The Mount Holly news. [volume] (Mount Holly, Burlington Co., N.J.) 1891-1942, 1893-01-03

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soms men have genius. some iame.
some glory John Milton has them all.
Yet far more than this, for the very name
of this man must ever go down, even to
the generations that are yet to Come, as
the one above all others whose pen has
charmed and -hewildsfed us the man
whom the whole world loves the great
king of our literature, whose only rivals
are the immortal Shakespeare, and in our
own time, Lord Tennyson. Many have
no desire to know this man some cannot
understand him. for he seems to have
been almost more than human. As the
giant of the forest, he is the mighty oak,
which towers toward the sky of perfec-
1 ton.
To read, and to read of, such men as
these, is a pleasure which people differ
emily enjoy. In reading an ordinary book
we do not stop to study its author, but in
cases like treatise ON ''The Fall of Man,
it seems that the author even excels his
works, if such thing were possible.
John Milton was man in every respect.
So good; so true to men, to his country,
to his God.
Imaginatlons had no bounds for him,
they were almost his realities. We are
led by the magic power of his pen, not
only in regions upon the earth, but far
more; we are taken into hell. or ushered
into the awful presence of the Deity Him
self.
So many great men have shone forth in
our literature, that it is indeed hard to
place any one at the head of the list.
Scott was noble man. He found him
self famous, in the first place, because he
rescued the ballad from oblivion, and sec
ondly, on account of his numerous and in
teresting prose works which followed.
Many others could be brought forward,
but Shakespeare and Milton seem to
strive more than all others for the goal.
AS a genius Shakespeare has no equal,
but Lord Macaulay has said John Mil :
ton. the poet, the statesman, the philos-
opher, the glory of English literature. the
champion and the martyr of English lib
erty." Such words as these, and from one
so able to criticise as was Lord Macaulay.
cannot fail to awaken in us a desire to
know more Of this man, who has called
forth such fit and beautiful words.
And still another has said, Milton is as
great writer in prose as in verse. Prose
conferred celebrity on him during his life,
poetry after bis death; but the renown of
the prose writer is forever lost in the
glory of the poet"
1t was Charles Lamb who said, Milton
almost requires solemn service to be
played before you enter upon him."
He seemed to realize that,
Gas imagination bodies forth
The forms of things unknown, the poets pen
Turns them to shapes, and gives to airy nothing
A local habitation and name"
We might also apply line of Sir Wal
ter Scott's, and say,
"Thewizard note has not been touched in vail"
How true these words are, for the vibra-
tions of the great string which Milton
struck are still sounding on the ear, and
should they die out, they would still send
back fainter and more beautiful echoes.
The ancestry of the poet is obscure in
detail, though we know that his grand
father, John Milton, was Baptist, who
dlsinherited his son for becoming Church
of England man. His mother was gem
tlewoman.
The elder Milton seems to have been a
peculiarly bright man and one of strong
and forcible character. London scriveners
were usually not idle. and such was his
occupation.
He gained quite considerable fortune,
but not an enormously large one by any
means, and he appears to have been a
great lover of the arts and literature, and
t is well to note one point here, namely,
that when he found his son to possess
such rare powers and literary tastes, he
was not only able, bat willing to foster all
of his sons desires in this line. In fact,
John Milton has himself said. my father
destined me, while yet a child, to the
study of polite literature, which l en-
braced with such avidity, that from the
twelfth year of my age hardly ever re-
tired to my rest from my studies till mid
night"
John Milton was born on the 9th Of
December, 1908.
A few words of preliminary history
must introduce him to the reader
Some one has well remarked. His pen
was as sharp and effective as the sabres of
Cromwell's Ironsides." Upon the death
of Queen Elizabeth in 1903. James l. as
cended the throne with the highest no
tions of kingly prerogative and of a church
establishment; but the progress of the
English people in education and intelli-
gence, the advance in arts and letters
which had been made. were vastly injuri-
GUS to the autocratic and aristocratic sys-
tenn which James had received from his
predecessor.
His foolish arrogance and contempt for
popular rights incensed the people, thus
enlightened as to their own position and
Importance. They soon began to feel that
he was not only UNJUST but ungrateful
he had come from rustic throne in Scot
land, where he had received $4,000 per
annum, with occasional presents of fruit,
grain and poultry, to the greatest throne
in Europe land BESIDES the Stuart family,
according to Thackaray, "as regards mere
lineage, were no better than dozen Eng
fish and Scottish houses that could be
named"
They resisted the illegal taxes and
forced loans; they clamered against the
unconstitutional Court of High Commits
sion they despised his arrogant favorites
and what they might have patiently
borne from gallant energetic and hand
some monarch, they found it hard to bear
from pedantic, timid, uncouth and rick
ETY. man, who gave them either glory nor
comfort. His eldest son, Prince Henry,
the universal favorite of the nation, had
died in 1912. before he was eighteen.
When, after series of struggles with
the parliament which he had reluctantly
convened, James /. died In 1926, Charles
/. came TO an inheritance of error and