The Romance of Biography Volume I Part 24

All higher knowledge in her presence falls Degraded; wisdom, in discourse with her, Loses discountenanc'd, and like folly shows; Authority and reason on her wait, As one intended first, not after made Occasionally; and to consummate all, Greatness of mind and n.o.bleness their seat, Build in her loveliest, and create an awe About her, as a guard angelic plac'd.

And this is the being whom a lady-author calls a "great overgrown baby, with nothing to recommend her but her submission, and her fine hair!"[142]--two things, be it observed, among the most graceful of our feminine attributes, mental and exterior. The poet who conceived and wrote this description, most a.s.suredly had not a "Turkish contempt" for the female character.

Milton was in love, as he tells us himself, at nineteen; but the object cannot even be guessed at. He has celebrated this boyish pa.s.sion very beautifully in one of his Latin elegies. One of the pa.s.sages in this poem, in which he compares the effect produced on him by the first momentary view of his mistress, followed by her immediate absence to the Theban Oeclides,[143] swallowed up by the abyss which opens beneath him, and gazing back upon the parting light of day, is admired for its cla.s.sic sublimity and appropriate beauty.

There is a tradition mentioned by all his biographers, that while Milton was a student at Cambridge, an Italian lady of rank, who was travelling in England, found him sleeping one day under the shade of a tree, and, struck with his beauty, wrote with her pencil on a slip of paper, the pretty madrigal of Guarini, which Menage translated for Madame de Sevign, "Occhi, stelle mortali," and leaving it in his hand, pursued her journey. This fair unknown is said to have been the cause of Milton's travels into Italy; but the story rests on no authority: and it is clear, that the "foreign fair" to whom the Sonnets are addressed, was neither imaginary nor unknown. During his stay at Rome, he was received with particular distinction by the Cardinal Barberini, the nephew of the reigning Pope, and at his palace had frequent opportunities of hearing Leonora Baroni, the finest singer in Italy. She was the daughter of Adriana of Mantua, surnamed, for her beauty, La Bella Adriana, and the best singer and player on the lute of her time. Leonora inherited her mother's extraordinary talent for music, and conquered all hearts by the inexpressible charm of her voice and style. She was also a poetess, frequently composing the words of her own songs. Though not a regular beauty, she had brilliant eyes, and a captivating countenance and manner. Count Fulvio Testi, in a Sonnet addressed to her, celebrates the union of so many charms:

Tra il concento e 'l fulgor, dubbio se sia L'udir pi dolce, o il rimirar pi caro.

Deh fammi cieco, o fammi sordo, amore!

M. Maugars, himself a musician, who saw and heard Leonora at Rome, praises her talents generally, and adds, that she was no coquette; that she sang with confidence, but with modesty; that there was nothing in her manners that could be censured; that the effect she produced on those who heard her, was owing, not only to the wonderful rapidity and delicacy of her execution, but to the care with which she gave the exact sense and proper expression of the words she sang. He tells us, that on one occasion, she _favoured_ him by singing with her mother and her sister, each accompanying herself on a different instrument (in those days pianos were not, and Leonora's favourite instrument was the Theorbo, on which she excelled). This little concert so enraptured our musician, that, to use his own words, he forgot his mortality, "et crut tre dej parmi les anges, jouissant des contentemens des bienheureux."

It is no wonder that the charms and talents which exalted this prosaic Frenchman almost into a poet, should turn the heads of poets themselves.

The verses addressed to Leonora were collected into a volume, and published under the t.i.tle of "Applausi poetici alle glorie della Signora Leonora Baroni."--"Poetical eulogies to the glory of Signora Leonora Baroni." A similar homage had been paid to her mother, Adriana, who reckoned Ta.s.so among her panegyrists. This may seem too high a distinction for a species of talent, which, however admirable, can leave behind no durable monument, and therefore can claim no interest with posterity. Yet is it just, that those whom heaven has enriched with the gift of melody, and who have cultivated that delicious faculty to its height, until with angel-skill they can suspend the dominion of pain in aching hearts,[144]--that such should ravish with delight a whole generation, and then perish from the earth, they and their memory, with the pleasure they bestowed, and grat.i.tude be voiceless and tuneless in their praise? The gift of song is fleeting as that of beauty; but while the painter fixes on his canvas

The vermeil-tinctur'd lip, Love-darting eyes, and tresses like the morn,

what shall immortalise the tones which "turned sense to soul?" what but poetry, which, while it preserves the memory of such excellence, gives back to the fancy some reflection of the delight we have felt, when the full tide of a divine voice is poured forth to the sense, like wine from an enchanted cup, making us thrill "with music's pulse in every artery."

Leonora Baroni had her poets, and her name, linked with that of Milton, shall never die.

It is a curious circ.u.mstance, and one but little consonant with the popular idea of Milton's austerity, that the object of his poetical homage, and even of his serious admiration, was an Italian singer; but it must be remembered, that Milton, the son of an accomplished musician,[145] was, by nature and education, peculiarly susceptible to the power of sweet sounds. Next to poetry, music was with him a pa.s.sion; and the profession of a singer in those days, when the art was in its second infancy, was more highly estimated, in proportion as excellence was more rare and less publicly exhibited. I cannot find that either Leonora Baroni, or her mother Adriana, ever appeared on a stage; yet their celebrity had spread from one end of Italy to the other. Milton joined the crowd of Leonora's votaries at Rome, and has expressed his enthusiastic admiration, not only in verse but in prose.[146] He addressed her in Latin and Italian, the languages she understood, and which he had perfectly at command. In one of his Latin poems, "To Leonora, singing at Rome," the allusion to Leonora d'Este,

Another Leonora once inspired Ta.s.so, by hopeless love to phrenzy fired, &c.

is as happy as it is beautiful, and shows the belief which then prevailed of the real cause of Ta.s.so's delirium.

Two of Milton's Italian sonnets are very beautiful, and have been translated by Cowper with singular felicity. All his biographers agree that Leonora Baroni is the subject of both; the first, addressed to Carlo Diodati, describes the lady, whose dark and foreign charms are opposed to those of the _blonde_ beauties he had admired in his youth.

SONNET.

_Diodati! e te 'l diro con maraviglia, &c._

Charles,--and I say it wondering,--thou must know That I, who once a.s.sumed a scornful air, And scoffed at Love, am fallen into his snare; (Full many an upright man has fallen so.) Yet think me not thus dazzled by the flow Of golden locks, or damask rose; more rare The heartfelt beauties of my foreign fair!

A mien majestic, with dark brows, that show The tranquil l.u.s.tre of a lofty mind,-- Words exquisite, of idioms more than one; And song, whose fascinating power might bind, And from her sphere draw down the lab'ring moon; With such fire-darting eyes, that should I fill Mine ears with wax, she would enchant me still!

In this translation, though elegant and faithful, the lines

A mien majestic, with dark brows, that show The tranquil l.u.s.tre of a lofty mind,

have much diluted the energy of Milton's

Portamenti alti onesti, e nelle ciglia Quel sereno fulgor d'amabil nero.

In the other Sonnet, addressed to Leonora, he gives, with all the simplicity of conscious worth, this lofty description of himself, and of his claims to her preference.

SONNET.

_Giovane, piano, e semplicetto amante, &c._

Enamour'd, artless, young, on foreign ground, Uncertain whither from myself to fly, To thee, dear lady, with an humble sigh, Let me devote my heart, which I have found, By certain proofs not few, intrepid, sound, Good, and addicted to conceptions high: When tempests shake the world, and fire the sky, It rests in adamant, self-wrapt around, As safe from envy and from outrage rude, From hopes and fears that vulgar minds abuse, As fond of genius and fixt solitude, Of the resounding lyre and every muse.

Weak you will find it in one only part, Now pierc'd by Love's immedicable dart.

Milton was three times married. The relations of his first wife, (Mary Powell,) who were violent Royalists, and ashamed or afraid of their connection with a republican, persuaded her to leave him. She absolutely forsook her husband for nearly three years, and resided with her family at Oxford, when that city was the head-quarters of the King's party. "I have so much charity for her," says Aubrey, "that she might not wrong his bed; but what man (especially contemplative,) would like to have a young wife environed and stormed by the sons of Mars, and those of the ennemie partie?"

Milton, though a suspicion of the nature hinted at by Aubrey never rose in his mind, was justly incensed at this dereliction. He was on the point of divorcing this contumacious bride, and had already made choice of another[147] to succeed her, when she threw herself, impromptu, at his feet and implored his forgiveness. He forgave her; and when the republican party triumphed, the family who had so cruelly wronged him found a refuge in his house. This woman embittered his life for fourteen or fifteen years.

A remembrance of the reconciliation with his wife, and of his own feelings on that occasion, are said to have suggested to Milton's mind the beautiful scene between Adam and Eve, in the tenth book of the Paradise Lost.

She ended weeping; and her lowly plight, Immoveable, till peace obtained for faults Acknowledged and deplored, in Adam wrought Commiseration; soon his heart relented Tow'rds her, his life so late and sole delight, Now at his feet submissive in distress, Creature so fair, his reconcilement seeking; As one disarmed, his anger all he lost, &c.

Milton's second and most beloved wife (Catherine Woodc.o.c.k) died in child-bed, within a year after their marriage. He honoured her memory with what Johnson (out upon him!) calls a _poor_ sonnet; it is the one beginning

Methought I saw my late espoused saint Brought to me, like Alcestis from the grave;

which, in its solemn and tender strain of feeling and modulated harmony, reminds us of Dante. He never ceased to lament her, and to cherish her memory with a fond regret:--she must have been full in his heart and mind when he wrote those touching lines in the Paradise Lost--

How can I live without thee? how forego Thy sweet converse and love so dearly joined, To live again in these wild woods forlorn?

Should G.o.d create another Eve, and I Another rib afford, yet loss of thee Would never from my heart!

After her death,--blind, disconsolate, and helpless--he was abandoned to petty wrongs and domestic discord; and suffered from the disobedience and unkindness of his two elder daughters, like another Lear.[148] His youngest daughter, Deborah, was the only one who acted as his amanuensis, and she always spoke of him with extreme affection:--on being suddenly shown his picture, twenty years after his death, she burst into tears.[149]

These three daughters were grown up, and the youngest about fifteen, when Milton married his third wife, Elizabeth Minshull. She was a gentle, kind-hearted woman,[150] without pretensions of any kind, who watched over his declining years with affectionate care. One biographer has not scrupled to a.s.sert, that to her,--or rather to her tender reverence for his studious habits, and to the peace and comfort she brought to his heart and home,--we owe the Paradise Lost: if true, what a debt immense of endless grat.i.tude is due to the memory of this un.o.btrusive and amiable woman!

FOOTNOTES:

[137] What Dr. Johnson _wrote_ is known;--he was accustomed to _say_ that the admiration expressed for Milton was all _cant_.

[138] I have before me the pamphlet, ent.i.tled "A Narrative of the disinterment of Milton's coffin, on Wednesday the 4th of August, 1790, and of the treatment of the Corpse during that and the following day."

The circ.u.mstances are too revolting to be dwelt upon.

[139] Si les Anges, (said Madame de Stal) n'ont pas t represents sous les traits de femme, c'est parceque l'union de la force avec la puret, est plus belle et plus celeste encore que la modestie mme la plus parfaite dans un tre faible.

[140] See his life by Dr. Symmons, Dr. Todd, Newton, Hayley, Aubrey, Richardson, Warton.

"She (his daughter Deborah) spoke of him with great tenderness; she said he was delightful company, the life of the conversation, and that on account of a flow of subject, and an unaffected cheerfulness and civility," &c.--RICHARDSON.

[141] She was Catherine Boyle, the daughter of the Great Earl of Cork, one of the most excellent and most distinguished women of that time.--_See Hayley's Life of Milton._

[142] Miss Let.i.tia Hawkins.

[143] Otherwise Amphiaraus: his story is told by Ovid. Met. B. 9.

[144] As Milton felt when he wrote--