of pauses, so much boasted by the lovers of blank verse, changes the measures of an English poet to the periods of a declaimer1; and there are only a few skilful and happy readers of Milton who enable their audience to perceive where the lines end or begin. 'Blank verse,' said an ingenious critick', 'seems to be verse only to the eye3.

Poetry may subsist without rhyme, but English poetry will 275 not often please; nor can rhyme ever be safely spared but where the subject is able to support itself. Blank verse makes some approach to that which is called the 'lapidary style"; has neither the easiness of prose nor the melody of numbers, and therefore tires by long continuance. Of the Italian writers without rhyme, whom Milton alleges as precedents, not one is popular; what reason could urge in its defence has been confuted by the ear'.

or short in our language as in any other.' COWPER, Southey's Cowper, vi. 346.

'Je crois la rime nécessaire à tous les peuples qui n'ont pas dans leur langue une mélodie sensible, marquée par les longues et par les brèves, et qui ne peuvent employer ces dactyles et ces spondées qui font un effet si merveilleux dans le latin.' VOLTAIRE, Euvres, xxxv. 435.

This I had the honour to tell Dr. Johnson; and I said: "Quin, the actor, taught it me; and called it The Pause of Suspension." MRS. PIOZZI, Auto. 1861, ii. 138.

2 Mr. Locke of Norbury Place. Boswell's Johnson, iv. 43.

3 Coleridge, in Biog. Lit. 1847, ii. 86, giving an extract from Wordsworth's Brothers, as first published, and referring to one line, continues:'If any ear could suspect that these sentences were ever printed as metre, on those very words alone could the suspicion have been founded.'

4 Post, ROSCOMMON, 30; DRYDEN, 20, 265; SOMERVILE, 8; THOMSON, 47; DYER, II; SHENSTONE, 31; YOUNG, 160; AKENSIDE, 17.

5 Ante, MILTON, 27.

❝ 'Some both Italian and Spanish poets of prime note have rejected rhyme.' Preface to Paradise Lost.

Trissino is commonly regarded as the inventor of blank verse in Italy, in his Sofonisba printed in 1524. It

But Italy, reviving from the trance
Of Vandal, Goth, and monkish ignor-
ance,

With pauses, cadence, and well-
vowelled words,

And all the graces a good ear affords,
Made rhyme an art, and Dante's
polished page

Restored a silver, not a golden age.'
DRYDEN, To the Earl of Roscommon,
L. II.

For Roscommon's attack on rhyme
see English Poets, xv. 91.

7 'Those two divine excellencies of music and poetry are grown in a manner to be little more but the one fiddling and the other rhyming, and are indeed very worthy the ignorance of the friar and the barbarousness of the Goths that introduced them among us.' TEMPLE, Works, 1757, iii. 454.

276 But whatever be the advantage of rhyme I cannot prevail on myself to wish that Milton had been a rhymer, for I cannot wish his work to be other than it is; yet like other heroes he is to be admired rather than imitated. He that thinks himself capable of astonishing may write blank verse, but those that hope only to please must condescend to rhyme.

277

The highest praise of genius is original invention. Milton cannot be said to have contrived the structure of an epick poem, and therefore owes reverence to that vigour and amplitude of mind to which all generations must be indebted for the art of poetical narration, for the texture of the fable, the variation of incidents, the interposition of dialogue, and all the stratagems that surprise and enchain attention. But of all the borrowers from Homer Milton is perhaps the least indebted. He was naturally a thinker for himself, confident of his own abilities 3 and disdainful of help or hindrance; he did not refuse admission to the thoughts or images of his predecessors, but he did not seek them. From his contemporaries he neither courted nor received support; there is in his writings nothing by which the pride of other authors might be gratified or favour gained, no exchange of praise nor solicitation of support. His great works were performed under discountenance and in blindness, but difficulties vanished at his touch; he was born for whatever is arduous; and his work is not the greatest of heroick poems, only because it is not the first.

' 'I am not persuaded the Paradise Lost would not have been more nobly conveyed to posterity, not perhaps in heroic couplets, although even they could sustain the subject if well balanced, but in the stanza of Spenser or of Tasso, or in the terza rima of Dante, which the powers of Milton could easily have grafted on our language.' BYRON, Works, 1854, ix.

91.

'To this metre, as used in the Paradise Lost, our country owes the glory of having produced one of the only two poetical works in the grand style which are to be found in the modern languages; the Divine Comedy of Dante is the other.' MATTHEW ARNOLD, On Translating Homer, 1896, p. 72.

"His widow 'being asked whether he did not often read Homer and

Virgil, she understood it as an imputation upon him for stealing from those authors, and answered with eagerness that he stole from nobody but the Muse who inspired him; and being asked by a lady present who the Muse was, replied it was God's grace, and the Holy Spirit that visited him nightly.' Newton's Milton, Pref. p. 80.

'There is scarce any author who has written so much, and upon such various subjects, and yet quotes so little from his contemporary authors.' Ib. p. 72. Swift went beyond him in scarcely ever 'taking a single thought from any writer, ancient or modern.' Post, SWIFT, 141.

3

Ante, MILTON, 26, 138, 231.

4 'Milton has acknowledged to me that Spenser was his original.' DryDEN, Works, xi. 210.

APPENDIX I (PAGE 85)

'The writing of deeds and charters was one of the employments of the regular clergy. After the dissolution of religious houses the business of a scrivener became a lay profession; and 14 Jac. [1617] a company of scriveners was incorporated, about which time they took themselves to the writing of wills, leases, &c. Francis Kirkman, in The Unlucky Citizen, 1673, relates that almost all the business of the city in making leases, mortgages, &c., and procuring money on securities of ground and houses, was transacted by these men, who hence assumed the name of money scriveners. The furniture of a scrivener's shop was a sort of pew for the master, desks for the apprentices, and a bench for the clients to sit on till their turn came.' HAWKINS, Hist. of Music, 1776, iii. 367. See also Masson's Milton, i. 24, Johnson in his Dictionary defines money-scrivener as 'one who raises money for others.' For the griping scrivener' see Dryden's Works, xii. 369.

'Among the psalm-tunes composed into four parts by sundry authors, and published by Thomas Ravenscroft in 1633, there are many, particularly that common one called York Tune, with the name John Milton; the tenor of this tune is so well known that within memory half the nurses in England were used to sing it by way of lullaby; and the chimes of many country churches have played it six or eight times in four and twenty hours from time immemorial.' HAWKINS, Hist. of Music, iii. 368. See also Aubrey's Brief Lives, ii. 62,; Phillips' Milton, p. 4; T. Warton's Milton's Poems, p. 523; Masson's Milton, i. 50; and N.& Q. & S. v. 346.

APPENDIX J (PAGE 86)

It was from the elder brother, Edward, that this account is derived. In 1694 he published Letters of State written by Mr. John Milton... To which is added An Account of his Life. Together with several of his Poems. John Phillips lived by his pen, often sinking into obscenity. For many years he was 'in the closest intimacy with Titus Oates.' Masson's Milton, v. 259, 382; vi. 462, 767. Aubrey describes him as 'very happy at jiggish poetry.' Brief Lives, ii. 152. Edward, though he wrote a licentious book (Masson's Milton, v. 383), was generally decent in his writings. He was a tutor in the families of Evelyn and of the Earls of Pembroke and Arlington. Ib. vi. 763, Evelyn recorded under Oct. 24, 1663 :-' Mr Edward Philips came to be my son's preceptor; this gentleman was nephew to Milton who wrote against Salmasius's Defensio, but was not at all infected with his principles.' Diary, i. 399. For his History of Poetry see MILTON, 42. His chief performance is the fourth edition of Baker's Chronicle.' Masson's Milton, vi. 481.

APPENDIX K (PAGE 90)

For Samuel Hartlib, 'the son of a Polish merchant of German extraction' by an English wife, 'who made London his head-quarters,' see Masson's Milton, iii. 193. Evelyn describes him as 'honest and learned Mr. Hartlib, a public-spirited and ingenious person, who had propagated many useful things and arts.' Diary, i. 326. Pepys attended the wedding of his daughter 'Nan Hartlib, which was kept at Goring House, with very great state, cost, and noble company.' Diary, i. 115.

In A Shelf of Old Books by Mrs. James T. Fields, New York, 1895, p. 147, is given a facsimile of the following title-page :-Poems, &c., upon Several Occasions. By Mr. John Milton. Both English and Latin, &c. Composed at several times. With a small Tractate of Education. To Mr. Hartlib. London, Printed for Tho. Dring at the Blew Anchor next Mitre Court over against Fetter Lane in Fleet-street, 1673. 'It belonged to Thomas Gray when a schoolboy, his name being written nine times by himself upon the title-page.'

The original tract had no title-page, but the following heading on the first page:-' OF EDUCATION: TO MASTER SAMUEL HARTLIB.' Masson's Milton, iii. 233. See MILTON, 152.

APPENDIX L (PAGE 106)

For Milton's Doctrine of Divorce see Works, i. 332-end; ii. 1-63. The first edition appeared in 1643, probably as early as Aug. 1. Masson's Milton, iii. 44. Its title was The Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce, Restor'd, to the good of both Sexes, from the Bondage of Canon Law and other mistakes, to Christian Freedom, guided by the Rule of Charity, &c. The second edition, published in Feb. 1643-4, has a different title, and is 'a great enlargement.' Ib. p. 64. Among the causes of divorce 'there is no word of desertion.' Ib. p. 72.

The second tract was The Judgement of Martin Bucer concerning Divorce. Writt'n to Edward the Sixt, in his Second Book of the Kingdom of Christ. And now Englisht. Wherein a late Book restoring the Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce is heer confirm'd and justify'd by the authoritie of Martin Bucer. To the Parlament of England. It was published on July 15, 1644. Bucer had been appointed by Edward VI Professor of Divinity at Cambridge. Masson's Milton, iii. 255; Works, ii. 64.

III.

"The four chief Places of Scripture' were Gen. i. 27, 28, compared and explained by Gen. ii. 18, 23, 24; Deut. xxiv. 1, 2; Matt. v. 31, 32, with Matt. xix from ver. 3 to 11; 1 Cor. vii. from ver. 10 to 16. Ib. ii. The Tetrachordon appeared on March 4, 1644-5. Masson's Milton, iii. 301. Johnson passes over Milton's fourth tract on divorce Colasterion, published on the same day as Tetrachordon. Ib. p. 313; Works, ii. 240. In his Treatise on Christian Doctrine (Bk. i. ch. 10), published after his death (MILTON, 166 m.), he argued for the lawfulness of polygamy. See Masson's Milton, vi. 830.

APPENDIX M (PAGE 110)

The Eikon Basilike was published on or before Feb. 9, 1648-9. There were, it is said, fifty editions in various languages within a year. Masson's Milton, iv. 36 n., 129 n.

Lord Chancellor Hyde, in answer to Dr. Gauden, who pressed him for a better reward than the poor bishopric of Exeter (he expected Winchester, and obtained Worcester), wrote about the authorship of this book on March 13, 1660-1:-'Truly when it ceases to be a secret, I know nobody will be glad of it but Mr. Milton.' Todd on Eikon, p. 20.

'It was,' writes Burnet, 'universally believed to be the King's own... It had the greatest run, in many impressions, that any book has had in our age. There was in it a nobleness and justness of thought, with a greatness of style, that made it to be looked on as the best writ book in the English language. . . . I was bred up with a high veneration of it.' Burnet adds that in 1673 the Duke of York (James II) told him that Dr. Gawden writ it.' Burnet's History of my own Time, 1724, i. 50-1.

Toland also prints (Life of Milton, p. 84) a memorandum in the hand of the Earl of Anglesea (MILTON, 143) within a copy of Eikon Basilike, discovered on the sale of his library in 1686, stating that 'King Charles II and the Duke of York did both assure me that this... was made by Dr. Gauden.'

...

'Its real author, Dr. John Gauden, caught with great felicity the higher motives which were never absent from Charles' mind. . . . The greedily devoured volumes served to create an ideal image of Charles which went far to make the permanent overthrow of the monarchy impossible.' GARDINER, Civil War, iv. 325.

Macaulay, after telling how the licenser of the press, in 1693, authorized the publication of a book by Dr. Anthony Walker, an intimate friend of Gauden, asserting from personal knowledge that Gauden was the author of the Eikon Basilike, continues :-'If he had authorized the publication of a work in which the Gospel of St. John or the Epistle to the Romans had been represented as spurious, the indignation of the High Church party could hardly have been greater. The question was not literary, but religious. Doubt was impiety. The Blessed Martyr was an inspired penman, his Icon a supplementary revelation.... [James] Fraser [the licenser] found it necessary to resign his place.' Hist. of England, vi. 361.

Southey believed it to be genuine (Life and Corres., 1850, v. 81).

[See also E. Almack, Bibliography of the... Eikon Basilike (1896), important from the bibliographical point of view; and W. H. Hutton, Influence of Christianity upon National Character, illustrated by the Lives and Legends of the English Saints (Bampton Lectures for 1903, published by Messrs. Wells, Gardner & Co.), pp. 337-52. Mr. Hutton expresses his views as to the authorship at p. 348 n. 2.]