Sieveking, in his anthology,1 declared, with symptoms of ill humor, that Milton so carefully 'hedged' and 'trimmed' his garden that it was claimed in turn by partisans of rival schools2 as representing their respective views. And William Mason in English and Jacques Delille in French1 were moved to celebrate Milton's rôle in long and, it must be confessed, inferior, poems. But though all these men wrote sincerely, most of them wrote poorly, and one is not tempted to quote their observations at greater length. Fortunately, the fact of their writing is more important than the quality of it, and if Milton exerted the influence they ascribe to him, one can easily consult for oneself the passages from which it must have sprung. Nevertheless by this material one must estimate Milton's connection with the art of gardening. Imperfectly as these historians of landscape deal with his lines, they bear witness that he kindled rather than reflected a new freedom in their art, and determined rather than recorded one of the most important phases of its evolution. Nor were their conclusions undiscerning. If Milton protested against artificiality, he did not therefore, in their eyes, demand an unsystematic and unquestioning 'return to Nature.' Gardeners still had something more to do than to select and enclose favorable portions of ground; they were to continue as adept workers in a beautiful craft. And in order to reach this truth the commentators had done more than read the A. F. Sieveking, Gardens Ancient and Modern, Historical Epilogue, "Walpole and Bagehot are mentioned. The reference in Bagehot I have not been able to trace. p. 316. Mason, The English Garden, a Poem in Four Books, ed. by Burgh (York, 1783), 1. 448 ff. Delille, Les Jardins 1.284 ff., 604 ff. Fourth Book of the epic, where the garden is ‘ordained by God,' and where the interference of 'nice art' is expressly denied. They had observed the light thrown upon Milton's attitude by such occasional phrases as, Nature's own work it seemed (Nature taught Art); and they had perceived in the poet himself a selective process that converted his descriptive passages into models for imitation. To summarize, it would appear that Milton, without being a landscape-artist in theory or practice, held up a mirror to those who were, whereby he quickened latent tendencies and confirmed uncertain impulses toward the change in taste with which his name is associated. To him we are perhaps indebted to-day, if for no particular lawns, vistas, and prospects, for some of our pleasure in all loveliness of this kind wherever found. Except in respect to music, this chapter is as complete as the material in Milton seems to allow. If broader generalization is not feasible, at least one may say that music, architecture, and landscape-gardening meant much to Milton, and that he knew much about them. It does not follow that to a mind so endowed and so sensitive other avenues of aesthetic enjoyment were closed, or other fields of technique unfamiliar. His own poetic art, including within it all others, must have been to him full of voices which, with varying cogency, urged upon him, as upon 'the ideal spectator,' their respective sources of profit and delight. If his uttered response was sometimes faint, it was never random or unwilling. CHAPTER III GENERAL ASPECTS OF MILTON'S THEORY OF POETRY Milton's obiter dicta on poetry are as scattered, and almost as fragmentary, as his references to the other fine arts, but are more copious, and more 'obviously part of a complete though unenunciated theory. The relation of this theory to Aristotle one immediately guesses; its reflection of the Italian commentators on Aristotle one ultimately perceives. In a discussion of this theory an important matter must be dealt with at the outset. An effort to formulate the laws and higher mechanics of the fine arts, especially of poetry, will often encounter the ‘enthusiastic' protest that artists, like Paracelsus and the bird, pursue a 'trackless way,' and like them 'arrive'-in other words, that 'art [is] nothing worth, and genius all in all." As Sir Joshua Reynolds puts it, there is something more 'captivating and liberal' in one who represents painting ‘as a kind of inspiration, . . . a gift bestowed upon peculiar favorites at their birth,' than in one who coldly examines into the actual means and methods of artists. So with poetry. Why work out a body of critical doctrine, say the sceptical, when poetry is all a matter of fine frenzy? 1 Horace, Ars Poetica 295-296-Howes' translation. 'Sixth Discourse. ... We must therefore ask, What was Milton's attitude in the time-honored dispute between art and genius? To what extent was he 'Aristotelian'? To what extent 'Platonic'? Would he have embodied his views on poetry in a treatise or in a myth? What ratio would he assign to art and nature in explaining the creation of beauty? How far did he attribute poetry to original endowment and fitful inspiration, and how far to such an endowment trained to habitual response? Though the dependence, already noted, of Milton upon Aristotle provides a general answer to these questions, yet the wisest writers on poetry, even while assigning the chief importance either to art or to inspiration—that is even while revealing a greater sympathy with Aristotle or with Plato-have come to some middle ground that seemed to allow an adjustment. Our attempt must be to discover Milton's adjustment. But as we have identified his definition of art with Aristotle's, and are searching for his rational artistic principles, we may consider his tributes to inspiration, spontaneity, and inborn aptitude to be the concessive or modifying elements in his theory. 1 As rigorous theorists have admitted the necessity of an innate gift-Aristotle, his disciples in the Renaissance, even Boileau, 'the lawgiver of the French Parnassus'—so also did Milton. He deems it ‘a genial power of nature,' essential, though not in itself adequate to creation. He sees its importance, while recognizing the dictates of a rational aesthetic theory; his reasoning is in logical agreement with his whole conception of art. He reverenced workmanship, and insisted upon method; inevitably also he admitted the fact of inspiration. 1Above, p. 29. In a rough classification determined by general attitude, there has been no doubt where our poet would stand. For the plastic quality of Milton's endowment, Addison placed him in the second class of great geniuses-in a distinguished fellowship of the law-abiding, with 'those that have formed themselves by rules, and submitted the greatness of their natural talents to the corrections and the restraints of art."2 And a modern editor of Addison, Professor Cook, writes: "That Milton would not have declined to be judged by these rules [the rules of epic poetry] is evident from a passage of his tractate Of Education, in which he speaks of the teaching of "those organic arts, which enable men to discourse and write perspicuously, elegantly, and according to the fittest style of lofty, mean, or lowly."" Finally, Milton himself makes his own attitude clear. In effect he asserts that neither nature alone, nor art alone, can produce a great poet, but that to an original gift there must be joined a capacity for the 'learned pains' which toʻany gentle apprehension' are easily distinguishable from 'unlearned drudgery,' After recording the favorable reception of his poems in Italy by the members of the private academies, he writes: I began thus far to assent both to them and divers of my friends here at home, and not less to an inward prompting which now grew daily upon me, that by labor and intent study (which I take to be my portion in this life), joined with the strong propensity of nature," I might perhaps 1 Addison explains that the classification was thus numbered 'only for distinction's sake,' and that it bore no relation to degrees of superiority. Spectator. No. 160, Sept. 3, 1711; See Addison on P. L., ed. by Cook, p. 159. • Addison on P. L., ed. by Cook, Notes, p. 162. • Church-Gov. (Bk. 2), Works 3.149. 'Another phrase for the 'genial power of nature,' mentioned on p. 60. |