profits, finds Religion to be a traffick so entangl'd, and of so many piddling accounts, that of all mysteries he cannot skill to keep a stock going upon that trade. What should he doe? fain he would have the name to be religious, fain he would bear up with his neighbours in that. What does he therefore, but resolvs to give over toyling, and to find himself out som factor, to whose care and credit he may commit the whole managing of his religious affairs; som Divine of note and estimation that must be. To him he adheres, resigns the whole ware-house of his Religion, with all the locks and keyes into his custody; and indeed makes the very person of that man his Religion; esteems his associating with him a sufficient evidence and commendatory of his own piety. So that a man may say his Religion is now no more within himself, but is becom a dividuall movable, and goes and comes neer him, according as that good man frequents 8 His Religion is now no more within himself, but is becom a dividuall movable, and goes and comes neer him.] Dividual is divisible: "Twinn'd, and from her hath no dividual being." Again, in Beaumont and Fletcher, X. 24. edit. 1778. Here Seward, thinking dividual destroyed the sense, gave individual; and so made the text speak just the reverse of what the dramatic Poets intended. Individual is inseparable, indivisible, as in Tetrachordon: "His Tautology also of indissoluble and “individual, is not to be imitated." p. 20. 4to. 1645. K the house. He entertains him, gives him gifts, feasts him, lodges him; his Religion comes home at night, praies, is liberally supt, and sumptuously laid to sleep, rises, is saluted, and after the Malmsey, or some well spic't bruage, and better breakfasted then He whose morning appetite would have gladly fed on green figs between Bethany and Jerusalem; his Religion walks abroad at eight, and leaves his kind entertainer in the shop trading all day without his Religion. 9 After the Malmsey, or some well-spic't bruage, and better breakfasted.] Ben Jonson had characteriz'd the Puritan Minister, Zealot of the Land Busy's sumptuous fare at his Patroness's by much the same sort of description:-" fast by the teeth i' "the cold Turkye-pye i' the Cupboard, with a great white Loaf "on his left hand, and a Glass of Malmsey on his right.” Bartholomew Fair. A. 1. S. 6. From MILTON's representation of the usual morning repast in a family of staid and sanctimonious manners, we may gather the improved habits of life as to Temperance which have taken place since his days. Such beverage if now set at all on the Breakfast Table is only for the Fox-hunter before he goes out to the chase. Spiced Liquors for a long space of time were among the luxuries of our Ancestours. Froissart, as I recollect, mentions, that the Black Prince after the Battle of Poitiers, among other courtesies presented his prisoner, the King of France, with a cup of Wine and Spices. And a Poet, our Authour's conteinporary, asks, "What though some have a fraught "Of Cloves and Nutmegs, and in Cinnamon sail? "If thou hast wherewithall to spice a draught, "When griefs prevail." Herbert; the Temple, p. 131. 12mo. 1641. Another sort there be, who when they hear, that all things shall be order'd, all things regulated and settl'd; nothing writt'n but what passes through the custom-house of certain Publicans that have the tunaging and the poundaging of all free spok'n Truth'; will strait give themselvs up into your hands, mak'em and cut'em out what Religion ye please: there be delights, there be recreations and jolly pastimes, that will fetch the day about from sun to sun, and rock the tedious year as in a delightfull dream2. What need they torture their heads with 1 Through the custom house of certain Publicans that have the tunaging and the poundaging of all free spok'n Truth.] Johnson explains a Publican to be a toll-gatherer. If he had said a collector of Taxes, he would have been more correct: "In all "places Men that are grieved with payments to the Public, "discharge their anger upon the Publicans; that is to say, Far"mers, Collectors, and other Officers of the Public Revenue."Hobbes; Works; p. 140. fol. 1651. The levying of Tunnage and Poundage on merchandize by royal authority alone was a Grievance which had been condemned at the moment of their Dissolution by a tumultuary Vote of the House of Commons who sate for a short time in 1629. • There be delights, there be recreations and jolly pastimes, that will fetch the day about from sun to sun, and rock the tedious year as in a delightfull dream.] After the industry with which political enmity has widely propagated that MILTON felt no sympathy in the affections of social life, it behoves his admirers to remove this aspersion on his memory. The more so, since Johnson has given currency to the persuasion that he was of unamiable manners and a recluse; "an acrimonious and surly Republican," who was destitute of, the milder virtues. San that which others have tak'n so strictly, and so unalterably into their own pourveying? These are guine, not to say enthusiastic, in his complexional temperament, it is not reasonable to believe that MILTON was of an austere or repulsive demeanour; and he possessed by far too much native dignity, to be Pharisaical. With all his eager appetite for Knowlege, and habitudes of severe Study, he did not keep entirely aloof from the festal board. This was no part of his doctrine; neither was it his practice to sequester himself altogether from the world. Far otherwise: He taught, "For other things mild Heav'n a time ordains, So he says in the Sonnet on his own loss of sight; and this is not the tone of a man who regarded the intercourses of society with sourness or disdain; nor the language of one who held back from it as incompatible with the close application of a devoted Scholar. None of his Vindicators have dwelt on this traite of character, which Edward Philipps attests very quaintly: "Once in three "weeks or a month, he would drop into the society of some "young Sparks of his acquaintance, the chief whereof were "Mr. Alphry, and Mr. Miller, two Gentlemen of Grays Inn, "the Beau's of those times, but nothing near so bad as those "now-a-days; with these Gentlemen he would so far make bold "with his Body, as now and then to keep a Gaudy-day." Life prefixed to the Transl. of Letters of State; p. 20, 1694. By this transient glimpse which his Nephew and Pupil, his only Biographer who had a personal knowlege of him, affords us of the immortal Bard in his hours of convivial indulgence, we view him in a new and pleasing light; while it makes clear, that the forcible and eloquent language in the text was a spontaneous and unexaggerated sally, not a feigned effusion to suit the the fruits which a dull ease and cessation of our knowledge will bring forth among the People. How goodly, and how to be wisht were such an obedient unanimity as this? what a fine conformity would it starch us all into? doubtles a stanch and occasion of the argument.-Who among the Lyric Poets has given a warmer colouring to festive delights? At the same time, this passage helps to show that the late T. Warton imputed" a natural severity of mind" to MILTON unjustly, if he made use of this phrase in a sense distinct from that of the elder Richardson, who had before observed that the Poet" had a gravity in his temper, not melancholy, or not till "the latter part of his Life, not sour, morose, or ill-natur'd; "but a certain severity of Mind, a Mind not condescending to "little things." Life prefix'd to Notes and Remarks on Par. Lost. p. 15. 8vo. 1734.-Still I should have preferred in both these instances, because it would have been unequivocal, to have characterized the Authour of Paradise Lost as endowed with an elevation of Thought which could but ill stoop to levities. MILTON's self-control and temperate habits enhance his merit in a high degree; as they were the result of a resolution, formed soon after he arrived at manhood, to " spend "his years in the search of civil and religious knowlege.”—Pr. W. I. 135. ed. 1738. "all his study bent "To worship GoD aright, and know his works "Not hid, nor those things last, which might preserve P. L. XI. 577. Let me add, that he probably shadowed his own regulated forbearance in the closing couplet of another poetical address. He is inviting a Friend to appoint a place where they might sometimes meet and pass a winter's day together in colloquial enjoyment, and elegant festivity, when he concludes, "He, who of those delights can judge, and spare "To interpose them oft, is not unwise." |