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vost of King ' s College , Cambridge , is thus elegantly translated : Ashes of re £ al and of ho ) y fame , Forgive the intrusion of a hostile name ; Cease human enmities with human life , And death , the great composer , calm your strife .
Lo ! now the King ' s and People ' s rights agree , In Freedom ' s hand the hallovv'd sceptre see ; No jealous fears alarm these happier days , And our Augustus smiles at Cato * s praise !
It is a remarkable fact that though Milton was the sworn enemy of all religious establishments , yet ministers of the Church of England have , to their eternal honour , done the amplest justice to his character and his writings . Bishop Newton published the
best edition of his poetical works , and Bishop Sumner , by order of his Majesty , gave to the public his Treatise on the Christian Doctrine , with a translation of singular fidelity , whilst Messrs . Symmons and Todd , respectable clergymen , have furnished the
world with admirable pieces of his biography . Nor must we omit to remark , by way of conclusion , that Dr . Samuel Johnson , of High Church celebrity , has , with a studied depreciation of Milton ' s character , paid the profoundest homage to his
literary memory . " His great works , " says this distinguished biographer , " were performed under discountenance and in blindness ; but difficulties vanished at his touch ; he was born for whatever is arduous , and his
Paradise Lost is not the greatest of heroic poems only because it is not the first . His delight was to sport in the wide regions of possibility ; reality was a scene too narrow for his rnind . lie sent bis faculties out upon discovery into worlds where imagination only can travel , and delighted to form new modes of existence and furnish
sentiments and actions to superior beings , to trace the counsels of hell , or accompany the choirs of heaven ! Fancy can hardly forbear to conjecture with what temper Milton surveyed the silent progress of his work , and marked his reputation stealing its way in a kind of subterraneous current through fear and silence . 1
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cannot but conceive him Oalm and confident , little disappointed , not at all dejected , relying on his own merit with steady consciousness , and waiting without impatience the vicissitudes of opinion and the impartiality of a future generation . "
Such , Mr . Editor , were the circumstances of blindness , desertion and poverty in which the Treatise on the Christian Doctrine , by John Milton , was composed , and which must draw towards it special attention . Concealed for upwards of a century , it
has at length providentially emerged into broad day-light , under the auspices of regal sanction and episcopal authority . Dedicated to our gracious Monarch , and translated by a liberal prelate , an ornament of the bench , it challenges profound examination . Were its erudite and venerable author
to start from the tomb , he would view the fate of his literary offspring with an incredulous astonishment . Even the restoration of his eye-sight might be deemed necessary to certify him of the fact ! My next and concluding paper will exhibit an estimate of this extraordinary work drawn from the
notice taken of it by the periodical publications of the day . Haying undergone the ordeal of conflicting criticisms , it has come forth , like gold from the fire , with a more resplendent lustre I Indeed , Milton , wielding his mighty pen either in prose or in poetry , astonishes and delights his readers . Both the Paradise Lost and the
Christian Doctrine were the offspring of his adversity . His reverse of circumstances is thus affectingly detailed by himself to Heimbach , an accomplished German counsellor to the
Elector of Brandenburgh , an old pupil who knew him in his earlier and better days . It is thus translated hy his affectionate and spirited bigrapher , Mr . I lay ley , and will here form an appropriate conclusion :
" If among so many funerals of my countrymen in a year ( 1665 ) so full of pestilence and sorrow , " says the great poet and distinguished patriot , J you were induced , as you say , by rumour to believe that I also was snatched away ,
it is not surprising ; and if such a rumour prevailed among those ot your nation as it seems to have done , because they were solicitous for my
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662 Dom estio Ch aracter of Milton .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Nov. 2, 1826, page 662, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2554/page/26/
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