MILTON'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY made up of all the more important autobiographical passages contained in his prose and poetical works (continued 3)
Reading edition
—Paradise Lost, Book vii. 1-39.
'No more of talk where God or Angel Guest With Man, as with his friend, familiar used To sit indulgent, and with him partake Rural repast, permitting him the while Venial discourse unblamed. I now must change 5 Those notes to tragic—foul distrust, and breach Disloyal, on the part of man, revolt And disobedience; on the part of Heaven, Now alienated, distance and distaste, Anger and just rebuke, and judgment given, 10 That brought into this World a world of woe, Sin and her shadow Death, and Misery, Death's harbinger. Sad task! yet argument Not less but more heroic than the wrath Of stern Achilles on his foe pursued 15 Thrice fugitive about Troy wall; or rage Of Turnus for Lavinia disespoused; Or Neptune's ire, or Juno's, that so long Perplexed the Greek, and Cytherea's son; If answerable style I can obtain 20 Of my celestial Patroness, who deigns Her nightly visitation unimplored, And dictates to me slumbering, or inspires Easy my unpremeditated verse, Since first this subject for heroic song 25 Pleased me, long choosing and beginning late, Not sedulous by nature to indite Wars, hitherto the only argument Heroic deemed, chief mastery to dissect With long and tedious havoc fabled knights 30 In battles feigned (the better fortitude Of patience and heroic martyrdom Unsung), or to describe races and games, Or tilting furniture, emblazoned shields, Impresses quaint, caparisons and steeds, 35 Bases and tinsel trappings, gorgeous knights At joust and tournament; then marshalled feast Served up in hall with sewers and seneshals: The skill of artifice or office mean; Not that which justly gives heroic name 40 To person or to poem! Me, of these Nor skilled nor studious, higher argument Remains, sufficient of itself to raise That name, unless an age too late, or cold Climate, or years, damp my intended wing 45 Depressed; and much they may if all be mine, Not hers who brings it nightly to my ear.'
—Paradise Lost, Book ix. 1-47.
The following verses addressed to the seraph Abdiel, Milton, at the time he wrote them, might justly have taken to himself:
'Servant of God, well done! Well hast thou fought The better fight, who single hast maintained Against revolted multitudes the cause Of truth, in word mightier than they in arms, And for the testimony of truth hast borne Universal reproach, far worse to bear Than violence; for this was all thy care— To stand approved in sight of God, though worlds Judged thee perverse.'
—Paradise Lost, Book vi. 29-37.
Milton regarded himself as an Abdiel (i.e. as the name signifies in Hebrew, Servant of God), in the past struggle for civil and religious liberty; like Abdiel,
'Among innumerable false, unmoved, Unshaken, unseduced, unterrified, His loyalty he kept, his love, his zeal; Nor number nor example with him wrought To swerve from truth, or change his constant mind, Though single.'
—Paradise Lost, Book v. 898-903.
The following, from 'Paradise Regained,' Book i. 196-208, Milton might have written of himself:
'Oh, what a multitude of thoughts at once Awakened in me swarm, while I consider What from within I feel myself, and hear What from without comes often to my ears, Ill sorting with my present state compared! 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. Therefore, above my years, The Law of God I read, and found it sweet; Made it my whole delight.'
The following letter reveals the difficulties under which Milton, in his blindness, was, at times, obliged to write.
To the very distinguished Peter Heimbach, Councillor to the Elector of Brandenburg. (Familiar Letters, No. XXXI.)
Small wonder if, in the midst of so many deaths of my countrymen, in a year of such heavy pestilence, you believed, as you write you did, on the faith of some special rumour, that I also had been cut off. Such a rumour among your people is not displeasing, if it was the occasion of making known the fact that they were anxious for my safety, for then I can regard it as a sign of their good will to me. But, by the blessing of God, who had provided for my safety in a country retreat, I am still both alive and well, nor useless yet, I hope, for any duty that remains to be performed by me in this life.—That after so long an interval I should have come into your mind is very agreeable; although, from your exuberant expression of the matter, you seem to afford some ground for suspecting that you have rather forgotten me, professing as you do such an admiration of the marriage-union in me of so many different virtues. Truly, I should dread a too numerous progeny from so many forms of the marriage-union as you enumerate, were it not an established truth that virtues are nourished most and flourish most in straitened and hard circumstances; albeit I may say that one of the virtues of your list has not very handsomely requited me the hospitable reception she had. For what you call policy, but I would rather have you call loyalty to one's country,—this particular lass, after inveigling me with her fair name, has almost expatriated me, so to speak. The chorus of the rest, however, makes a very fine harmony. One's country is wherever it is well with one.—And now I will conclude, after first begging you, if you find anything incorrectly written or without punctuation here, to impute that to the boy who has taken it down from my dictation, and who is utterly ignorant of Latin, so that I was forced, while dictating, not without misery, to spell out the letters of the words one by one. Meanwhile, I am glad that the merits of one whom I knew as a young man of excellent hope have raised him to so honourable a place in his Prince's favour; and I desire and hope all prosperity for you otherwise. Farewell!
London, August 15, 1666.