Nathanael Salmon on Milton, 1728Author(s): Robert A. AubinSource: Modern Language Notes, Vol. 56, No. 3 (Mar., 1941), pp. 214-215Published by: The Johns Hopkins University PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2910556 .

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214 MODERN LANGUAGE NOTES, MARCH,, 1941

Finally the day of reckoning arrives when, in the presence of all the actors, Diego, to everyone's relief and satisfaction, rejects his cousin's hand and announces his betrothal to Beatriz. The latter explains the ruse adding that she, for her part, will marry Mosquito. Ines, needless to say, will wed Juan; her sister, Mendo.

A count shows that out of thirty-four scenes twenty were influ- enced by El Lindo Don Diego, twelve by El Seiior de noches buenas, and two by both plays. Two-thirds of the material for acts I-In is drawn from the latter comedy, which inspired fourteen of these scenes, whereas Moreto's comedy inspired six or one-third of them and all of acts iv-v. It is evident then from these proportions and from the above considerations that Moreto's play was the chief source of La Comtesse d'Orgueit, Cubillo de Aragon's the secondary one.

JOSEPH F. PRIVITERA Saint Louis University

NATIHANAEL SALMON ON MILTON, 1728

The first period of Milton criticism, during which varying de- grees of abhorrence of the poet's career as politician accompanied the growing recognition of his genius, is said to have ended about 1730.1 A comparatively late and hitherto overlooked example of this complex attitude is present in Nathanael Salmon's History of Hertfordshire (1728). Salmon's main contentions seem to be that Milton (1) intended, despite his incompatible political beliefs, to portray in Abdiel the " Character of a Cavalier," (2) was thereby guilty of insincerity, or worse, and (3) was driven to such un- scrupulousness by " Poetical Fury," by the necessity of " keeping up to the Dignity of his Subject," and by sheer artistic competence. Inasmuch as Salmon himself suffered for his political convictions- he resigned his curacy rather than acknowledge Queen Anne as his sovereign and later, though facing poverty, refused to compound for another living-,2 he was naturally prone in judging poets to emphasize their political loyalties.3

' John W. Good, Studies in the Milton Tradition. Urbana, Univ. of Illinois, 1913, p. 143.

2 DNB. s Cf. the remarks on Denham in Salmon's Antiquities of Surrey, 1736, p.

169.

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HOUSEMAN'S MORE POEMS, VII 215

The passage in the Hertfordshire reads: 4

This . . . Gentleman rone William Clerk of Graveley] lived in those Times when Estates and Integrity were at variance, and was True as the Dial to the Sun. He was one of those that had a Title to Milton's Char- acter of a Cavalier, as I take it, under the Person of a Recusant Angel.

[Paradise Lost, v, 896-907 quoted, beginning: So spake the Seraph Abdiel, faithful found . .J

This Reading may require a little Comment to support it. The chief Difficulty lies in imagining this zealous Antisalmatian could dress up a Malignant in so amiable Colours. Let it be considered, that Poetical Fury hath chiefly in view an inimitable Piece: That Rocks, Tempests, Vulcanos, are all agreeable Sights from a masterly Hand. The Happiness of the Occasion, goes a great Way in the Happiness of the Description. This Protestor in a Convention of Rebel Angels, must lose some of the Beauties, unless we suppose him a Cavalier in Masque. ... I see no Absurdity in believing Milton furnished with a true Poetical Apathia, to chuse a Subject proper for the finest Drawing: That he had indeed so far debased his glorious Talents, and sunk his Mind from that superior Habitation, in which over-generous Nature had cantoned it, by a mercenary Application to the dirtiest of Work; that he had arrived at as thorough an Aversion to an upright Angel, as an upright Man; that keeping up to the Dignity of his Subject was his only Aim; that if he had but Scope for a Perform- ance that should be admired, even by those that detested his Memory, he could as Virgil or Michael Angelo draw indifferently a Vulcan or a Venus.

Salmon's appreciation of Milton's genius is as striking as his con- tempt for what he considers to be the poet's unscrupulousness. And Salmon is worthy of attention not merely as a link between Milton critics such as Wood and Burnet on the one hand and Johnson and Warburton on the other, but also as an early speculator on the nature of the poetic process.

ROBERT A. AUBIN New Jersey College for Women

HOIJSMAN'S MORE POEMS, VII AND DEHMEL'S TROST An unusually close parallel exists between the first four lines of

A. E. Housman's More Poems, VII and Richard Dehmel's Trost: Stars, I have seen them fall,

But when they drop and die No star is lost at all

From all that star-sown sky.

Du sahst eine Sternschnuppe fallen; was hebst Du scheu die Hand? Sieh, kein Stern verschwand: alle leuchten noch allen.

'Page 185, col. 2.

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