Harper's Young People, January 11, 1881 / An Illustrated Monthly
MILTON
John Milton was a blue-eyed, yellow-haired Saxon boy, the type of the English race. He was somewhat short, stout, and healthy; his eyes were bright and sparkling in his youth, before he became blind. But he inherited weakness of sight from his mother. He was born 1609, in a pleasant house in Bread Street, London, almost under the shadow of Bow Bells. It was back in a court. His father, who had made a fortune as a scrivener, was fond of music, books, and literature, and his son was carefully educated at St. Paul's School. Milton relates that he frequently studied in the house in Bread Street until after midnight, and his head ached and his sight grew dim with these late vigils. He was then about twelve years old.
When he was six years old he may have seen Shakespeare and Ben Jonson pass on their way to the Mermaid Tavern, which was in Bread Street, not far from his father's house. He was one of the best scholars at St. Paul's School, and loved study as most boys like play. He was eager to know how men lived and acted in Greece and Rome, what they thought of, and what they had discovered. He studied the rise and fall of empires and republics, and became a republican in the midst of kings and princes. He was always fond of poetry, and soon began to write fine verses. One of his earliest pieces is his "Ode on the Nativity."
His father leased a place in the country, at Horton, near Windsor, and here Milton wandered when a young man over the smooth-shaven lawns and beside the pleasant streams, filling his mind with knowledge and pictures of fine scenery. It is not likely that as a boy he was fond of fishing or hunting, as we may well fancy Shakespeare was. He never tilled the soil like Burns and Virgil. He knew nothing of farming. He went to Cambridge University, the most learned of its scholars. It was the custom then to whip the students, and Milton's enemies spread the report that he was flogged for some breach of the rules. He was always independent. He travelled, came back to defend republicanism in the civil war, married, kept a school, was Cromwell's Latin secretary after he became blind, and published some poetry. But when the republic fell with Cromwell, Milton was proscribed, and in danger of his life. His enemies would, gladly have put him to death, and "Paradise Lost" might never have been written.
Milton hid in obscurity, blind, forgotten, but constantly engaged on his great poem. He wrote "Paradise Lost" in his old age. He repeated the verses aloud to his daughters or some friends who came to visit him, and they wrote them down. It was finished in 1667, and Milton received twenty-five dollars for the copyright. It was long neglected, until Addison gave it great fame. Milton died November 8, 1674.
THE MESSENGER BOYS AT THE CAPITOL
A lad who visits the city of Washington for the first time, and looks down from the galleries of the House of Representatives or of the Senate on the busy scene below, will be sure to find his eye attracted by groups of bright-looking and neatly dressed boys moving hither and thither about the floor, speaking familiarly with this and that great man, or amusing themselves on the steps of the Vice-President's or of the Speaker's platform, and he will perhaps regard these boys with something like envy – all the more when told that they receive about two dollars and seventy-five cents a day, during the sessions of Congress, to pay them for having such a good time.
Possibly our lad would not regard the picture as so pleasant if he knew how burdensome are the duties of these boys, and how exceedingly well they earn the money paid them. There are nearly thirty of them attached to the House, and half as many to the Senate. Their ages run from nine years upward, some numbering twice as many summers; and it is not by any means the oldest who are the brightest and the most favored. They are of respectable families; some of them are nephews of Members of Congress – a Member once, indeed, had such questionable taste as to procure the appointment of his own son; and some of them have been known in after-years to become Members themselves. The recently chosen Senator from Maryland is doubtless proud to remember that he himself was once a page. Although in two or three instances these boys have been elected to their places, instead of appointed, they are usually appointed by the Sergeant-at-Arms – of course on the recommendation and through the influence of the Congressmen – and they are under his control. The old custom of appointing only orphan boys is no longer adhered to. The boy who fell over the balustrade, and was made a page by special resolution of the Senate, is a very exceptional case – probably his favorite song thereafter was, "Such a getting up stairs I ne'er did see."
The pages wear no uniform, or regulation clothes, or badges of any sort. They are required to present themselves for work at nine o'clock in the morning, although Congress does not meet till twelve, and they are not dismissed until adjournment for the day takes place. They put the desks of the Members in order, file for each the bills and papers which are strewn about in confusion, then go to the Document-rooms and work there, helping to put affairs in shape; and they present themselves at twelve in the great chambers of legislation to answer the clapping of the Members' and Senators' hands, and attend to their countless wants. Now they are sent hunting for some book that is needed, for some man, now for a glass of water, now they take messages from one Member to another at a distance, from one House to the other, and sometimes to ladies in the gallery; they fetch a cup of tea into the Cloak-room; fetch the hat and stick out of it; they distribute mail by the armful; they struggle into sight, behind piles of palm-leaf fans big as they are themselves, which are soon cooling the hot air, if it be a late session; and during the nights preceding the close of the session they do not know what sleep is, but are worn out with running and waiting. Thus it will be seen that they are on their feet with but very little intermission, running and tumbling over each other in their eagerness to please; but they seem happy and good-natured through it all, and when they do sit down it is on the steps of the presiding officer's desk, where they are usually tickling or punching or teasing each other as if they had nothing else to do, and were passing away the time.
Sometimes during a recess of Congress you may come upon them in a lower room, assembled in a body, a mimic Senate, one of them in the chair, and another making a speech, and Mr. Blaine and Mr. Conkling and Mr. Bayard and the rest are being imitated to the life. It is in some contrast to these gay rogues that one sees a crippled and dwarfed little hunchback outside the Hall of Representatives, opening and shutting a door for the passer in hopes of the coppers or the nickel that may be tossed him, although he does not beg. At night a little goat carriage comes for him, and he drives off.
The pages whom we have described do not leave the Capitol during the hours of their service, and carry no messages beyond the doors. For outside work there are three riding pages, who are furnished with horses, and who go to the various Departments, the Executive Mansion, or on other of the outside errands of the legislators. And theirs is not exactly the pleasant horseback riding that looks so attractive, but, on the contrary, it is hard and weary work, cold in the winter, and burning under a fierce sun in the summer, leaving them meanwhile as badly off as John Gilpin.
Many of these youths are appointed because there is some great need in their families, or have been some pitiable circumstances in their history. This curly-headed little fellow is the only support of a mother and younger brothers and sisters; there is one who takes care of a paralyzed father, the only relative he has in the world, going home, after his hard work, to make life as pleasant as he can for him who can never do any more work; here is another whose little house is kept for him by a child-sister, who looks for his step at night with solicitude. Most of them have somebody besides themselves to take a share of their earnings.
Beyond their regular pay, there are various perquisites and fees which swell their income considerably. Thus they may often be seen slipping an open book, with a bit of blotting-paper, under the nose of some Member who is sitting at his desk: it is an album for somebody who wants the signatures of all these statesmen, which the statesmen kindly give, but which nevertheless are not always easy to obtain, owing to the difficulty of finding individuals in their seats, as all of the Congressmen are by no means in constant attendance, many of them being busy in committee-rooms, or lounging in cloak-rooms, or lunching, or following the bent of their inclinations in other ways, and seldom coming in after roll-call, save to hear a heralded speech, or to vote on measures with which they are already familiar either from the reading of the daily journal of proceedings, or in the committee-room, or by the word of mouth of others. For every album that they thus fill with signatures