Milton's Latin Poems and Prose Works

The technique of Milton’s Latin poems, 1 like that of his sonnets, has always been most highly praised by those, from Dr. Johnson to Professor Rand, 2 who have best understood the history and aims of the medium in which he worked. “In all the Latin poems of Milton,” said Macaulay, 3 “the artificial manner indispensable to such works is admirably preserved, while at the same time his genius gives to them a peculiar charm, an air of nobleness and freedom, which distinguishes them from all other writings of the same class.” Classic as his language is, Milton was not merely attempting replicas of antique correctness. He was also competing with such impressive modern rivals as George Buchanan (1506-1582), with men, that is, who had found Latin verse the most practical conveyor of their most earnest thought. When he had persuaded himself, as he tells us in the Reason of Church Government (1641), that “I might perhaps leave something so written to after-times as they should not willingly let it die,” it was to Latin, and the world-audience that Latin then commanded, that he mainly addressed his efforts. Only slowly, “long choosing and beginning late,” did he realize that “it would be hard to arrive at the second rank among the Latins,” and so resolve “to fix all the industry and art I could unite to the adorning of my native tongue.”