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Civil wars, especially when founded on principles of liberty are not commonly unfavorable to the arts of elocution and composition; or rather, by presenting nobler and more interesting objects, they amply compensate that tranquillity of which they bereave the muses. The speeches of the parliamentary orators, during this period, are of a strain much superior to what any former age had produced in England; and the force and compass of our tongue were then first put to trial. It must, however, be confessed, that the wretched fanaticism, which so much infected the parliamentary party, was no less destructive of taste and science, than of all law and order. Gayety and wit were proscribed; human learning despised; freedom of inquiry detested; cant and hypocrisy alone encouraged. It was an article positively insisted on in the preliminaries to the treaty of Uxbridge, that all play-houses should forever be abolished. Sir John Davenant, says Whitlocke,[**] speaking of the year 1658, published an opera, notwithstanding the nicety of the times. All the king’s furniture was put to sale: his pictures, disposed of at very low prices, enriched all the collections in Europe: the cartoons, when complete, were only appraised at three hundred pounds, though the whole collection of the king’s curiosities was sold at above fifty thousand,[***]

* Neale’s History of the Puritans, vol. iv. p. 123.

** Page 639.

*** Parl. Hist. vol. xix. p. 83.

Even the royal palaces were pulled in pieces, and the materials of them sold. The very library and medals at St. James’s were intended by the generals to be brought to auction, in order to pay the arrears of some regiments of cavalry quartered near London; but, Seiden, apprehensive of the loss, engaged his friend Whitlocke, then lord-keeper for the commonwealth, to apply for the office of librarian. This expedient saved that valuable collection.

It is, however, remarkable, that the greatest genius by far that shone out in England during this period, was deeply engaged with these fanatics, and even prostituted his pen in theological controversy, in factious disputes, and in justifying the most violent measures of the party. This was John Milton, whose poems are admirable, though liable to some objections; his prose writings disagreeable, though not altogether defective in genius. Nor are all his poems equal: his Paradise Lost, his Comus, and a few others, shine out amidst some flat and insipid compositions. Even in the Paradise Lost, his capital performance, there are very long passages, amounting to near a third of the work, almost wholly destitute of harmony and elegance, nay, of all vigor of imagination. This natural inequality in Milton’s genius was much increased by the inequalities in his subject; of which some parts are of themselves the most lofty that can enter into human conception; others would have required the most labored elegance of composition to support them. It is certain that this author, when in a happy mood, and employed on a noble subject, is the most wonderfully sublime of any poet in any language, Homer, and Lucretius, and Tasso not excepted. More concise than Homer, more simple than Tasso, more nervous than Lucretius, had he lived in a later age, and learned to polish some rudeness in his verses; had he enjoyed better fortune, and possessed leisure to watch the returns of genius in himself; he had attained the pinnacle of perfection, and borne away the palm of epic poetry.

It is well known, that Milton never enjoyed in his lifetime the reputation which he deserved. His Paradise Lost was long neglected: prejudices against an apologist for the regicides, and against a work not wholly purged from the cant of former times, kept the ignorant world from perceiving the prodigious merit of that performance. Lord Somers, by encouraging a good edition of it, about twenty years after the author’s death, first brought it into request; and Tonson, in his dedication of a smaller edition, speaks of it as a work just beginning to be known. Even during the prevalence of Milton’s party, he seems never to have been much regarded, and Whitlocke talks of one Milton, as he calls him, a blind man, who was employed in translating a treaty with Sweden into Latin. These forms of expression are amusing to posterity, who consider how obscure Whitlocke himself though lord-keeper and ambassador, and indeed a man of great abilities and merit, has become in comparison of Milton.

It is not strange that Milton received no encouragement after the restoration: it is more to be admired that he escaped with his life. Many of the cavaliers blamed extremely that lenity towards him, which was so honorable in the king, and so advantageous to posterity. It is said, that he had saved Davenant’s life during the protectorship; and Davenant in return afforded him like protection after the restoration; being sensible that men of letters ought always to regard their sympathy of taste as a more powerful band of union, than any difference of party or opinion as a source of animosity. It was during a state of poverty, blindness, disgrace, danger, and old age, that Milton composed his wonderful poem, which not only surpassed all the performances of his contemporaries, but all the compositions which had flowed from his pen during the vigor of his age and the height of his prosperity. This circumstance is not the least remarkable of all those which attend that great genius. He died in 1674, aged sixty-six.

Waller was the first refiner of English poetry, at least of English rhyme; but his performances still abound with many faults, and, what is more material, they contain but feeble and superficial beauties. Gayety, wit, and ingenuity are their ruling character: they aspire not to the sublime; still less to the pathetic. They treat of love, without making us feel any tenderness; and abound in panegyric, without exciting admiration. The panegyric, however, on Cromwell, contains more force than we should expect, from the other compositions of this poet.

Waller was born to an ample fortune, was early introduced to the court, and lived in the best company. He possessed talents for eloquence as well as poetry; and till his death, which happened in a good old age, he was the delight of the house of commons. The errors of his life proceeded more from want of courage, than of honor or integrity. He died in 1687, aged eighty-two.

Cowley is an author extremely corrupted by the bad taste of his age; but had he lived even in the purest times of Greece nor Rome, he must always have been a very indifferent poet. He had no ear for harmony; and his verses are only known to be such by the rhyme which terminates them. In his rugged untenable numbers are conveyed sentiments the most strained and distorted; long-spun allegories, distant allusions, and forced conceits. Great ingenuity, however, and vigor of thought, sometimes break out amidst those unnatural conceptions: a few anacreontics surprise us by their ease and gayety: his prose writings please by the honesty and goodness which they express, and even by their spleen and melancholy. This author was much more praised and admired during his lifetime, and celebrated after his death, than the great Milton. He died in 1667, aged forty-nine.

Sir John Denham, in his Cooper’s Hill, (for none of his other poems merit attention,) has a loftiness and vigor which had not before him been attained by any English poet who wrote in rhyme. The mechanical difficulties of that measure retarded its improvement. Shakspeare, whose tragic scenes are sometimes so wonderfully forcible and expressive, is a very indifferent poet when he attempts to rhyme. Precision and neatness are chiefly wanting in Denham. He died in 1688, aged seventy-three.

No English author in that age was more celebrated, both abroad and at home, than Hobbes: in our time, he is much neglected; a lively instance how precarious all reputations founded on reasoning and philosophy. A pleasant comedy, which paints the manners of the age, and exposes a faithful picture of nature, is a durable work, and is transmitted to the latest posterity. But a system, whether physical or metaphysical, commonly owes its success to its novelty; and is no sooner canvassed with impartiality than its weakness is discovered. Hobbes’s politics are fitted only to promote tyranny, and his ethics to encourage licentiousness. Though an enemy to religion, he partakes nothing of the spirit of scepticism; but is as positive and dogmatical as if human reason, and his reason in particular, could attain a thorough conviction in these subjects. Clearness and propriety of style are the chief excellencies of Hobbes’s writings. In his own person, he is represented to have been a man of virtue; a character nowise surprising, notwithstanding his libertine system of ethics. Timidity is the principal fault with which he is reproached; he lived to an extreme old age, yet could never reconcile himself to the thoughts of death. The boldness of his opinions and sentiments form a remarkable contrast to this part of his character. He died in 1679, aged ninety-one.