ciples, which will soon cause us to solder up with them again; inasmuch as, believing Antiquity for itself in any one point, we bring an engagement upon ourselves of assenting to all that it charges upon us.

THE REASON OF CHURCH GOVERNMENT URGED

AGAINST PRELATY.

In the first book of this treatise Milton undertakes to prove that church-government is not a matter of indifference, but is set down in Scripture. He then argues at length against the position of Bishop Andrews and Archbishop Usher, that it is to be patterned by the Levitical Law, and finally shows that "Prelaty was not set up for prevention of schism, as is pretended; or that, if it were, it performs not what it was first set up for, but quite the contrary.”

In the Introduction to the second book he gives the following most interesting justification of his own conduct in this controversy.

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 whatever 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 they 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 wast dumb as a beast. From henceforth 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 show 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, while 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 pre* The fortune made by his father. This shows that Milton was in independent circumstances.

Alluding probably to Comus, etc.

In its original Latin sense, muteness, not speaking.

ventive* 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 pleasing humour of vain glory hath excited 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; whereas 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 chuse this manner of writing, wherein knowing myself inferior to myself, led by the genial power of nature to another task, I have the use, 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 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 sing

as

* In its Latin sense, anticipatory, like "prevenient grace." + Equalis, equitable, just.

This seems to be an allusion to his meditated great work.

§ He had perhaps in his mind the description of Arion in the Fasti of his favourite Ovid.

ing-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 from my first years, by the ceaseless care and diligence 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 thereabouts-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 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+ * Invidia, in its sense of odium. + Ingenia: see above, p. 28.

of Athens, Rome, or modern Italy, and those Hebrews of old did for their country, I, in my proportion, with this over 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.

Time serves not now, and perhaps I might seem too profuse, to give any certain account of what the mind at home, in the spacious circuits of her musing, hath liberty to propose to herself, though of highest hope and hardest attempting: whether that epic form whereof the two poems of Homer, and those other two of Virgil and Tasso are a diffuse, and the Book of Job a brief model; or whether the rules of Aristotle herein are strictly to be kept, or nature to be followed,* which, in them that know art and use judgement, is no transgression, but an enriching of art; and lastly, what king or knight, before the Conquest, might be chosen in whom to lay the pattern of a Christian hero; and, as Tasso gave to a Prince of Italy his choice, whether he would command him to write of Godfrey's expedition against the Infidels, or Belisarius' against the Goths, or Charlemain against the Lombards, if to the instinct of nature and the emboldening of art aught may be trusted, and that there be nothing adverse in our climate or the fate of this age, it haply would be no rashness, from an equal diligence and inclination to present the like offer in our own ancient stories or whether those dramatic constitutions, wherein Sophocles and Euripides reign, shall be found more doctrinal and exemplary to a nation; the Scripture also affords us a divine pastoral drama in the Song of Solomon, consisting of two persons and a double chorus, as Origen rightly judges, and the Apocalypse of St. John is the majestic image of a high and stately tragedy, shutting up and intermingling her solemn scenes and acts with a sevenfold chorus of hallelujahs and harping symphonies,-and this my opinion the grave authority of Pareus, commenting that book, is sufficient to confirm: or, if occasion shall lead, to imitate those

*As by Ariosto and Spenser, perhaps he means.

† i. e. instructive, serving for example, as the Novelas Exemplares of Cervantes.