X. Stye,

Although Milton once confessed that he wrote prose
with his left hand, he did not entertain too poor an
opinion of his power in that respect. He prided him-
self upon ‘this just and honest manner of speaking.’
He tells us that he loves ‘the sober, plain, and un-
affected style of the Scripture,’ and compares it with
the ‘crabbed and abstruse writing, knotty Africanisms,
the pampered metaphors, the intricate and involved
sentences of the fathers, besides the fantastic and
declamatory flashes, the cross-jingling periods, which
cannot but disturb, and come athwart a settled de-
votion, worse than the din of bells and rattles."! He
disliked a ‘coy, flirting style,’ and would not be ‘ gir-
ded with frumps and curtal gibes, by one who makes
sentences by the statute, as if all above three inches
long were confiscate.’? He did not, however, approve
a style utterly devoid of humor, He would mix, here
and there, ‘such a grim laughter, as may appear at
the same time in an austere visage,’ but which
would avoid levity or insolence, ‘for even this vein
of laughing hath ofttimes a Strong and sinewy force
in teaching and confuting.’? Regarding the use of
quotations and authorities, he criticizes an opponent

* Of Reform. in Eng, (Bohn 2. 888),
* Apol, for Smect. (Bohn 8, 99).
* Animad, Rem, Def. (Bohn 8, 44),

Style xlvii

for ‘cutting out large docks and creeks into his text
to unlade the foolish frigate of his unreasonable
authorities? To sum up, Milton holds that a good
Prose style should be sober, plain, and unaffected,
free from foreign idioms, overdrawn metaphors, flashy
rhetoric; the Periods should be well-sized, but not
intricate or involved ; humor, an element of force,
should be used, so long as it does not shade over
into levity ; + Paroxysms of citations’? should be avoided.

Measuring the style of The Tenure of Kings and
Magistrates by his own standard, we are of opinion
that he fails to uphold it in only two respects: his
sentences are frequently intricate and involved, and
he uses occasional Latinisms. The modern reader
may be inclined to believe that Milton has transgres-
sed the bounds set up for himself in the matter of
citations of Scripture, of sentences from the Pamphlet
Scripture and Reason, and quotations from the Prot-
estant theologians and from the ancients. But one

has only to read the First Defence to see how mod-
erate he has been in comparison with himself, and
such a work as Dr. Ferne’s Conscience Satisfied, or any

to receive the impression that

sins in this treatise,®
whole, even in con-
@ which is by nature

1 Apol. for Smect, (Bohn 8, 145).
* Of Reform. in £ng. (Bohn 2. 888),
* See pp. 25 ff.

xlviii Introduction

heavy and abstruse, he contrives to be so easy to
understand, and so forceful. For in spite of numerous
assertions to the contrary, we agree with Professor
Trent that Milton is a writer of lucid prose.t The
first part of this treatise, where he takes up ‘the or-
iginal of kings,’ is highly praised by Tulloch as being
‘one of the most clear and consistent arguments in
Milton's controversial writings.’* To clearness Milton
has adde’! force in the style of this treatise. Except
in his failure to explain in whom the power of the
people was legitimately vested, whether in the majority
of the members of the House of Commons, or in what
Prynne called an ‘unparliamentary junto,’ he has
shaped a powerful, even an overwhelming argument
against tyrannical rulers, Presbyterian divines, and all
opponents of the Independent party. Masson speaks
of the ‘hammer-like force’ of this piece of writing,
and it is easy to gather that a great deal of this
vigor is due to Milton's power as a maker of striking
phrases, such as ‘apostate scar crowes,’ ‘dancing di-
vines,’ ‘barking monitories,’ ‘the spleene of a frus-
trated faction,’ ‘greas’d them thick and deepe,’ ‘ pre-
sumptuous Sion,’ and scores of others of equal merit.
The freshness of his metaphors appeals to us on
nearly every page, and his style is loaded with color
in all passages of personal description, and in those
which deal with the events of history. There are no
purple patches in this treatise, no ‘fits of eloquence,’
but plenty of pen-portraits, often thumb-nail sketches,
(‘apostate scar crowes,’ for example), of his enemies,
and numerous fits of indignation. Milton's satire, al-
though sharp enough, is less objectionable in this
pamphlet than in the majority of his prose pieces.

+ See his John Milton, Life and Works pp. 155 ff.
2 English Puritanism and tts Leaders, p. 224.

Orthography xlix

of the postures and motions
company of divines?! If w
real Milton,’ as Seeley deci
pathy with heroism,
for liberty, and his

Iron vigor

this first apology for the

noble passion for freedom, a splen-

and vast learning, but, alas, a Spirit of

ciuel disdain for fellow-Christians and fellow-coun-

trymen, who also had souls, and who also loved Eng-
land.