The Prose Works of John Milton, with an Introductory Review. By ROBERT FLETCHER. London: Westley and Davis, Imperial 8vo.

We scarcely know how a more important service could be rendered to the literature of our country than by the publication of this volume. It has long been matter of deep regret, to those who were acquainted with the Prose Works of our immortal bard, that they should exist only in a voluminous and expensive form. Symmons's edition was too costly for the generality of purchasers, and the folio edition was rarely to be met with. But this difficulty is now removed; for the volume before us, which is one of the most beautiful specimens of typography we have ever seen, places the whole of these unrivalled productions within the reach of almost every reader. The appearance of these works is a healthy sign of the times. It constitutes a promise of good, and awakens hope of the future. It shows that we are beginning to rectify the false judgments of our predecessors; that the prejudices of ignorance and intolerance, of religious and political craft, are passing away.

It is strange, wondrously strange, that we should have permitted these fountains to be sealed up so long. Their waters are so salutary, they possess such a bracing and healthful virtue, that our British youths should have been directed to drink of them from their earliest years. They would have given a healthy tone and vigour to our national mind, and have prepared us to act that high and virtuous part to which the providence of God invites us. Unhappily, however, these treasures have been neglected. The volumes of Milton have been to the public mind, like the Apocalyptic roll, sealed within and without. Nor is it difficult to account for this fact: its solution is known to all. Milton

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was one of a party distinguished by the higher and sterner virtues of which humanity is susceptible. But they were in advance of their age. Their views were too enlarged for their contemporaries, and their principles of conduct too remote from the common rules of man. Hence they failed to carry with them the sympathy of their fellows. They broke through ordinary restraints, disregarded the precedents of former times, and appealed to those general principles and immutable laws which pervade the moral universe. They were rebels against the king, but faithful subjects of the law; sworn enemies to tyranny, yet stern exactors of obedience unto God. Their patriotism was enlightened and refined by piety; their sagacity in council and their courage in the field were perpetually replenished by intercourse with heaven. One moment witnessed them in deep prostration before their Maker, and the next heard their defiance of earthly majesty, and saw them break, with more than mortal force, the rod of their oppressor. "Those godlike geniuses were well assured that nature had not intended man for a lowspirited and ignoble being; but, bringing us into life and the midst of this vast universe, as before a multitude assembled at some heroic solemnity, that we might be spectators of all her magnificence, and candidates high for the prize of glory, she has therefore implanted in our souls an inextinguishable love of every thing great and exalted, of every thing which appears divine beyond our comprehension."

With

Milton was the friend and public defender of these men. a spirit as lofty and unbending as any of their number, and a rectitude which nothing but the violence of party ever ventured to impeach, he united profound erudition with gigantic powers of intellect.

And all his powers of service he brought with a ready mind to the defence of those illustrious patriots, whom the mercenary Salmasius had ventured to impeach. It is not to be wondered at, therefore, if the return of Charles brought with it obscurity and neglect to Milton. His name became a bye-word and reproach, and to speak in favour of his writings was to incur suspicion of political disaffection. Milton was equally an enemy to the tyranny of Laud, as to that of Charles. He wished to republicanise the church as well as the state. His writings were as opposed to the constitution of the Hierarchy, as to an illegal exercise of the royal power. The whole influence of the church was therefore arrayed against his reputation the courtly bishop and the ambitious priest sought to commend themselves to an unprincipled and dominant faction, by casting_reproach on England's glory. The pulpit was prostituted to this worst of purposes. The minister of religion was made the fellow-worker of the hangman-the former denouncing, and the latter burning, our author's works. Had they been a Pandor's box, more sedulous efforts could not have been made to prevent their being opened.

This spirit has been transmitted to modern times. The last generation witnessed an attack on the character of Milton in perfect keeping with the virulence of his own age.' "We have seen a new Salmasius, unimpelled by those motives which actuated the hireling of Charles, revive in Johnson; and have beheld the virtuous and the amiable, the firm and the consistent Milton, who appears to have acted, from the opening to the close of his life,—

a tyrant, and a sycophant. This atrocious libel has long since reflected discredit on no one but its author; and its falsehood has been so clearly demonstrated by many able pens, and particularly by those of Blackburne and of Hayley, that a new biographer of Milton might well be excused from honouring it with his notice. But a regard to the cause of morals, and the best interests of man, seems to justify that indignation which would brand, again and again, the hand lifted in violation of the illustrious dead."

At length, however, a change has been wrought in the public mind. The high church and tory faction has lost its power. The public mind is undeceived, the spell which had so long bound its judgment is broken, and it is beginning to see, with a clearer vision, its own best interests. The principle of reform has been extensively applied to our political institutions, and its spirit is pervading all departments of our operations. Justice is in consequence likely to be done to Milton. His volumes are now being brought forth from obscurity, and will become, once more, the instructors of an age. They will revenge themselves on the accusers of their author, by hastening the overthrow of that system which their calumnies have served to perpetuate.

But we must proceed to notice the works themselves, pointing out the more important and interesting of them to our readers. With those that are strictly political, we shall not at present interfere. They are deeply interesting even at the present day, and will amply repay for the labour of perusal. They involve principles of the highest importance to the existence and prosperity of states, and transfuse into the breast of their attentive readers, a certain celestial fire which purifies the elements of our social nature.

We have at present to do with his ecclesiastical writings, more particularly those which pertain to the Nonconformist controversy. His motives for engaging in this discussion are repeatedly adverted to in the course of his works; and his statements carry with them the

impress of truth, to say nothing of the transparent integrity of his general character. Adverting to this subject, in his treatise on The Reason of Church Government urged against Prelacy, he remarks: "For me, I have determined to lay up as the best treasure and solace of a good old age, if God vouchsafe it me, the honest liberty of free speech from my youth, where I shall think it available in so dear a concernment as the church's good. For if I be, either by disposition, or what other cause, too inquisitive, or suspicious of myself and mine own doings, who can help it? But this I foresee, that should the church be brought under heavy oppression, and God have given me ability the while to reason against that man that should be the author of so foul a deed; or should she, by blessing from above on the industry and courage of faithful men, change this her distracted estate into better days, without the least furtherance or contribution of those few talents which God at that present had lent me, I foresee what stories I should hear within myself, all my life after, of discourage and reproach. Timorous and ingrateful, the church of God is now again at the foot of her insulting enemies, and thou bewailest; what matters it for thee, or thy bewailing? When time was, thou couldst not find a syllable of all that thou hast read or studied to utter in her behalf. Yet ease and leisure was given to thee for thy retired thoughts, out of the sweat of other men. Thou hadst the diligence, the parts, the language of a man, if a vain subject were to be adorned or beautified; but when the cause of God and his church was to be pleaded, for which purpose that tongue was given thee which thou hast, God listened if he could hear thy voice among his zealous servants, but thou wert dumb as a beast; from henceforward be that which thine own brutish silence hath made thee. Or else I should have heard on the other ear: Slothful, and ever to be set light by, the church hath now overcome her late distresses, after the unwearied labours of many her true servants that stood up in her defence; thou also wouldst take upon thee to share amongst them of their joy: but wherefore thou? where canst thou show any word or deed of thine which might have hastened her peace? whatever thou dost now talk, or write, or look, is the alms of other men's active prudence and zeal. Dare not now to say

or do any thing better than thy former sloth and infancy; or if thou darest, thou dost impudently to make a thrifty purchase of boldness to thyself, out of the painful merits of other men: what before was thy sin is now thy duty, to be abject and worthless. These, and such like lessons as these, I know would have been my matins daily, and my even-song. But now by this little diligence, mark what a privilege I have gained with good men and saints, to claim my right of lamenting the tribulations of the church, if she should suffer, when others that have ventured nothing for her sake have not the honour to be admitted mourners. if she lift up her drooping head and prosper, among those that have something more than wished her welfare, I have my charter and freehold of rejoicing to me and my heirs.

But

Amongst the reasons which would have deterred him from engaging in such controversies, had his mind been less powerfully influenced by religious principle, he mentions the following, which gives occasion to the expression of that presentiment which forms so singular and striking a feature of our poet's mental history.

"I should not choose this manner of writing, wherein, knowing myself inferior to myself, led by the genial power of nature to another task, I have the use, as I may account it, but of my left hand. And though I shall be foolish in saying more to this purpose, yet since it will be such a folly, as wisest men going about to commit, have only confest and so committed, I may trust with more reason, because with more folly, to have courteous pardon. For although a poet, soaring in the high region of his fancies with his garland and singing robes about him, might, without apology, speak more of himself than I mean to do; yet for me, sitting here below in the cool element of prose, a mortal thing among many readers of no empireal conceit, to venture and divulge unusual things of myself, I shall petition to the gentler sort, it may not be envy to me. I must say, therefore, that after I had from my first years, by the ceaseless diligence and care of my father, whom God recompense, been exercised to the tongues, and some sciences, as my age would suffer, by sundry masters and teachers, both at home and at the schools, it was found, that whether ought was imposed me by them that had the over