and profession of false sentiment drew from truth-speaking George Wither his song of "The Manly Heart." "Shall I, wasting in despair, Die because a woman's fair? Or make pale my cheeks with care Be she fairer than the day, Or the flowery meads in May; What care I how fair she be ! "Should my heart be grieved or pined 'Cause I see a woman kind? If she be not so to me, "Shall a woman's virtues move "'Cause her fortune seems too high, Shall I play the fool and die? Those that bear a noble mind, Where they want of riches find, Think what with them they would do And unless that mind I see, What care I though great she be ! "Great, or good, or kind, or fair, If she love me, this believe, If she slight me when I woo, I can scorn and bid her go; What care I for whom she be !' When the war began, Wither, who had been brought up as a lawyer, sold his estate, raised a troop for the Parliament, and led his men into the battle-field. His song of the Puritan soldier shows the spirit that he and his comrades carried with them into the soldier's life : "Now in myself I notice take, What life we soldiers lead; My hair stands up, my heart doth ache, And to declare This horrid fear, Throughout my bones I feel A shivering cold On me lay hold, And run from head to heel. "It is not loss of limbs or breath Which hath me so dismayed, Nor mortal wounds, nor groans of death When cannons roar I start no more Than mountains from their place, Nor feel I fears, Though swords and spears Are darted at my face. "A soldier it would ill become Such common things to fear, The shouts of war, the thundering drum, His courage up doth cheer; Though dust and smoke His passage choke, He boldly marcheth on, And thinketh scorn His back to turn, Till all be lost or won. "That whereupon the dread begins Is that huge troop of crying sins Wherewith I find Into the field they go, More terror hath Than all the wrath And engines of the foe. "Defend me, Lord, from those misdeeds And from the vengeance that succeeds Preserve me far From acts of war Where Thou dost peace command, Let mercy rest, Though justice use my hand. "Be Thou my leader to the field, Be Thou a breastplate and a shield, For live or die I will rely On Thee, O Lord, alone; Though fall I must, I cannot be undone." From Wither we pass on to the great poet of that time, Milton, who, like Spenser, was Puritan in his sympathies, but who yet rises so much into the heaven of pure truth as to be above all parties. CHAPTER XIII. MILTON (1608—1674). "HE who would not be frustrate of his hope to write well hereafter of laudable things, ought himself to be a true poem." These are Milton's own words, and we are going to see in his life and work how he sought to make of them "one grand sweet song;' for what is a poem but beautiful and noble thoughts put into verse? And if truth and love, self-denial and steadfastness to duty, courage and patience, are beautiful in words, must they not be far more beautiful and noble when they are expressed in life and work? John Milton was born in Bread Street, Cheapside, on the 9th of December, 1608. His father had been cast off by his family in the Reformation times for becoming a Protestant; he had taste and genius in music, and is known as a writer of madrigals and hymn tunes. His mother was a woman of great gentleness and charity, and had somewhat delicate health. His first teacher was a Mr. Young, a Puritan minister, whom Milton loved through life as a second father. When Milton was twelve years old he was sent to St. Paul's School (that school which Colet founded, and of which we have already heard); and no doubt as the little boy ran in and out, he often looked up at the statue of the holy child Jesus over the gate, with its motto, "Hear ye Him." Milton was a busy student, even in his school-days; the same earnest longing to reach the highest possible degree of excellence in his work, that he showed through life, often kept him up till midnight over his lessons; and his industry was quickened by his love for his teacher, the son of the head-master, Alexander Gill. Milton also formed a strong and lasting friendship with one of his school-fellows, a boy named Charles Diodati, the son of a Protestant Italian physician, who had left his country for the sake of his religion, and had come to London. To him Milton, in later life, tells all his thoughts and feelings, and no doubt the boys spent many happy hours of their school-days in talking together with the freedom and trust of perfect sympathy over all they loved and enjoyed in the present, and hoped to be and do in the future. Milton early showed his power as a poet. His first published verse was written when he was fifteen; and we must notice that he begins and ends his work as a poet with the expression of perfect trust in the love and wisdom of God. This was the anchor of his life, from the days when the bright, young school-boy, with all his life before him, wrote "Let us with a gladsome mind, Praise the Lord, for He is kind; to the days when the blind, much-tried old man, his life closing, wrote his last words as a poet :— "All is best, though we oft doubt Milton's hymn shows us something of the character of his mind in these early days. Another memorial of his |