DEFINITIONS OF FIGURES OF SPEECH, WITH EXAMPLES, 79

EXTRA NOTES, MOSTLY ETYMOLOGICAL,

SYNOPTICAL TABLES,

SOME PARALLEL PASSAGES FROM THE CLASSICS,

LISTS OF PASSAGES FOR PARAPHRASING, &c.,

LIST OF WORDS EXPLAINED IN THE NOTES,

INTRODUCTION.

LIFE OF MILTON.

After Shakespeare, Milton is usually acknowledged to be the greatest English poet; yet he is not generally thought of as a national poet—as a representative of English character, in nearly the same degree as Shakespeare. He was closely connected with a party—the Puritans; and his eager partisanship undoubtedly had a narrowing effect upon him, and upon his later poetry. But was Milton a Puritan? He lived at a time when every man felt bound to take his stand with one of two parties: either with a king who was exercising despotic power in religious and civil matters; or with those who held that the king was bound to rule lawfully for the common good, and that in religion reasonable freedom should be allowed--whose motto was 'fair play' for everyone, even from kings. These principles Milton held as firmly as any man; to this extent he was one of the most earnest of Puritans. But it seems to be the very irony of fate, that he who took so keen a part in the struggle for freedomfreedom in religion, freedom from kingly tyranny, and freedom to think for one's self-now the most envied and the most cherished possessions of Englishmen, should not be more generally remembered and honoured as a great patriot. That he was not even a greater poet than he was, is due to the unhappy times in which he lived, and to the fact that, much as he loved poetry, he loved his country more.

The Milton family appear to have been distinguished by their strong convictions, and by their courage in acting upon them. The poet's grandfather is said to have been a staunch Catholic in the days of Elizabeth, and to have been heavily fined as a recusant—that is, for refusing to attend the services at the parish church. His son, the poet's father, on the other hand, became a Protestant, and was in consequence disin

herited. He settled in London as a scrivener,1 and prospered,
and there the poet was born in 1608.
His education was
carried on at home by various masters, and by his father,
who taught him to sing and to play the organ, and implanted
in him his own love of music. Although his home was a
cheerful and happy place, he seems to have been an unusually
quiet, serious child, and prematurely studious, if we may judge
from some lines placed by the engraver under a portrait of
him, made when he was ten years old:

"When I was yet a child, no childish play
To me was pleasing: all my mind was set
Serious to learn and know, and thence to do
What might be public good; myself I thought
Born to that end, born to promote all truth,

All righteous things". (Paradise Regained.).

At twelve he was sent to St. Paul's School, quite near his home in the city of London, and he still had tutors at home. He now worked very hard indeed2 for several years; no trouble or expense was grudged by his parents; for they were very proud of him, and had formed the highest hopes as to his future. In 1625, when in his seventeenth year, he entered Christ's College, Cambridge, and remained there till he was twenty-three.

Here came a break in his education, and with it the question, What was he going to do in life? His parents had destined him for the church; but the system of government by bishops and the tyranny of Laud deterred him from entering the ministry. His father seems to have left him free to choose a calling for himself,3 and so we find him, about the

1 The business of a scrivener in London consisted in the drawing up of wills, marriage settlements, and other deeds, the lending out of money for clients, and much else now done partly by attorneys, and partly by law-stationers.

2 "My father destined me, while yet a little boy, for the study of humane letters, which I seized with such eagerness that from the twelfth year of my age I scarce ever went from my lessons to bed before midnight, which indeed was the first cause of injury to my eyes, to whose natural weakness there were also added frequent headaches."

3 The elder Milton was himself a very well-educated man, and showed throughout the most generous sympathy and appreciation. The poet gratefully acknowledges this in his Latin poem Ad Patrem,-and hopes that other fathers may imitate him.