The Sedalia weekly bazoo. [volume] (Sedalia, Mo.) 187?-1904, 1893-06-27
JOHN MILTON.
Something Aboutthe Au!hor Of
"Paradise Lost"

there stands forth in England
one picturesque and typical man
The strongest ages do thus incorporate
their life in some one strong represen
tative, and hold him up before the
world to tell their story. And the
most typical man of English seven
teenth-century life was John Milton
l am drawn to him because of his con
nection with the history of education
which l shall speak of by and by
But before can speak Of that, mus
remind you of how in general Milton
embodied in his life all those charac
lteristics WHICH make the seventeenth
century strong ana positive IN history
as We look back upon it. Not even
Cromwell so largely ambodies all its
qualities. HE was" as Professor
Seeley strongly says, "the most cult
waited man Of his time, perhaps We
might say the most cultivated man
that ever lived in England; but his
culture was all of that best sort which
humanizes instead of unhumanizing
its subject, and makes it more and not
less a representative and specimen of
the time in which he lives. Milton
was born in 1908, on the 9th day Of
December, at quarter past six in the
the morning, at the Spread Eagle in
Bread Street, in London, where his
father Was a prosperous scrivener.
That father had been disinherited by
his father because he had become a
Protestant, and Bible had been
found in his chamber; already there
was protest and reform in the blood.
He entered at Christ College at Cam
bridge when he was fifteen years old,
and left before his course was finished.
in some sort of mysterious disgrace.
One of the endless discussions of his
biographers is whether he was flogged
in college. DIR. johnson. who does
not like Milton, declares he was, but
it seems doubtful still he might have
been. for flogging in the colleges was
not yet obsolete, and there was that
soul in the audacious schOolboy which
always brings the scEoolboy's body in
to peril. But he left college. and in
a few years went abroad upon that
European journey which is almost
prominent event in English literary
history. Before he went he had al
ready written Com.s and Lyeidas, the
Allegro and Psnseroso. Upon the Con-
tinent he saw great men, and they
made much of him. In Paris he saw
Grotius; in Florence, the imprisoned
Calico; in Rome, the Cardinal Bar
berini. He made friendships that
lasted all his life. and he filled his
mind full Of knowledge. But just as
he was planning to 60 on to Sicily and
Greece, the news of the civil war at
home came to him and, Englishman
that he was, he hurried home. Just
with the same spirit with which 80 !
many Of our young men who seemed
ost in the fascination of foreign study
turned at the earliest drum beat of
'ur war and hurried home that the
var might not fight itself through
without them, so Milton turned and
eft beloved Italy behind him and
hurried home to give the Parliament
md Commonwealth the help of his
zen and, if they needed that, of his
word, too. Here he becam. 1t once
he champion Of the popular cause.
lie laid poetry aside. and for the next
wenty years the press teemed with
is pamphlets. He wrote against the
he bishops, against royalty, against
he church. He pleaded for the free
ON of printing, for the right of re-
elton, and, having his own home I
easons for turning his thought that s
ay. for the liberty of divorce. After
while he was Cromwell's Latin secre-
Try, and gave the great protector his q
est praises and best help. So things d
ent on, with Millions heart and pen