THE LITERARY EXAMINER. No. IX. SATURDAY, AUGUST 30, 1823. THE INDICATOR. No. LXXXII. There he arriving, round about doth fly, Now this, now that, he tasteth tenderly.-SPENSER. ON THE LATIN POEMS OF MILTON. It is not the object of this article to compare Milton with others who have excelled in modern Latin poetry. I am not sufficiently conversant either with the writers themselves, or the niceties of Latin composition. At the same time, I am so far able to judge of the amount of the poetry which they contain as to make no hesitation in declaring, first, that Milton in these early productions announced a greater genius than is to be found in any of his Latin rivals; and secondly, that if those writers had had any thing like a great poetical faculty, they would have been led by the same instinct as Milton and Ariosto, to abandon poetical composition in the Latin language. Petrarch, because Oriental literature was then being dug up, wrote a Latin epic, which nobody reads; but the instinct of that divine poet led him to use his native tongue, when he came to the most heartfelt and most renowned of his compositions. If it is impossible for so ordinary a scholar as I am to be a competent critic of Latin, it is no less impossible for the greatest scholars to be perfect writers of it. Their style must either be made up of centos,-must either be little else but so much authorized patchwork,—or neither the critic nor themselves can be sure that it is correct. If it is not so compounded, it merely translates their native words into Latin, and renders the style a jargon, fit only for Macaronic verses. In either case, a great poet, who desires above all men to vent his impulses in a manner the most powerful and the most sure of its power, will not long endure to be in such a state of doubt and dependence: and therefore when we hear of the great poets that Buchanan, Fracastorius, and others would have been, had they not unfortunately written in Latin, we may rest assured, that it was the most fortunate thing they could do. If they had had the impulse, they would have obeyed it. The Italian poems of Fracastorius, and even of Sannazarius, are worth little. They are both of them greater men, or appear such, than Fracastoro and Sannazzaro. The Latin poetry of Vincent Bourne has grace and tenderness, and might not have looked so well in English. But this is because a covering of this sort, in matters comparatively trivial, veils a certain weakness, without VOL I. 9 concealing what is good. Common-places appear less common in an extraordinary language. Milton's Latin poetry is the only modern compromise with centos and ancient phrases, which I could ever read with attention. The reason is, not that it is better Latin, or less compounded (for in fact it is an imitation of Ovid's style, heightened here and there by Claudian, or rather by his own natural love of stately and sonorous words) but that it contains greater thoughts. Lord Monboddo pronounces his first epistle to Deodati to be equal to any thing" of the elegiac kind to be found in Ovid, or even in Tibullus." For my part, I prefer his Latin poetry, as poetry, to any thing in the miscellaneous productions of Ovid, Tibullus, or any other Latin writer, except Catullus. If I am not to have as good poetry as this in the shape of doubtful Latin verses, I prefer the Macaronics of Dr. Geddes at once, or of Drummond of Hawthornden, if he had not been gross. "Thick shortus sed homo, cui nomen credo Bevellus, I wish I could recollect more of the Doctor's verses. taste of Drummond : "Hic aderant Geordy Akinhedius, et little Johnnus, Et bobbare bene, et lassas kissare bonæas; Et Rob Gib, wantonus homo, atque Oliver Hutchin." Here is a But he becomes atrociously Scotch, as he proceeds. Cowley, whose Latin poetry Dr. Johnson wished to prefer to Milton's, has passages of triumphant English; as Warton has pointed out in his observations on the poems before us. They would have made a Roman split his sides; yet I prefer their wilful and sprightly contempt of their own learned Patois before any Latin poetry inferior to Milton's. I cannot even an objection of any sort to the line, which Warton quotes from a passage he otherwise admires as containing "a party worthy of the pastoral pencil of Watteau." Hauserunt avidè Chocolatam Flora Venusque. Venus and Flora busy sat, see I know not the context. The passage is in his Latin poem upon plants, which was translated by Mrs. Behn and others. What I propose in the present Indicator is merely to shew the English reader, as well as I am able, how completely the Latin Milton answers to the English: how suitable the conceptions of the young Latin poet are to those of the author of Lycidas and Penseroso, and consequently of the future author of the Paradise Lost. Occasion will be taken by the way to notice some circumstances of his private life, which do not appear in the ordinary biographies. The first piece is the epistle above-mentioned, addressed to his friend Deodati. It is called an elegy, because it is written in couplets of unequal length. Elegy did not then imply a melancholy subject; which I notice, because it may serve as an answer to a question of Dr. Johnson's; who wonders why Sheffield, Duke of Buckingham, in his Essay on Poetry, 'calls Waller's Panegyric on Cromwell, and Denham's Cooper's Hill, elegies. The reason seems to be, because they considered any short poem, written with great care, in heroic lines, and upon a serious though not of neceesity a melancholy subject, as a near approach to what the ancients intended when they wrote elegy. Ovid, in his personification of Elegy (Amorum Lib. 3, v. 7,) appears to have regarded her in a light rather sprightly than otherwise, altogether given up to love; and describes her hair as perfumed. However, he afterwards found occasion to be very elegiacal and unhappy. Most of the Roman elegies are on love subjects. Milton intermingles funereal subjects and festive. Gray, as well as Hammond and Grainger, the trauslators of Tibullus, probably thought the measure in which the poem on the Country Church-yard is written, to have some resemblance to the alternate look of the Latin elegy; but Gray was too good a scholar to give it that name, solely on account of its subject. At the same time, I believe, it is a question whether the Greeks did not consider all elegy as sorrowful. But I am digressing too far. * A Deodati was a young physician, of Italian origin, who had been Milton's school-fellow, and was fondly beloved by him up to the period of his early death; as we shall see presently. The present poem is an acknowledgment of a letter he had received from his friend' out of Cheshire, and informs him how he was passing his time in London. A passage at the commencement has rendered it doubtful, whether Milton was not then spending a forced or even runaway vacation from his College studies; but be this as it may, it unequivocally expresses his contempt of Cambridge instructors and Cambridge fields. naked country," says he, "that denies us our gentle shades, how unfitting is such a place for poets!" He proceeds to say, how delighted he is with his books; and that when he is tired with study, he goes to the theatre to enjoy tragedies and comedies. The look of the inside of the house, filled with spectators, is finely painted in the phrase of "sinuosi pompa theatri"-the pomp of the bosomy theatre. His father, he says, has got a house in the suburbs, near a grove of elmtrees; where he is often treated with the sight of companies of young ladies passing along-" Virgineos choros." He is in all the raptures of a young poet and collegian with their beautiful figures, faces, hairs, and complexions; and calls upon a long Miltonic list of ancient heroines to give up the palm, including those Who took the wandering Jupiter. Furthermore, Paphos and Gnidus are to be nothing like London; and all the handmaid stars who wait upon "the Endymionian Goddess" are to withdraw their sparkling pretensions. The learning is young and over done, but mingled with the dawn of the great poet. At the same time, he announces the severity of watch which he kept over himself, by saying that he must take care of " the halls of Circe." The second elegy is a short copy of verses on the death of one of the University Beadles: yet in this trifle upon a College officer, whose "station" he compares to Mercury, new lighted" in one of Homer's halls, he has contrived to introduce a personification of Death, worthy of his maturest imagery. Death, with the Romans, was a pale female. Our young poet calls her magna sepulchrorum regina" the great queen of sepulchres." One's imagination conceives her reigning amidst a ghastly multitude of tombs, under a black sky. Perhaps he had an eye to the city of sepulchres in Dante. 1 Elegy the third is on the death of Launcelot Andrews, Bishop of Winchester. Death takes a gentler aspect here, and is prettily asked why she is not content with her power over the woods and the birdswith withering away the lily and the rose. There is an elegant couplet at v. 47. 1 Warton's high-church principles have made him write a note on this elegy, not very judicious. He says, that Milton, as he grew old in Puritanism, must have looked back with disgust and remorse on the panegyric of this performance, as on one of the sins of his youth, inexperience, and orthodoxy; for he had here celebrated, not only a bishop, but a bishop who supported the dignity and constitution of the Church of England in their most extensive latitude, the distinguished favourite of Elizabeth and James, and the defender of royal prerogative. Clarendon says, that if Andrews," who loved and understood the Church," had succeeded Bancroft in the see of Canterbury," that infection would easily have been kept out, which could not afterwards be so easily expelled."—Yes; but not because Andrews was so mightily attached to "royal prerogative," but because in fact he was less so than Archbishop Laud. Johnson, in his life of Waller, relates of this Bishop Andrews, that one day when James asked the Bishop of Durham and him," whether he could not take his subjects money when he wanted it without all this formality of parliament?" the Bishop of Durham readily answered, "God forbid, Sir, but you should: you are the breath of our nostrils." Whereupon the King turned, and said to the Bishop of Winchester," Well, my lord, what say you ?"-"Sir," replied the Bishop, " I have no skill to judge in parliamentary cases." The King answered, "No put-offs, my lord; answer me presently." "Then, Sir," said he, "I think it is lawful for you to take my brother Neale's money; for he offers it." This is not like the man whom Milton would love least of the bishops, or Tories the most. As to Milton's "growing old in Puritanism," it is certain that he did not; whatever the opinions might have been in which he did grow old. A new class of dissenters, now legalized, boast of the Unitarian look of his Paradise Regained; but " more remains behind." "The theological sentiments of Milton," says Mr. Todd, “are said to have been often changed; from Puritanism to Calvinism; from Calvinism to an esteem for Arminius; and finally, from an accordance with Independents and Anabaptists, to a dereliction of every denomination of Protestants. From any heretical peculiarity of opinion he was free." (How does he know that?) "Dr. Newton considers him as a Quietist, full of the interiour of religion, though he so little regarded the exteriour. Dr. Johnson observes, that he grew old without any visible worship; but that he lived without prayer, can hardly be affirmed: his studies and meditations were an habitual prayer." (This is fine.) "From a remark of Toland," continues Mr. Todd, "that in the latter part of his life Milton frequented none of the assemblies of any particular sect of Christians, nor made use of their particular rites in his family, have arisen assertions without proofs, that he did not use any religious rite,' and that ' he never used prayer in his family.' I am inclined to believe, that he, who in his divine poem, &c." What the Reverend Mr. Todd is inclined to believe, is surely not the question. The probability is, that Milton, like many other men of inquiring, independent, and philosophic spirits, found less and less reason to be dogmatic, as he advanced in life; that the native vigour of his mind kept him still inquiring and still independent; that he believed as much as possible of whatever the natural piety of his youth and of his poetry believed; and finally, that he "waited," in something like the Quietism that is attributed to him, "the great teacher Death." Milton, who was in every corner of his mind as decided and practical a Reformer as can be conceived, has had an erroneous reputation fastened upon him by the theology of his epic poem." *3 I find little to notice in the long elegy that follows, except the conclusion. It is an epistle to his friend and former preceptor, Thomas Young, a dissenting minister of eminence, to comfort him in his abe sence from England. Its prophecies of restoration aud honour were verified.' Milton was now eighteen. He was only a year younger when he recorded the pastoral virtues of the Bishop of Winchester; yet we now find him zealous for the Puritans; and calling Charles the First and his troublesome wife, Ahab and Jezebel. The poet rises at the conclusion into a noble sketch of the præternatural discomfiture of Benhadad, King of Syria: upon which passage the reader will indulge me in quoting a note by Warton, a commentator with whom it is pleasant to agree. After noticing Milton's comparison of his friend with Elijah wandering over the desarts, "to avoid the menaces of Ahab and the violence of Jezebel," he says, that the poet "selects a most striking miracle, under which the power of the Deity is displayed in Scripture as a protection in battle, with reference to his friend's situation, from the surrounding dangers of war.-See 2 Kings, c. vii, v. 5. For the Lord had made the host of the Syrians to hear a noise of chariots and a noise of horses, even the noise of a great host," &c. In the sequel of the narrative of this wonderful consternation and flight of the Syrians, the solitude of their vast deserted camp affords a most affecting image. We came to the camp of the Syrians, and behold there was no man there, neither voice of man; but horses tied, and asses tied, and the tents as they were.' Ibid. vii. 9. This is like a scene of enchantment in romance." See Warton's edition of the Minor Poems of Milton. The passage in the Elegy is as follows: "At tu sume animos: nec spes cadat anxia curis, Sis etenim quamvis fulgentibus obsitus armis, Intententque tibi millia tela necem, At nullis vel inerme latus violabitur armis, Dêque tuo cuspis nulla crouore bibit. Namque eris ipse Dei radiante sub ægide tutus; Ille, Sionææ qui tot sub mænibus arcis Assyrios fudit nocte silente viros; Inque fugam vertit quos in Samaritadas oras Misit ab antiquis prisca Damascus agris : |