Homes and Haunts of the Most Eminent British Poets Part 4

"He took for skin a cloud most soft and bright, That e'er the mid-day sun pierced through with light; Upon his cheeks a lively blush he spread, Washed from the morning beauties' deepest red; An harmless, fluttering meteor shone for hair, And fell adown his shoulders with loose care; He cuts out a silk mantle from the skies, Where the most sprightly azure pleased the eyes; This he with starry vapors sprinkles all, Took in their prime before they grow ripe and fall; Of a new rainbow, ere it fret or fade, The choicest piece cut out, a scarf is made."

This comes but indifferently after a pa.s.sage of Byron or Sh.e.l.ley. But, in fact, Cowley seems to have been a man who could not be permanently and decidedly any thing. He could not rise out of affectations, and dubious, half-way sort of positions, either in poetry or in life. He would fain pa.s.s for an ardent lover, and general admirer of the fair s.e.x, and published a poem called "The Mistress," on the ground stated in the preface to one of its editions, "that poets are scarcely thought freemen of their company, without paying some duties, or obliging themselves to be true to love." This is genuine Cowley: he did not write a poem on a love subject because he was full of the subject, but because it seemed to be expected of a poet. It was not pa.s.sion and admiration that fired him, but it was necessary to appearances that he should do it. He was unluckily always spying about on the outside of his subject, and never plunging boldly into it. He was like a man who, instead of enjoying his house, should always be standing in the front and asking pa.s.sengers what they thought of it, and if it did not look very fine; or, if not, where he could lay on some plaster, or put up a veranda. If his heart and soul had been engaged, there would have been less opportunity for his eternal self-consciousness; he would have done his work for the love of it, and because he could not help it, and not because he found it becoming to do some sort of work. Of love, therefore, says his biographer, he never knew any thing but once, and then dare not tell his pa.s.sion.

He was a strong Loyalist; went over to France after the queen of Charles I. retired thither, and became secretary to Lord Jermyn, afterward Earl of St. Alban's, and was employed in such compositions as the royal cause required, and particularly in copying and deciphering the letters which pa.s.sed between the king and queen. He afterward came back, and occupied the somewhat equivocal character of spy on the republican government, and detailer of its proceedings to the royal party abroad. "Under pretense of privacy and retirement, he was to take occasion of giving notice of the posture of things in this nation." This soon led to his arrest and incarceration; and he was not set at large without a guarantee of a thousand pounds. As it was supposed, he now published his poems, with the object of writing something in his preface which should give government an idea of the abatement of his loyalty. This gave great offense to the royal party, and was in subsequent editions withdrawn.

Continuing to live in England as if contented with the existing government, on the death of Cromwell he wrote verses, as is said, in praise of him, and which verses he suppressed; and then went over again to France, as soon as the Commonwealth gave signs of dissolution; and came back in the crowd of royalists, eager for the spoil of the nation.

Like many others, however, who had been more decided and consistent than himself, he did not get what he expected, the Masters.h.i.+p of the Savoy.

This, and the ill success of his play, "Cutter of Coleman-street," which also was accused of being a satire on the king, filled Cowley with a desperate desire of retreating into the country. Whenever he was in trouble at court, this pa.s.sion for solitude came rapidly upon him. Under the Commonwealth, when imprisoned as a spy, he introduced into the preface to his poems, that "his desire had been for some days past, and did still very vehemently continue, to retire himself to some of the American plantations, and to forsake this world forever." His courtly ambition being now again disappointed, he styled himself the _melancholy_ Cowley, and resolved to ruralize in earnest. He had formerly studied physic, and obtained a diploma, but never practiced; having now, however, convinced himself that he was a lover of the country, he determined to practice that, and so betook himself to Barn-Elms. "He was now," says Sprat, "weary of the vexations and formalities of an active condition. He had been perplexed with a long compliance to foreign manners. He was satiated with the arts of a court, which sort of life, though his virtue made it innocent to him, yet nothing could make it quiet. These were the reasons that moved him to follow the violent inclinations of his own mind, which, in the greatest hurry of his own business, had still called upon him, and represented to him the delights of solitary studies, of temperate pleasures, and a moderate income below the malice and flatteries of fortune."

It was not from a mind like Cowley's that we should expect a deep contentment as the result of this choice, and it is said not to have been the case. At first his poverty debarred him the necessary domestic comfort, but through the influence of his old patrons, the Earl of St.

Alban's, and the Duke of Buckingham, he secured a lease of some of the queen's lands, which afforded him an ample income.

Barn-Elms lies about half a mile from Barnes, near the road leading from Hammersmith suspension bridge to Wimbledon. It is an old estate, and in Cowley's time must have been tolerably solitary. Since then the road just mentioned has been made across the estate, and an inn built close to its entrance gate. It still, however, presents the aspect of antiquity. The land is rich and flat, and the present park is thickly scattered with the trees from which it derives its name. Some of these are reduced to mere ma.s.sy fragments of trunks, which give a venerable aspect to the place. The house here is now occupied by Sir Lancelot Shadwell, the vice-chancellor of England. The spot is remarkable for many other a.s.sociations than those with Cowley.

The old house here was called Queen Elizabeth's Dairy, and, from the richness of the meadow land, seems admirably calculated for a dairy on a grand scale. The property belonged to the canons of St. Paul's, having been granted to them by King Athelstan; but it was leased to Queen Elizabeth, and she granted her interest in it to Sir Francis Walsingham and his heirs. Here, in 1589, that subtle courtier entertained the queen and her whole court, where I suppose they would drink milk and be very rural. The Earl of Ess.e.x married Sir Francis's daughter, the widow of Sir Philip Sidney, and resided here frequently. No other man than Jacob Tonson afterward lived in this house, to which he built a gallery, wherein he placed the portraits of the members of the Kit-kat Club, which had been painted for him by Kneller. The members of the club were also entertained here frequently by the munificent bookseller, their secretary. Garth wrote the verses for the toasting-gla.s.ses of the club, which, as they are preserved in his works, have immortalized some of the princ.i.p.al beauties of the commencement of the last century: Lady Carlisle, Lady Ess.e.x, Lady Hyde, and Lady Wharton. Tonson's gallery was partly pulled down a good many years ago, and partly united to a barn, so as to form a riding-school. The pictures were removed to Bayfordberry, the seat of William Baker, Esq., near Hertford.

In George the Second's time, Heydegger, his master of the revels, was the tenant, and the following whim of his was played off on his royal master. The king gave him notice that he would sup with him one evening, and that he would come from Richmond by water. It was Heydegger's profession to invent novel amus.e.m.e.nts, and he was resolved to surprise his majesty with a specimen of his art. The king's attendants, who were in the secret, contrived that he should not arrive at Barn-Elms before night, and it was with difficulty that he found his way up the avenue to the house. When he came to the door all was dark, and he began to be angry that Heydegger should be so ill prepared for his reception.

Heydegger suffered the king to vent his anger, and affected to make some awkward apologies, when, in an instant, the house and avenues were in a blaze of light, a great number of lamps having been so disposed as to communicate with each other, and to be lighted at the same instant. The king heartily laughed at the device, and went away much pleased with his entertainment.

Adjoining the park, and not far from the house, is the farm and farm-yard of William Cobbett. Here that extraordinary man, as much attached to agriculture as to politics, had a sort of domicile and sleeping-place made for him in the farm-buildings, and used to survey his planting and plowing as a.s.siduously as if there were no corruptions to root up, and no rank weeds to extirpate in the great estate of the nation.

Cobbett's farm-yard still stands to remind you of him, but the house which Cowley inhabited has long been pulled down. From what I could learn on the spot, and it was little, it seems to have stood near the present stable-yard. The walls of the old gardens still remain, and old mulberry and other fruit trees bear testimony to the occupation by wealthy families for ages. The grounds are now disposed in the fas.h.i.+on of a considerable park, with these old gardens and extensive shrubberies adjoining. A carriage drive of considerable extent leads from the Barnes road down to the house, on one hand giving a level prospect over the meadows toward Hammersmith, and on the other bounded with the tall hedge and thick trees inclosing the park. The whole, with its rich meadow land, its old elms, and old gardens and shrubberies of fine evergreens, is almost too goodly for our ideas of the fortunes of a poet, and accords more truly with the prestige of a successful lawyer.

The house of Cowley at Chertsey yet remains, though it has been considerably altered: it is still called the Porch House, but the porch has been cut away because it projected into the street. Over the front door is a tablet of stone, let into the wall, on which is inscribed--

"Here the last accents fell from Cowley's tongue."

His garden and grounds were on the level of the meadows, as level as the meadows of Barn-Elms. These meadows lie along the road, as you go from Weybridge to St. Ann's Hill, and a pleasant brook runs through them, skirting the garden. The country around is very agreeable, and the nearness of St. Ann's Hill, with its heathy sides, and n.o.ble views far and wide, is a great advantage. For a heart that loved solitude, there need have been no pleasanter spot, especially as the little town of Chertsey could afford all creature comforts, and the occasional chat of the clergyman, the doctor, and a resident family or two. But in Cowley's time, how much deeper must have been the retirement of such a retreat here; how much further it was from London! Now it is only a few hours'

distance by the Southwestern Rail-way; then it was a journey--they took a night's rest on the way! His letter to Sprat from this place gives us an odd kind of idea of his enjoyment of the place.

"_To_ DR. THOMAS SPRAT.

"Chertsey, May 21, 1665.

"The first night that I came hither I caught so great a cold, with a defluxion of rheum, as made me keep my chamber ten days; and, two after, had such a bruise on my ribs with a fall, that I am yet unable to move or turn myself in my bed. This is my personal picture here to begin with. And, besides, I can get no money from my tenants, and have my meadows eaten up every night by cattle put in by my neighbors. What this signifies, or may come to in time, G.o.d knows; if it be ominous, it can end in nothing less than hanging. Another misfortune has been, and stranger than all the rest, that you have broken your word with me, and failed to come, even though you told Mr. Bois you would.

This is what they call _Monstri simile_. I do hope to recover my late hurt so far within five or six days, though it be uncertain whether I shall ever recover it, as to walk about again. And then, methinks, you and I, and _the dean_, might be very merry upon St. Ann's Hill. You might very conveniently come hither the way of Hampton Court, lying there one night. I write this in pain, and can say no more.

_Verb.u.m sapienti._"

Poor Cowley did not long enjoy his retreat here, if he did enjoy it at all. Within two years he died at the Porch House (in 1667), in the forty-ninth year of his age. He was buried with great pomp in Westminster Abbey, near Chaucer and Spenser.

JOHN MILTON.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

Perhaps no man ever inhabited more houses than our great epic poet, yet scarcely one of these now remains. The greater part of his residences were in London, and in the hundred and seventy-two years since his decease, the whole of this great metropolis has been, as it were, in a ferment of growth and extension. The great fire of London swept away an immense ma.s.s of the old houses; and if we look around us now, we see how very few of the ancient framed tenements which then prevailed now remain. Again, Milton generally chose his houses, even in the city, with a view to quiet and retirement. They were, say his biographers, generally garden houses, where he enjoyed the advantages of a certain remoteness from noise, and of some openness of s.p.a.ce. These s.p.a.ces the progress of population has filled with dense buildings, in the course of the erection of which, the old solitary houses have been pulled down.

Milton, as is well known, was born in Bread-street, Cheapside, at the sign of the Spread Eagle. The spread eagle was the armorial bearing of the family. His father was an eminent scrivener, living and practicing there at the time of Milton's birth, which took place on the 9th of December, 1608. This house was destroyed in the fire of London. During his boyhood, which was pa.s.sed here, Milton was educated at home, in the first instance, by a private tutor, Thomas Young. This man Aubrey calls "a Puritan in Ess.e.x, who cut his hair short." Young had suffered persecution for his religious faith, and it is supposed that from him Milton imbibed a strong feeling for liberty, and a great predilection for the doctrines which he held. He was much attached to him, as he has testified by his fourth elegy, and two Latin epistles. It has been remarked, that however much Milton might be swayed by the principles of his tutor, he never was by his cut of hair; for, through all the reign of the Roundheads, he preserved his flowing locks. After the private tutor was dismissed, he was sent to St. Paul's School. This appears to have been in his fifteenth year. Here, too, he was a favorite scholar.

The then master was Alexander Gill, and his son was the usher, and succeeded his father in the school. With him Milton was on terms of great friends.h.i.+p, and has left a memorial of his regard in three of his Latin epistles.

From the relation of his original biographer, Aubrey, we may see the boy Milton going to and fro between Bread-street and his school, full of zealous thirst of knowledge, and the most extraordinary industry. He studied with excessive avidity, regardless of his health, continuing his reading till midnight, so that the source of his future blindness is obvious in his early pa.s.sion for letters. Aubrey says, that "when Milton went to school, and when he was very younge, he studied very hard, and sate up very late, commonly till twelve or one o'clock; and his father ordered the maid to sett up for him." His early reading was in poetical books. He confirms this account of himself in his _Defensio Secunda pro Populo_, &c. He says that his father destined him to liberal studies, which he so eagerly seized upon, that from his twelfth year he seldom ever retired from his books to bed before midnight; and that his eyes, originally weak, thus received the first causes of their future mischief. That, perceiving the danger of this, it could not arrest his ardor of study, though his nocturnal vigils, followed by his dayly exercises under his masters, brought on failing vision and pains in the head. Humphrey Lownes, a printer, living in Bread-street, supplied him, among other books, with Spenser and Sylvester's Du Bartas. Spenser was devoured with the intensest enthusiasm, and he has elsewhere called him his master.

Todd, the generally judicious biographer of Milton, praises his father for his discernment in the education of his son. The father, who was a very superior man, and especially fond of and skilled in music, certainly appears to have at once seen in his son the evidences of genius, and to have given to it every opportunity of development; but it is to be regretted that his fatherly encouragement was not attended with more prudence, and that he had not, instead of encouraging the habit of nocturnal study, the most pernicious that a student can fall into, restrained it. Had he done this, the poet might have retained his sight, and who shall say with what further advantage to the world!

At seventeen, Milton entered as a pensioner at Christ College, Cambridge. He was found to be a distinguished cla.s.sical scholar, and conversant in several languages. His academical exercises attracted great attention, as well as his verses, both in English and Latin. His Latin elegies, in his eighteenth year, have always been regarded with wonder; and, indeed, in his Latinity, both in verse and prose, perhaps no modern writer has surpa.s.sed him. Hampton, the translator of Polybius, p.r.o.nounced him the first Englishman who, since the revival of letters, wrote Latin verses with cla.s.sic elegance. His extraordinary merit and acquisitions found, from the authorities of his college, general applause, spite of a disposition to severity, induced by his st.u.r.dy opposition to them in opinion, on a plan of academical studies then under discussion.

Milton here, it appears, on the testimony of Aubrey, suffered an indignity from his tutor, which it was not in his high and independent nature to endure with impunity. He refers to the fact in his first elegy. He mentions threats and other things, which his disposition could not tolerate; that he was absent in a state of rustication, and felt no desire to revisit the reedy banks of the Cam. Aubrey says, from the information of our author's brother Christopher, that Milton's first tutor at Cambridge was Mr. Chappell, from whom receiving some unkindness (_he whipped him_), he was afterward, though it seemed against the rules of the college, transferred to the tuition of one Mr. Tovell. This information stands in the MS. _Mus. Ashmol. Oxon._, No. 10, p. iii.

Warton, remarking on the fact, adds, that Milton "hated the place. He was not only offended at the college discipline, but had even conceived a dislike to the face of the country--the fields about Cambridge. He peevishly complains that the fields have no soft shades to attract the Muses, and there is something pointed in his exclamation, that Cambridge was a place quite incompatible with the votaries of Phoebus."

It was not very likely that a youth of perhaps eighteen, who was writing the elegies and epistles in Latin which drew upon him so much notice, would submit quietly to so degrading a treatment. This treatment, it appears from Warton, was common enough, nevertheless, at both Cambridge and Oxford, among the tutors at that time. But Milton spurned it, as became his great spirit and n.o.ble nature, and was in consequence, probably, rusticated for a time. But this could not have been long, nor could it have been accordant to the wishes of the fellows of his college. The offense was against the tutor, not against the heads of the college, in the poet's mind. In his Apology for Smeotymnus, he thanks an enemy for the opportunity of expressing his grateful sense of the kindness of the fellows, in these words: "I thank him; for it hath given me an apt occasion to acknowledge publicly, with all grateful mind, that more than ordinary favor and respect which I found above any of my equals, at the hands of those courteous and learned men, the fellows of the college wherein I spent some years; who at my parting, after I had taken two degrees, as the manner is, signified many ways how much better it would content them if I would stay; as by many letters full of kindness and loving respect, both before that time and long after, I was a.s.sured of their good affection to me."

Leaving Cambridge, Milton went to reside some time at Horton, near Colnbrook, in Buckinghams.h.i.+re. His father had retired from his practice, on a competent fortune, to this village. This portion of his life was, probably, one of the most delightful periods of it. He had acquired great reputation for talent and learning at college; he had taken his degree of M.A., and in this agreeable retirement he not only indulged himself, as he tells us, in a deep and thorough reading of the Greek and Latin authors, but probably then contemplating his visit to Italy, made himself master of its language and well acquainted with its literature.

To such perfection did he carry this accomplishment, that in Italy he not only spoke the language with perfect fluency, but wrote in it so as to astonish the most learned natives. Five years he devoted to these cla.s.sical and modern studies, but not to these alone. He was here actively at work in laying the foundation of that great poetical fame which he afterward achieved. Born in the city, he now made himself thoroughly familiar with nature. In the woods and parks, and on the pleasant hills of this pleasant country, he enjoyed the purest delights of contemplation and of poetry. Here he is supposed to have imbued himself with the allegoric romance of his favorite Spenser, and also to have written his own delightful Arcades, Comus, L'Allegro, Il Penseroso, and Lycidas. It is a fact which his biographers have not seemed to perceive, but which is really significant, that the very Italian t.i.tles, L'Allegro and Il Penseroso, of themselves almost identify the productions of this period and place, where he was busy with the preparation for his visit to Italy. The county of Buckingham appeared always to be from this time a particular favorite with him; and no wonder, for it is full of poetical beauty, abounds with those solemn and woodland charms which are so welcome to a mind brooding over poetical subjects, and shunning all things and places that disturb. It abounds, being so near the metropolis, also with historic a.s.sociations of deep interest.

"This pleasant retreat," says Todd, "excited his most poetical feelings; and he has proved himself, in his pictures of rural life, to rival the works of nature, which he contemplated with delight. In the neighborhood of Horton, the Countess Dowager of Derby resided; and the _Arcades_ was performed by her grandchildren at this seat, called Harefield Place. It seems to me that Milton intended a compliment to his fair neighbor, for fair she was, in his L'Allegro:

'Towers and battlements it sees Bosom'd high in tufted trees, Where, perhaps, some beauty lies, The cynosure of neighboring eyes.'

The woody scenery of Harefield, and the personal accomplishments of the countess, are not unfavorable to this supposition; which, if admitted, tends to confirm the opinion that L'Allegro and Il Penseroso were composed at Horton. The Masque of Comus, and Lycidas, were certainly produced under the roof of his father."

The whole of these poems breathe the spirit of youth, and of scenes like those in which he now dayly rambled. Whether L'Allegro and Il Penseroso were written, as Sir William Jones contends, at Forest Hill, in Oxfords.h.i.+re, or here, need not be much contested. If they were written there, it must have been many years afterward, after his return from abroad, and after his first marriage; for it was at Forest Hill that he found his wife. But for the reason a.s.signed, and for that of their general spirit, I incline to the belief that they were written at Horton, as there is plenty of evidence that Comus and the Arcades were.

These latter poems overflow with the imagery and the feeling of the old wooded scenery of Buckinghams.h.i.+re.

"_Comus._ I know each lane, and every alley green, Dingle, or bushy dell of this wild wood, And every bosky bourne from side to side, My dayly walks and ancient neighborhood."

How full of the old pastoral country are these lines:

"_Sec. Bro._ Might we but hear The folded flocks penned in their wattled cotes, Or sound of pastoral reed with oaten stops, Or whistle from the lodge, or village c.o.c.k Count the night watches to his feathery dames, 'Twould be some solace yet, some little cheering, In this close dungeon of innumerous boughs."

There is no other poet who has been able to transfuse the very spirit of nature into words, as it is done in the following pa.s.sages, except Shakspeare, on whose soul images of rural beauty and repose fell with equal felicity of effect.

"This evening late, by then the chewing flocks Had ta'en their supper on the savory herb Of knot-gra.s.s dew-besprent, and were in fold, I sat me down to watch upon a bank With ivy canopied, and interwove With flaunting honey-suckle, and began, Wrapped in a pleasing fit of melancholy, To meditate my rural minstrelsy, Till Fancy had her fill; but ere a close, The wonted roar was up amid the woods," &c.

How exquisite is every image of this pa.s.sage:

"Return, Sicilian Muse, And call the vales, and bid them hither cast Their bells, and flowerets of a thousand hues.

Ye valleys low, where the mild whispers use Of shades, and wanton winds, and gus.h.i.+ng brooks, On whose fresh lap the swart star sparely looks; Throw hither all your quaint enamel'd eyes, That on the green turf suck the honey'd showers, And purple all the ground with vernal flowers.

Bring the rathe primrose that forsaken dies, The tufted crow-toe and pale jessamine, The white pink, and the pansy freak'd with jet, The glowing violet, The musk rose, and the well-attired woodbine, With cowslips wan that hang the pensive head, And every flower that sad embroidery wears; Bid Amaranthus all his beauty shed, And daffodillies fill their cups with tears, To strow the laureate hea.r.s.e where Lycid lies."

A power of poetic landscape-painting like this is only the result of genius deeply instructed in the school of nature. But the time was now come for the survey of other and more striking scenes than those of the woodlands and pastoral uplands of Buckingham. The tour of Milton in Italy is a marked portion of his life, and no doubt opened wide fields of poetic imagination and of artistic experience in his mind. He visited Nice, Leghorn, Pisa, Florence; in the vicinity of which last city, at the village of Belloguardo, or at Arcetri, it is supposed that he paid his visit to Galileo. Thence he went on to Sienna and Rome; he afterward proceeded to Naples, and was intending to visit Sicily and Athens, when the news of the revolutionary troubles in England reached him, and caused him to retrace his steps through Rome and Florence; whence he visited Lucca, and crossing the Apennines to Bologna, Ferrara, and Venice, he then hastened homeward by Verona, Milan, and along the Lake Leman to Geneva, and so on through France.

In every city of Italy he was cordially and honorably received by the most distinguished persons of the age, and studied the works of the great masters, in both painting and sculpture, with an effect which is believed to be apparent in his great work, Paradise Lost. The sacrifice which he made to the spirit of patriotism by this return is eloquently adverted to by Warton. "He gave up," he remarks, "these countries, connected with his finer feelings, interwoven with his poetical ideas, and impressed upon his imagination by his habits of reading, and by long and intimate converse with the Grecian literature. But so prevalent were his patriotic attachments, that hearing in Italy of the commencement of the national quarrel, instead of proceeding forward, to feast his fancy with the contemplation of scenes familiar to Theocritus and Homer, the fires of Etna, and the porticoes of Pericles, he abruptly changed his course, and hastily returned home to plead the cause of ideal liberty.

Yet in this chaos of controversy, amid endless disputes concerning religious and political reformation, independency, prelacy, t.i.thes, toleration, and tyranny, he sometimes seems to have heaved a sigh for the peaceable enjoyments of lettered solitude, for his congenial pursuits, and the more mild and ingenious exercises of the Muse."

But though he might sigh for these, he never suffered them to draw him aside from the path of what he deemed the most sacred duty, both toward G.o.d and man; he sacrificed not only his desire of visiting cla.s.sical regions, and of lettered ease, but he was willing to risk the achievement of what he considered--and which eventually proved to be--the crowning act of his eternal fame, the writing of his great epic.

He had conceived, as he tells us himself, the scheme of his Paradise Lost; on that he placed his hope of immortality; but even that he heroically resolved to postpone till he had seen his country rescued from her oppressors, and placed on a firm ground of freedom. The casualties of life might have robbed him and the world forever of the projected work, but he ventured all for the great cause of his country and of man, and was rewarded.