Milton's England Part 3

The Cambridge of Milton's time was but a small town of seven thousand inhabitants, about one-sixth of its present size, but rich with a history of nearly six hundred years. Its most beautiful building then as now was King's College Chapel--in fact, the most beautiful building in either Oxford or Cambridge, despite Mr Ruskin's just criticism upon it. No doubt, it would look less like a dining-table bottom-side up, with its four legs in air, were two of its pinnacles omitted; doubtless also the same criticism on its monotonous decoration of the alternate rose and portcullis, which we made in regard to the Chapel of Henry VII., is here applicable. But its great length, its n.o.ble proportions, its rare rich windows, its splendid organ-screen--old in Milton's college days--must appeal to every lover of beauty. One loves to think of the young poet musing here upon those well-known lines in "Il Penseroso" which this stately building may have inspired.

"But let my due feet never fail To walk the studious cloisters pale, And love the high, embowered roof, With antick pillars ma.s.sy proof, And storied windows, richly dight, Casting a dim religious light.

There let the pealing organ blow, To the full voiced Quire below, In service high and anthem clear, As may with sweetness through mine ear Dissolve me into ecstasies, And bring all heaven before mine eyes."

In King's Chapel Queen Elizabeth attended service several times, and listened with delight to a Latin sermon from the text "Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers." On the afternoon of the same Sunday she returned to the antechapel and witnessed a play of Plautus.

Among many buildings which were very old even in Milton's time must be mentioned the church of St. Benedict on Bene't Street, which was once the chapel of Corpus Christi College. Its ancient tower is especially noteworthy. Its little double windows are separated by a bal.u.s.ter-shaped column. The tower is similar to one at Lincoln, and, with the whole structure, antedates the Norman conquest.

A generation before Milton's time Robert Browne, the father of Congregationalism, drew great crowds within this venerable edifice to listen to his radical doctrine. At Cambridge, where he had studied, he became impressed with the perfunctoriness and worldliness of the Church of his time, and he resolved to "satisfy his conscience without any regard to license or authority from a bishop."

When the Pilgrim Fathers fled from Austerfield and Scrooby in 1608, it was as Brownists or Separatists that they went to Holland. They sought a refuge where they might worship G.o.d according to the dictates of their own conscience, without interference of bishop or presbyter. It was Browne's doctrine, not only of the absolute separation of Church and state, but also of the independence of each individual congregation, that laid the foundation of church government in New England. Presbyterianism has gained little root east of the Hudson. After Browne had suffered for his faith in thirty of the dismal dungeons of that day, and, shattered in mind by his suffering, had recanted and returned to Mother Church, his disciples remained true to the light that he had shown them; the generation of scholars with whom Milton talked at Cambridge were as familiar with Browne's doctrine as the present generation is with that of Maurice and Martineau, and Milton must have been much influenced by it.

Opposite St. John's Chapel is the little round church of the Holy Sepulchre. This is the earliest of the four churches in England built by the Templars which still remain. It is similar to the Temple church in London, and was probably begun a little later than St. Benedict's, which has just been mentioned. It is questionable whether the students of Milton's college days appreciated the beauty of this beautiful remnant of the Norman period that was in their midst. The taste of that day was decidedly for architecture of the Renaissance type, of which Cambridge boasts many examples.

In Milton's time the most beautiful quadrangle in Cambridge, and perhaps in the world, that of Trinity, had been but newly finished by the architect, Ralph Symons, who altered and harmonised a group of older buildings. In the centre of the court is Neville's fountain, built in 1602, which is a fine example of good English Renaissance work. During four years of Milton's residence, part of St. John's College was in process of erection in the Italian Gothic style. This was at the expense of the Lord Keeper Williams, whose initials and the date, 1624, are lettered in white stone near the western oriel. It was completed in 1628.

Clare Bridge was not finished until 1640, and most of the other beautiful bridges that span the Cam to-day were unknown to Milton when he mused beside its shady banks where

"Camus, reverend sire, went footing slow, His mantle hairy and his bonnet sedge Inwrought with figures dim, and on the edge Like to that sanguine flower inscribed with woe."

Only fifteen miles away, across the level fields, lay Ely Cathedral, built on what was once hardly more than an island in the Fens. Many a time during his seven years in the university town must Milton have walked over there, or ridden on one of Hobson's horses, perhaps with his dear Charles Diodati, to view the mighty structure, or to study its Norman interior.

Its gray towers and octagonal lantern dominate the little town that cl.u.s.ters around it, and may be seen from far across the plain.

During these studious years, while Milton walked among the colleges where Chaucer, Bacon, Ben Jonson, and Erasmus had likewise walked as students, he was not only busied with logic, philosophy, and the literature of half a dozen living and dead languages, but his tender emotions seem to have been briefly touched by some unknown fair one; and his interest in public matters, for instance, Sir John Eliot's imprisonment in the Tower, is evident. In one letter he mentions the execution of a child but nine years old, for setting fire to houses. A scourge of the plague afflicted London on the year that he entered Cambridge, and five years later he was driven from town by its devastation there. The university ceased all exercises, and the few members of it that remained shut themselves in as close prisoners. So great was the poverty and suffering incident to this calamity, that the king appealed to the country for aid to the stricken town.

During these years of quiet growth, Milton's first noteworthy poems appear, of which the Latin poems, according to good judges, deserve the preference. We here mention only some of his English poems. The longest of these, which was written the month and year when he came to his majority, was begun on Christmas morning, 1629. This serious youth of twenty-one longed to give "a birthday gift for Christ," and thus appeared his poem, "On the Morning of Christ's Nativity." Three or four years earlier he had written on the death of his baby niece, Mrs. Philips's child, his lines "On the Death of a Fair Infant." The revelation of self in his sonnet "On His Being Arrived to the Age of Twenty-Three," makes the latter the most interesting of these early flights of song.

The most precious literary treasure which Cambridge possesses, and as Mr.

Edmund Gosse a.s.serts, "the most precious ma.n.u.script of English literature in the world," is the packet of thirty loose and ragged folio leaves covered with Milton's handwriting, which since 1691 has lain in Trinity College Library. For a generation, they attracted no attention, but later they were examined and handled by so many that they suffered seriously; within fifty years, seventeen lines of "Comus" were torn out and stolen by some unknown thief. Mr. Gosse, in a delightful article in the _Atlantic Monthly_, upon "The Milton Ma.n.u.scripts at Cambridge," gives reins to his imagination in picturing the sudden temptation of this man, who, pa.s.sing down the long ranges of "storied urn and animated bust," which adorn the interior of Wren's famous structure, advances beyond the beautiful figure of the youthful Byron to the gorgeous window in which the form of Isaac Newton shines resplendent. The careless attendant places in his hands the richly bound thin folio,--"and now the devil is raging in the visitor's bosom; the collector awakens in him, the bibliomaniac is unchained. In an instant the unpremeditated crime is committed.... And so he goes back to his own place certain that sooner or later his insane crime will be discovered ... certain of silent infamy and unaccusing outlawry, with no consolation but that sickening fragment of torn verse which he can never show to a single friend, can never sell nor give nor bequeath. Among literary criminals, I know not another who so burdens the imagination as this wretched mutilator of 'Comus.'" These pages are the laboratory or studio of the poet, and reveal most interestingly the progress of his art during his earlier creative years. Like Beethoven's note-book, they teach the impatient and inaccurate that genius condescends carefully to note little things and to take infinite pains, whether it be with symphonies or sonnets. Charles Lamb, on looking over the Milton ma.n.u.scripts, whimsically recorded his astonishment that these lines had not fallen perfect and polished from the poet's pen. "How it staggered me to see the fine things in their ore! interlined, corrected! as if their words were mortal, alterable, displaceable at pleasure!" But the average man, who despairs of ever attaining artistic excellence, and finds every kind of literary composition a formidable task, takes consolation in the fact here revealed, that even the creator of "L'Allegro" and "Il Penseroso," before he reached the perfect phrase,--"endless morn of light,"--experimented with no less than six others: "ever-endless light," "ever glorious,"

"uneclipsed," "where day dwells without night," and "in cloudless birth of night." The authorities of Trinity College, having of late realised the invaluable service to men of letters that this glimpse into the poet's workshop would be, have issued a limited edition, in sumptuous form, of a perfect facsimile of the Milton ma.n.u.scripts. "Now, for the first time," as Mr. Gosse remarks, "we can examine in peace, and without a beating heart and blinded eyes, the priceless thing in its minutest features." When it is remembered that no line of Shakespeare's remains in his own handwriting, and nothing of any consequence of Chaucer's or Spenser's, Mr.

Gosse cannot be accused of over-statement when he says that to all lovers of literature this volume is "a relic of inestimable value. To those who are practically interested in the art of verse, it reads a more pregnant lesson than any other similar doc.u.ment in the world."

Some day the great university may add to its charms not only an adequate memorial to its Puritans, but one to its poets--Spenser, Milton, Pope, Gray, Coleridge, Wordsworth, Byron, and Tennyson, who have enriched it by their presence, and have made Cambridge _par excellence_ the university of the poets. It must be remembered that Chaucer and Shakespeare were not university men.

The time for a pilgrimage to Cambridge is term time, when window-boxes, gay with blossoms, brighten gray old walls within the "quads," and when the streets are enlivened by three thousand favoured youths intent on outdoor sport. Then all points of interest are accessible, and perchance one may be so fortunate as to get entrance up narrow, worn stone stairways into some student's cosy study; the visitor will find it lined with books, rackets, and boxing-gloves, and decorated with trophies and photographs of some one else's sister. Bits of college gossip and local slang, hints of college traditions, prejudices, and customs pleasantly vary the tourist's hours spent over the fine print of Baedeker and in search for the tombs of eminent founders.

Even if one is a tourist and not a "fresher," he will find it profitable to study contemporary Cambridge through "The Fresher's Don't," written by "A Sympathiser, B. A.," and addressed to freshers "in all courtesy." As to dress, the "fresher," among other pieces of sage advice, is told: "Don't forget to cut the ta.s.sel of your cap just level with the board. Only graduates wear long ta.s.sels."

"Don't wear knickerbockers with cap and gown, nor carry a stick or umbrella. These are stock eccentricities of Fresherdom." (The genuine Cambridge student would rather be soaked to his skin and risk pneumonia, than encounter the derisive grin which an umbrella would evoke.)

"Don't aspire to seniority by smashing your cap or tearing your gown, as you deceive no one."

"Don't be a tuft-head. The style is more favoured by errand boys than gentlemen."

"Don't by any chance sport a tall hat in Cambridge. It will come to grief."

Under other headings, the following injunctions may be selected:

"Don't sport during your first month. You will only earn the undesirable appellation of 'Smug.'"

"Don't speak disrespectfully of a man 'Who only got a third in his Trip., and so can't be very good.' Before you go down your opinion will be 'That a man must be rather good to take the Trip. at all.'"

"Don't mistake a Don for a Gyp. The Gyp is the smarter individual."

"Don't forget that St. Peter's College is 'Pot-House,' Caius is 'Keys,'

St. Catherine's is 'Cats,' Magdalene is 'Maudlen,' St. John's College Boat Club is 'Lady Margaret,' and a science man is taking 'Stinks.'"

"Don't forget that Cambridge men 'keep' and not 'live.'"

CHAPTER IV.

MILTON AT HORTON

On leaving Cambridge, when he was nearly twenty-four years old, Milton retired to his father's new home at Horton, about seventeen miles west of London. Here he tells us that, "with every advantage of leisure, I spent a complete holiday in turning over the Greek and Latin writers; not but that I sometimes exchanged the country for the town, either for the purpose of buying books, or for that of learning something new in mathematics, or in music, in which sciences I then delighted."

As Milton's father was in easy circ.u.mstances his son never earned money until after he was thirty-two years of age. These free and quiet years at Horton, when he was his own master, and was without a care, were the happiest of his life.

The visitor from London now alights at the little station of Wraysbury, and if it be upon a July 4th, as when the writer made a pilgrimage to Horton, he will find no pleasanter way to celebrate the day than to stroll through level fields by the green country roadside a mile and a half to the little hamlet among the trees. On the way he will espy to the left, on the horizon, the gray towers of Windsor, and may imagine the handsome young poet, whose verse has glorified this quiet rural landscape, pausing some morning in the autumn on his early walk to listen to the far sound of the huntsman's horn, and presently to see the merry rout of gaily clad dames and cavaliers dash by, leaping fearlessly the hedgerows and barred gates.

Horton is a tiny, tranquil village, with little that remains to-day, outside the ancient parish church, that John Milton saw, except the Horton manor-house of the Bulstrode family, which had had connections with Horton from the time of Edward VI. The modern Milton manor, situated in beautiful grounds, may or may not stand upon the site of Milton's former home, which remained until 1798, when it was pulled down. The old tavern of uncertain date upon the one broad street may perhaps have gathered around its antique hob, within the little taproom, gray-haired peasants who guided clumsy ploughs through the rich loam of the fields of Horton, while the white-handed poet sat on a velvet lawn under leafy boughs, and penned his blithe tribute to the nightingale, or in imagination sported with Amaryllis in the shade, or with the shepherds, sprites, and nymphs who peopled his youthful dreams.

As in Cambridge, runnels of clear water, which come from the little river Colne not far distant, flow beside the road. Even to-day one has not far to seek to find the suggestion for those exquisite lines in "Comus" which Milton wrote in Horton:

"By the rushy-fringed bank, Where grows the willow and the osier dank, My sliding chariot stays, Thick set with agate and the azurn sheen Of turkis blue and emerald green That in the channel strays: Whilst from off the waters fleet Thus I set my printless feet O'er the cowslip's velvet head That bends not as I tread."

The student of Milton finds the centre of interest in Horton to-day to be the beautiful old church where the Milton family attended service for five years, and where the mother lies buried.

It stands in the green churchyard, back from the village street. Yew-trees and rose-bushes lend it shade and fragrance. The tombs for the most part are not moss-grown with age, but are rather new, though the slab at the entrance over which Milton pa.s.sed is marked "1612." The battlemented stone tower is draped with ivy and topped with reddish brick. Like scores of churches of the twelfth or thirteenth century, in which it was built, the gabled portico is on the side. The interior is well-preserved; it has a nave with two aisles and a chancel, and in the porch is an old Norman arch. Upon the wall at the rear are wooden tablets which record curious bequests of small annuities for monthly doles of bread to needy people.

Never since those five joyous years at Horton has any English poet blessed the world with verse of such rare loveliness and perfection as fell from the pen of Milton during this time, when spirit, heart, and mind were in attune. The world's clamour had not broken in upon his peace.

Probably at the request of his friend, the composer Lawes, he wrote his "Arcades" in honour of the Countess Dowager of Derby, who had been Spenser's friend. The venerable lady lived about ten miles north of Horton on her fine old estate of Harefield, where Queen Elizabeth had visited her and her husband. On that occasion a masque of welcome had been performed for her in an avenue of elms, which thus received the name of the "Queen's Walk." It was in this verdant theatre that Milton's "Arcades" was performed by the young relatives of the countess. Among these were Lady Alice and her boy-brothers, who on the following year took part in Milton's "Comus," which he wrote anonymously to be played at Ludlow Castle upon the Welsh border, when the children's father was installed as lord president of Wales. Besides these longer poems, Milton wrote his "Il Penseroso" and "L'Allegro" at Horton, as well as the n.o.ble elegy "Lycidas," which was written in memory of his gifted friend, Edward King, who was drowned in the summer of 1637, just before Milton left his father's home.

In this peaceful valley of the Thames, his clear eye searched out every sight, his musical ear sought out every sound that revealed beauty or that suggested the antique, cla.s.sic world in which his whole nature revelled.

He walked in "twilight groves" of "pine or monumental oak;" he listened to "soft Lydian airs" and curfew bells, to the lark's song, and Philomel's.

He watched "the nibbling flocks," the "labouring clouds," and saw, "bosomed high in tufted trees," towers and battlements arise, and beheld in vision his--

"Sabrina fair,...

Under the gla.s.sy, cool translucent wave In twisted braids of lilies knitting The loose train of her amber dropping hair."

He lived in a world enchanted by the magic of his genius. Yet in his little world of loveliness he was not deaf to the distant hoa.r.s.e cry of the coming storm, and at the last the Puritan within him awoke and cried out at those--

"who little reckoning make Than how to scramble at the shearers' feast ...

Blind mouths! that scarce themselves know how to hold A sheephook--or have learnt aught else the least That to the faithful herds-man's art belongs!

What recks it them? What need they? They are sped; And when they list, their lean and flashy songs, Grate on their scrannel pipes of wretched straw; The hungry sheep look up and are not fed But swoln with wind and the rank mist they draw Rot inwardly and foul contagion spread."