Page images
PDF
EPUB

We too, ourselves, what time we seek again
Our native skies, (and one eternal now
Shall be the only measure of our being,)
Crown'd all with gold, and chanting to the lyre
Harmonious verse, shall range the courts above,
And make the starry firmament resound:
And even now the fiery spirit pure,

That wheels yon circling orbs, directs, himself,
Their mazy dance with melody of verse
Unutterable, immortal; hearing which,
Huge Ophiuchus holds his hiss suppress'd;
Orion, soften'd, drops his ardent blade,
And Atlas stands unconscious of his load.
Verse graced of old the feast of kings, ere yet
Luxurious dainties, destined to the gulf
Immense of gluttony, were known, and ere
Lyæus deluged yet the temperate board.
Then sat the bard a customary guest,

To share the banquet; and his length of locks,
With beechen honours bound, proposed in verse
The character of heroes, and their deeds
To imitation: sang of chaos old;

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
The rural dance, but such was ne'er the song
Of Orpheus, whom the streams stood still to hear,
And the oaks follow'd. Not by chords alone
Well touch'd, but by resistless accents more
To sympathetic tears the ghosts themselves
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
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 conjoin'd
In close affinity, we sympathize

In social arts, and kindred studies sweet?
Such distribution of himself to us

Was Phoebus' choice: thou hast thy gift, and I
Mine also; and between us we receive,
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 badst me tread
The beaten path and broad, that leads right on
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, led'st me far away
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
As nature bids, but of thy larger gifts,
My Father! who, when I had open'd once
The stores of Roman rhetoric, and learn'd

The full-toned language of the eloquent Greeks,
Whose lofty music graced the lips of Jove,
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.

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,
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?,

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
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

Will hold, and where the conqueror's ivy twines,
Henceforth exempt from the unletter'd throng
Profane, nor even to be seen by such.

Away, then, sleepless Care! Complaint, away!
And Envy, with thy jealous leer malign!
Nor let the monster Calumny shoot forth
Her venom'd 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.
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.

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 absorb'd

In the oblivious Lethæan gulf,

Shall to futurity perhaps convey

This theme, and by these praises of my Sire
Improve the fathers of a distant age.

In 1627, Milton wrote his first Latin elegy, addressed to Charles Deodate,* * in answer to a letter from Cheshire.

* Charles Deodate, the son of Theodore, was born in 1574 at Geneva, where the family still flourishes. See Galife's 'Genealogies des Familles Genevoises.' Theodore came to England, and married a lady of good birth and fortune. In

Milton's Latin epistles are written in the style of Ovid; but the matter and language not servilely borrowed from him. It seems to me extraordinary that Milton should have taken Ovid for his model. I agree with Warton, that it would have been more probable that he would have taken Lucretius and Virgil, as more congenial to him. His poems 'Ad Patrem' and 'Mansus' I consider much superior, and in a different manner. I cannot agree that "his inherent powers of fancy and invention display themselves" much in the Elegies.' I suspect that the greater part of them might have been by any classical scholar of lively talents, rich in learning, and 1609 he appears to have been physician to Henry, Prince of Wales, and the Princess Elizabeth, afterwards Queen of Bohemia. He was brother of John Deodate, a learned Puritan divine, whose theological works, printed at Geneva, are well known. The family came from Lucca on account of their religion.

The following notice as to the family I am favoured with by one of its members, a learned librarian in the Public Library of Geneva. It is extracted from a letter written by Theodore, the father of Charles Deodate, and dated London, 20th March, 1675.

"Nous avons tenu le premier rang entre les familles nobles et patriciennes de tous tems à Lucques, et en sommes encore en possession; le père de mon grand-père logea en son palais l'empereur Charles Quinte: il étoit alors gonfalonier; auquel tems mon grand-père nacquit, et l'empereur fût son parrain, et le nomma Charles, et lui donna l'enseigne des diamans, qu'il portait en son col à son départ. Nous avons eu des généreaux d'armées. Le général Diodati conserva Brissac à l'empereur contre l'armée des princes d'Allemagne ; et fût tué d'une volée de canon dans Munich en Bavière. A' cette heure nous avons Don Jean Diodati, chévalier de Malthe, grand prieur de Venize, cousin germain de feu mon père," &c.

practised in conversation. Not so 'Ad Patrem' or 'Mansus;' or some of the college exercises. But it is no more than justice to quote Warton's more favourable judgment on the sixth elegy, also addressed to Deodate. He says, "the transitions and corrections of this elegy are conducted with the skill and address of a master, and form a train of allusions and digressions, productive of fine sentiment and poetry. From a trifling and unimportant circumstance the reader is gradually led to great and lofty imagery."

Of all the elegies, that which pleases me most, and which I consider far the most poetical, and at the same time the most original in its imagery, is the fifth elegy, 'In Adventum Veris,' ætatis 20, 1629.

But even here the images have not the raciness and wildness of the descriptions in his English poems. Warton speaks of it as excellent in all the requisites of poetry.

Here Milton says that his poetical genius returns in the spring: in later life, he has said that the autumn was the season of his composition.

The last elegy is, perhaps, the best, next to that upon the Spring. Milton was apt to encumber his poetry with too many learned allusions, which unfitted them for the general readers, who might have taste and sympathy without much technical erudition.

At this period, Milton's mind, though his English poems prove that at times it was grave and deep, yet occasionally showed all the playfulness

« PreviousContinue »