted in at the conclusion of Cowley's first preface). The edition of 1669 subst.i.tutes 'immediately'

in the text. The alteration must be accepted on Sprat's authority, but it is questionable if it gives a better sense.

ll. 6-10. Cowley was admitted to Trinity College, Cambridge, as a Westminster scholar on June 14, 1637. He was admitted Minor Fellow in 1640, and graduated M.A. in 1643. He was ejected in the following year as a result of the Earl of Manchester's commission to enforce the solemn League and Covenant in Cambridge. See _Cowley's Pure Works_, ed. J.R. Lumby, pp. ix-xiii, and Johnson's _Lives of the Poets_, ed.

G.B. Hill, vol. i, p. 5.

ll. 9, 10. _Cedars ... Hyssop_. I Kings, iv. 33.

l. 12. _one of the best Persons_, Henry Jermyn, created Baron Jermyn, 1643, and Earl of St. Albans, 1660, chief officer of Henrietta Maria's household in Paris: see Clarendon, vol. iv, p. 312. As secretary to Jermyn, Cowley 'cyphcr'd and decypher'd with his own hand, the greatest part of all the Letters that pa.s.sed between their Majesties, and managed a vast Intelligence in many other parts: which for some years together took up all his days, and two or three nights every week' (Sprat). He told Sprat that he intended to dedicate all his Essays to St. Albans 'as a testimony of his entire respects to him'.

Page 201, l. 10. _Well then_. The opening lines of 'The Wish', included in _The Mistress_, 1647 (ed. 1668, pp. 22-3).