gone by. He committed the grave error of assuming a power, which belonging legitimately to no man, derogates from the worth, if it does not in the abstract corrupt its assumers. He was a king by the right of nature, an unfictious king, as countless other Englishmen of large heart and brain have been. Being this, he wanted not to be "Lord Protector or "Highness;" titles were out of place for him, whom nature had made the greatest of his generation. Yet detracting all we may from his extraordinary personal merit and the felicity of his pre-eminent rule, his name will be ever honoured by his thoughtful countrymen; and "Oliver's days" will be long a tradition in the land, though for the present his statue is denied a niche in "high places." When legislative enactments shall be shaped out by a specially trained and highly cultivated order of intellect; when to accept or reject these, we have a better educated people; when restraints are even more rigid than at present to shield us from the interference of an uneducated democracy, or the bigotries of aristocratic or sectarian narrowness-then will the generations read history, and venerate to the full the memory of their great statesman and soldier-whom God, not man, had made a potentate. 66 He died in the fulness of his power and fame, "leaving," as Carlyle says, a great scene of World-history in this old Whitehall." But little of this old Whitehall remains, saving the Banqueting House, which has few associations pertaining to Oliver. Rather those belonging to the gaudy apotheosis, and the ignoble scenes Pepys and Evelyn describe. Two great fires in the reign of William and Mary destroyed the whole palace, with the exception of the Banqueting House. Other conflagrations, since then, have taken from us St. Stephen's Chapel, and the fragments of the grand old palace of our ancient kings. The old chapel was an incalculable loss. England and Englishmen could ill spare the venerable and splendid associations which connected themselves with the old House of Commons; and the liberties vindicated there by a Hampden, an Eliot, a Vane. Yet something remains to us: we have those liberties themselves, consecrated alike by time and usage. Best shall we consecrate them anew, best shall we reverence the ancient scene, the "hallowed spot," by dedicating our individual duties, aspirations, and endeavours, however humbly, weakly, or indirectly, to the same "immortal cause." 161 CHAPTER VIII. BREAD STREET; ALDERSGATE STREET; PETTY FRANCE; AND CRIPPLEGATE.--- CHEAPSIDE and its diverging streets abound in associations; historic, literary, civic, and domestic. But there is one of still larger interest to the thoughtful; and this relating to the mighty tide of human life which now for centuries has swept along this thoroughfare. A tide rarely ceasing; yet made up of infinite human souls, which doubtless for the major part did brave and noble work for its kind; building up the stratas of civilization, till we, the generations of to-day, take our turn to be actors and improvers. We are called-and let us do our service well! Let us enrich that ever moving throng-that wave of the great ocean of eternity, with higher knowledge, higher purpose, higher faith, and it will flow on to still more potential ends, both physical and moral. Believe it! our destiny is a sublime one if we could behold its issues; and the time may come, when, by a general culture of intelligence, and a conservation of virtues and principles, streams of human life, such as this ever thronging through Cheapside, may be purified from evil and selfishness to a degree, which to specify, would possibly raise a smile in all but the few who, through knowledge, are cognizant of the physical and moral ascension man has already slowly made. These are wholesome thoughts-fit to be well remembered as we approach the "hallowed spot" where he was born, who did so much to show virtue in her "highest mood;" who scorned tyranny, pride, and wilful ignorance; who pleaded for the freedom of the press; and did such service, by his incomparable writings, for the religious liberty of England. The place is Bread Street-the man, John Milton. From a charter, quoted in "Londini Illustrata," we learn, that a few years previously to 1290, when the Cross was set up by King Edward I. in memory of his queen, Cheapside, or at least a part of it, was an open field; called in 1246 "Crown field," from a hostelry at its east end, bearing that sign. This field must have been on the northern side;* for on the southern, the remains constantly found prove that the Roman city had covered this site; and the Normans likewise building in this direction, had raised a noble church, on the site of the present Bow Church, as early In 1419, seventh year of Henry V. a great portion of the northern side of Chepe, or Cheapside, was then open ground.- Liber Albus, Note, p. 23. M as the reign of the Conqueror. An important thoroughfare like this was soon sure to be lined by houses, and in a few years after the erection of its beautiful Cross, Cheapside was celebrated for its booths of merchandize, and in course of time for its conduit and its standard. An old print attached to one of the rare maps of London in the British Museum, shows Cheapside to have been anciently wider than it is at present; and the middle of the street raised above its level, was railed in on either side, wherein were paths parallel with the ground-floors of the overhanging houses, as may yet be seen in Chester and some of the old towns on the Welch borders. Without these rails, "ridings," that is, tournaments and jousts, were held in the presence of royalty, who occupied on these occasions a sort of shed or balcony erected outside Bow Church, and which remained there, more or less in its original condition, till the church was burnt down in the Fire of London. Bread Street "so called," says Stow," in old time from bread there sold," and this as early as 1302-was, in the early part of the seventeenth century chiefly occupied by rich merchants. In it also were "divers fair inns," for the use of travellers and carriers to the City. It has been surmised by the biographers of Milton, that the house in which he was born was a "garden house." This surmise is, we think, borne out by Aggas's plan, if the accuracy of the old delineator may be relied on. Entering Bread Street from Cheapside in those old days-we must recollect the Cross stood hereabouts in the great thoroughfare-we find the corner house on our left hand is large and has a court or garden attached to it. Behind this, again, is a considerable space of ground-which, in addition to a narrow lane, stretches as far as Bow Church. Then come houses, again, with the contingent court or garden; in one of which-the sign above it being the Spread Eagle, the armorial bearings of his family-John Milton was born the ninth of December, 1608, between the hours of six and seven in the morning. The church of All Hallows, Bread Street, was but a few doors off on the same side the way: and herein, eleven days after birth, he was baptized, the following being entered in the parish register : "The XX daye of Dec 1608 was baptized John the sonne of John Mylton. Scrivener." We can fancy the Christmas kept with unusual festivities-it was not yet proscribed— for this advent of the first-born son; of whom was assuredly much care, for it was "winter wild," and this amid sweet presagings for the future, though they knew it not, that "At his birth a star Unseen before in heaven proclaims him come.' Of the old church of All Hallows, Bread Street, little is known, as it was burnt Paradise Lost, book xii. down in the Great Fire, and rebuilt by Wren. There was also another church, that of St. Mildred, on the same side of the way, which shared in the same disaster and the same re-edification. The sheriffs of London had their comptor or prison in this street till 1555, when it was removed to Wood Street; here also stood the Mermaid Tavern, celebrated in the verse of both Ben Jonson and Francis Beaumont.* Nor will it be inappropriate to mention, though referred to elsewhere, that in a house in this street was stored the larger portion of the fine library of Dr. Thomas Goodwin, when all was turned to ashes in the Great Fire. He preached his celebrated sermon, "Patience its Perfect Work," on the occasion, and ceased his scholarly regret when he remembered that his theological books yet remained. Here, also, in All Hallows, soon after its rebuilding, was buried the pious John Howe. Milton's parents seem both to have been worthy of such a son. His mother's charity and goodness he himself records in his immortal "Second Defence," and from her he seems to have derived his head-aches and weak sight. "His father," says old Aubrey, “read without spectacles at eighty-four. His mother had very weak eies, and used spectacles presently after she was thirty years old." The elder Milton had studied at Christ Church, Oxford, but finding, as Aubrey tells, "a bible in English in his chamber," he upon the reading of it became convinced of the fallacy of the Popish doctrines, and, abruptly quitting the university, came to London and adopted-after due instruction from a friend-the profession of a scrivener, a valuable one in that day. His relaxation was music, for which he had an exquisite taste and great talent. He "composed many songs now in print," says Aubrey, 'especially that of Oriana, and got a plentiful estate by it, and left it off many years before he died." Is it possible that Milton's father, after all, made his substance by his skill in musical composition, or is it old Aubrey's bad grammar? We suspect the latter. Still it may have been a source of some profit. For the composition of a song in fourteen parts the Landgrave of Hesse sent him, adds Aubrey, " a meddall of gold as a noble present." Oriana was a sort of masque, and was the joint composition of the elder Milton and two or three more, the eighteenth part being his, and of great beauty. It was probably composed some years previous to the great poet's birth, as it was in honour of Queen Elizabeth, flattering her under the title of a fair young shepherdess, though she was then toothless and wrinkled. His sacred music was also excellent; some of it is in use at this day; and we may fancy, whilst he sat at his organ blending together these exquisite melodies, the young boy Milton lingering in some window-seat or nook close by, a listener to the "linked sweetness long drawn out," yet wrapt in dreams that were to have an immortal music of their own. Milton's genius was encouraged by his father. Previously to entering St. Paul's Cunningham, p. 332. School, at the age of fifteen-there is some reason to think it was much earlier-he was instructed by masters at home, one of whom was a Puritan, named Thomas Young, who, according to Aubrey, "cutt his haire short," an example at least not copied by Milton. His locks were flowing and of wonderful beauty; and in this, as in other things, we trace that fusion of the aristocratic and democratic tendencies so peculiar to Milton, and so finely touched upon by Macaulay. In him were combined the best qualities of Cavalier and Puritan. His high organism embraced the two constituents of truth and beauty; he was in himself a specimen of that high race which we believe eventual civilization and education will produce-a race combining qualities hitherto rarely blended-democratic purity and simplicity, and aristocratic love of art and excellence. Whilst quite a boy Milton commenced his severe studies. "He sat up very late," says Aubrey, "commonly till twelve or one o'clock at night, and his father ordered the mayd to sitt up for him, and in those years (10) composed many copies of verses which might well become a riper age." This privilege was a mistaken one on the part of the elder Milton. The rein and not the spur should have been used. He was by this time, too, a voracious reader, borrowing books of Humphrey Lownes, a neighbour and bookseller, or, as some say, printer. In this way he became acquainted with Spenser and Sylvester's writings, and with passionate enthusiasm revelled in the beauties of the "Faerie Queene." We fancy we see the boy on his way to school, with those golden locks and fair English face; passing by Watling Street, Old Change, and so to St. Paul's School |