John Milton, Pequin and ‘sail driven wheelbarrows’

Saw somewhere that John Milton, the poet, author of Paradise Lost and other works, polemicist was born this week in 1608.

Blind John Milton (1608-74) was born into the height of the Protestant Reformation in England though clearly heard of China writing, “Chinese drive, with sails and wind, their cany waggons light” in Paradise Lost (1667) indicating that the West knew of the sail driven wheelbarrows of China that William Alexander was to paint over a century later in the 1790s (as in the example below) when he saw them while accompanying Lord McCartney s Mission to China. Milton also noted the spice trade as well as the greatness of Beijing in Paradise Lost:

 City of old or modern fame, the seat

 Of mightiest empire, from the destined walls

 Of Cambalu, seat of Cathaian Can

Milton later refers to Pequin without apparently realising that both Pequin and Cambalu are alternative names for Beijing. It seems Milton was excited by China as a vast market for English manufacturing, but criticised what he saw as the country’s absolutist government which, in his mind, paralleled the absolutism of Catholicism and the Divine Right of Kings.