University of Virginia Library

17. XVII.
I VISIT A GENTLEMAN AFTERWARDS FAMOUS THROUGHOUT
THE WORLD.

I left the house of the original character with whom
I had thus become acquainted, and was walking along
Gray's Inn Lane on my way back to Whitehall, when
there came forth from a handsome house a tall and

noble-looking gentleman, in whom I recognized at once
my host of Buckinghamshire, Mr. Hampden.

“Give you good-day, Mr. Cecil,” he said, grasping
my hand with cordial regard: “it seems our fate to
encounter each other. What brings you to Gray's Inn
Lane, where I reside, on this chill morning?”

I explained my mission, and Mr. Hampden shook
his head.

“You young gentlemen are too fond of that sword-amusement,
I fear,” he said; “but 'tis, unfortunately,
out of my power to preach at length on this vice. I
once practiced it.”

“Is it possible?” I said, smiling; “the grave and
serious Mr. Hampden, of the parliament?”

“He was once as bad as the worst, Mr. Cecil! Let
us be honest! And I think even my good cousin Cromwell
must plead guilty to the same charge.”

“Mr. Cromwell! that enthusiast in matters of religion!”

“Was in his youth a roystering blade, fond of
catches at midnight and the foam of flagons! Thus
you see, Mr. Cecil, neither the grave Mr. Hampden
nor the pious Mr. Cromwell can with a very good
grace preach peace and order to the young gentlemen
of this generation! I know but one person who
seems to me immaculate,—a young man whose genius
will render his name more famous than all others of
his epoch. He lives in Aldersgate Street, and I am
going to visit him. Will it please you to accompany
me?”

“With great pleasure,” I said; and ten minutes'
walk brought us to a small house, set in a contracted

garden. From within the house was heard the sound
of an organ.

“Our friend is playing upon his organ: 'tis his
favorite entertainment,” said my companion. “I
will use no ceremony, and enter, since he would never
hear our knocking.”

He opened the door as he spoke, and led the way to
an apartment on the right of the entrance. It was
poorly, almost meanly, furnished; in one corner stood
a small erect organ with green hangings above, and at
this organ sat a man of about thirty, playing a devotional
piece, in which he was so absorbed as not to
notice our entrance.

Mr. Hampden approached and touched him on the
shoulder. He turned his head, and I never saw a face
of more delicate beauty. The eyes were large and
thoughtful; the lips thin, with an expression of grave
austerity; the cheeks rosy, the high forehead as fair as
a woman's, and around this beautiful countenance fell
long fair hair, parted in the middle and reaching to the
shoulders.

He rose, and bowed with grave courtesy, taking Mr.
Hampden's offered hand.

“I have brought my friend Mr. Cecil to see you,
Mr. Milton,” said my companion.

Mr. Milton repeated his salute.

“Of her majesty's Guards, I believe, sir,” he said,
glancing at my uniform. “I witnessed the royal
entry to-day,—a very imposing spectacle.”

“You?” said Mr. Hampden. “Then wonders will
never cease. I had supposed you safe at home here,
composing your poems or treatises, Mr. Milton. What

fancy now possesses you, and when will you carry out
your design of writing your epic on paradise lost by
our first parents?”

Mr. Milton shook his head somewhat sadly.

“Never, I fear,” he replied.

“Are you afraid that our father Adam would not
support you in your favorite theory?”

“What is that, Mr. Hampden?”

“Polygamy—that 'tis allowed in the Scriptures.”

“Do you deny that it is therein taught? The proof
is very easy,” said Mr. Milton, quietly.

“And so you, Mr. Milton, I, and our friend Mr.
Cecil have, each and all of us, the right to espouse two,
or ten, or twenty wives, if we fancy?”

“Yes,” said Mr. Milton; and he was going to open
an Old Testament Scriptures, when his friend stopped
him, smiling.

“I fear you will corrupt our consciences, my worthy
sir. We are not of the line of the patriarchs. Let us
leave polygamy and return to letters. You are engaged
in composing something other than political, I
trust. 'Tis so wearisome, that species of discussion.
Ah! here are some sheets. Is it permitted me to look
at them?”

Mr. Milton made a movement with his hand.

“'Tis only some rhymes of the woods and fields,”
he said. “I please myself in the din of this great city
by thus returning to my youth in fancy.”

Mr. Hampden had taken up the written sheets, and
now read aloud in his deep and musical voice a truly
exquisite passage from the afterwards celebrated poem
styled “L'Allegro,” a name no doubt bestowed upon

it in consequence of Mr. Milton's fondness for the
Italian tongue. The reader was plainly an expert in
the difficult art of managing the human voice. A
charming sweetness marked his intonation, and the
glow upon his cheeks indicated the admiration with
which the lines of the poet—yet unknown—inspired
him.

The reading ended, and I, at least, was silent from
admiration. I think Mr. Hampden was pleased with
this expression of my face; for he said to me,—

“Is not that pure music, sir?”

He turned, as he spoke, to Mr. Milton, and said, in
his deep rich voice,—

“'Tis truly like a breath from the fields of England,
Mr. Milton, and the melody to my ear is wonderful.
But

does injustice to greater men, I think,—to Mr. Beaumont,
Mr. Fletcher, and rare Ben Jonson.”

“Such, I know, is the common opinion, Mr. Hampden,”
said the other; “but I cannot share it. The
brain that originated `The Tempest' and conceived
the wonderful tragedy of `Hamlet, Prince of Denmark,'
is, to my thinking, the greatest in our English
letters. Others are tall; Shakespeare is a giant, methinks.
I would be content, wellnigh, to have reached
gray hairs could I have seen and talked with him.”

I said with a smile, when my host thus spoke,—

“I think my father would exchange ages with you
upon that understanding, Mr. Milton. We live near
Startford-on-Avon, and Mr. Shakspeare was a good

friend of my father when the latter was young. He
often came to Cecil Court, as our house is named, and
was excellent company, and full of smiles and sweetness,
I'm told. You cannot know him now, since he
is long dead; but if you will visit us you shall sit in
the chair he was accustomed to use, drink from his
favorite cup, and see his name which he wrote with
his own hand on a window-pane.”

“That would please me greatly, sir; but I am a
prisoner here, I fear. I teach children for bread, and
the birds have flown but recently. You must go?”
for I had risen some moments before. “Thanks for
your visit, Mr. Cecil,” said Mr. Milton; and, conducting
me to the door, he made me a bow of much
grace, in which he was imitated by Mr. Hampden,
who remained.

Such was my first interview with the afterwards
famous author of “Paradise Lost,” a poem so grand
that its fame must extend throughout the world. I
afterwards read with wonder those august verses, and
thought of the long-haired young author. His “Comus”
and “L'Allegro” and “Il Penseroso” pleased
me even more. The latter, published a few years afterwards,
have a singular charm for me. In reading them,
even now, a delightful freshness exhales from them; I
fall to dreaming under the influence of that exquisite
music, and forget the bitterness of the political partisan
in my admiration of the sublimest of the English poets.