crept into the fold, whether at the window, or through | heathen, proved ingrateful and treacherous guests to their best friends and entertainers. And let them take heed, lest while their silence as to these matters might have kept them blameless and secure under those proceedings which they so feared to partake in, that these their treasonous attempts and practices have not involved them in a far worse guilt of rebellion; and (notwithstanding that fair dehortatory from joining with malignants) in the appearance of a co-interest and partaking with the Irish rebels: against whom, though by themselves pronounced to be the enemies of God, they go not out to battle, as they ought, but rather by these their doings assist and become associates! THE PORTRAITURE OF HIS MAJESTY IN HIS SOLITUDES AND SUFFERINGS. BY JOHN MILTON. PUBLISHED FROM THE AUTHOR'S SECOND EDITION, PRINTED IN 1650, WITH MANY ENLARGEMENTS, BY RICHARD BARON. WITH A PREFACE SHEWING THE TRANSCENDENT EXCELLENCY OF MILTON'S PROSE WORKS. TO WHICH IS ADDED, AN ORIGINAL LETTER TO MILTON, NEVER BEFORE PUBLISHED. Morpheus, on thy dewy wing Such fair auspicious visions bring. As sooth'd great MILTON's injur'd age, The tribes unborn with pious awe Imbibe each virtue from his heavenly page. DR. AKENSIDE. THE EDITOR'S PREFACE. Was the last impression of Milton's prose works was committed to my care, I executed that trust with the greatest fidelity. Not satisfied with printing from any copy at hand, as editors are generally wont, my affect and zeal for the author induced me to compare every sentence, line by line, with the original edition of each treatise that I was able to obtain. Hence, errours innumerable of the former impression were corrected; besides what improvements were added from the author's second edition of The Tenure of Kings and Magistrates, which Mr. Toland had either not seen, or had neglected to commit to the press. * After I had endeavoured to do this justice to my favourite author, the last summer I discovered a second editom of his Eikonoklastes, with many large and curious additions, printed in the year 1650, which edition had aped the notice both of Mr. Toland and myself. In communicating this discovery to a few friends, I found that this edition was not unknown to some others, gh from low and base motives secreted from the public. But I, who from my soul love liberty, and for that openly and boldly assert its principles at all times, resolved that the public should no longer be withheld to the possession of such a treasure. I therefore now give a new impression of this work, with the additions and improvements made by the author; I deem it a singular felicity, to be the instrument of restoring to my country so many excellent lines long --and in danger of being for ever lost,-of a writer who is a lasting honour to our language and naand of a work, wherein the principles of tyranny are confuted and overthrown, and all the arts and ing of a great tyrant and his adherents detected and laid open. The love of liberty is a public affection, of which those men must be altogether void, that can suppress or ther any thing written in its defence, and tending to serve its glorious cause. What signify professions, the actions are opposite and contradictory? Could any high-churchman, any partizan of Charles I, have te a worse, or a different part, than some pretended friends of liberty have done in this instance? Many high*Mr. Triant first collected and published the author's prose works in 3 vols. folio, 1697, or 1693: for which all lovers of liberty owe grateful praise Path pitched with considerable additions.. through harry, or perhaps not having seen the different copies, he printed from the first edition of some tracts, which the author had has prose works were again published in 2 vols. folio; of which impression all I shall say is, that, no person being employed to press, the printer took the liberty to alter what he did not understand, and thereby defaced the author, and marred the beauty of many church priests and doctors have laid out considerable sums to destroy the prose works of Milton, and have purchased copies of his particular writings for the infernal pleasure of consuming them.* This practice, however detestable, was yet consistent with principle. But no apology can be made for men that espouse a cause, and at the same time conceal aught belonging to its support. Such men may tell us that they love liberty, but I tell them that they love their bellies, their ease, their pleasures, their profits, in the first place. A man that will not hazard all for liberty, is unworthy to be named among its votaries, unworthy to participate its blessings. Many circumstances at present loudly call upon us to exert ourselves. Venality and corruption have wellnigh extinguished all principles of liberty. The bad books also, that this age hath produced, have ruined our youth. The novels and romances, which are eagerly purchased and read, emasculate the mind, and banish every thing grave and manly. One remedy for these evils is, to revive the reading of our old writers, of which we have good store, and the study whereof would fortify our youth against the blandishments of pleasure and the arts of corruption. Milton in particular ought to be read and studied by all our young gentlemen as an oracle. He was a great and noble genius, perhaps the greatest that ever appeared among men; and his learning was equal to his ge nius. He had the highest sense of liberty, glorious thoughts, with a strong and nervous style. His works are full of wisdom, a treasure of knowledge. In them the divine, the statesman, the historian, the philologist, may be all instructed and entertained. It is to be lamented, that his divine writings are so little known. Very few are acquainted with them, many have never heard of them. The same is true with respect to another great writer contemporary with Milton, and an advocate for the same glorious cause; I mean Algernon Sydney, whose Discourses on Government are the most precious legacy to these nations. All antiquity cannot shew two writers equal to these. They were both great masters of reason, both great masters of expression. They had the strongest thoughts, and the boldest images, and are the best models that can be followed. The style of Sydney is always clear and flowing, strong and masculine. The great Milton has a style of his own, one fit to express the astonishing sublimity of his thoughts, the mighty vigour of his spirit, and that copia of invention, that redundancy of imagination, which no writer before or since hath equalled. In some places, it is confessed, that his periods are too long, which renders him intricate, if not altogether unintelligible to vulgar readers; but these places are not many. In the book before us his style is for the most part free and easy, and it abounds both in eloquence, and wit and argument. I am of opinion, that the style of this work is the best and most perfect of all his prose writings. Other men have commended the style of his History as matchless and incomparable, whose malice could not see or would not acknowledge the excellency of his other works. It is no secret whence their aversion to Milton proceeds; and whence their caution of naming him as any other writer than a poet. Milton combated superstition and tyranny of every form, and in every degree. Against them he employed his mighty strength, and, like a battering ram, beat down all before him. But notwithstanding these mean arts, either to hide or to disparage him, a little time will make him better known; and the more he is known, the more he will be admired. His works are not like the fugitive short-lived things of this age, few of which survive their authors: they are substantial, durable, eternal writings; which will never die, never perish, whilst reason, truth, and liberty have a being in these nations, Thus much I thought proper to say on occasion of this publication, wherein I have no resentment to gratify, no private interest to serve: all my aim is to strengthen and support that good old cause, which in my youth I embraced, and the principles whereof I will assert and maintain whilst I live. The following letter to Milton, being very curious, and no where published perfect and entire, may be fitly preserved in this place. SIR, A Letter from Mr. Wall to John Milton, Esquire. I RECEIVED yours the day after you wrote, and do humbly thank you, that you are pleased to honour me with your letters. I confess I have (even in my privacy in the country) oft had thoughts of you, and that with much respect, for your friendliness to truth in your early years, and in bad times. But I was uncertain whether your relation to the court, † (though I think a commonwealth was more friendly to you than a court) had not clouds i your former light, but your last book resolved that doubt. You complain of the non-proficiency of the nation, and of its retrogade motion of late, in liberty and spiritual truths. It is much to be bewailed; but yet let s pity human frailty. When those who made deep protestations of their zeal for our liberty both spiritual an civil, and made the fairest offers to be assertors thereof, and whom we thereupon trusted; when those, beir instated in power, shall betray the good thing committed to them, and lead us back to Egypt, and by th force which we gave them to win us liberty hold us fast in chains; what can poor people do? You know wi they were, that watched our Saviour's sepulchre to keep him from rising.‡ • This hath been practised with such zeal by many of that cursed tribe, that it is a wonder there are any copies left. John Swale, a bokse Leeds in Yorkshire, an honest man, though of high-church, told me, that he could have more money for burning Milton's Defence of Liberty a People of England, than I would give for the purchase of it. Some priests in that neighbourhood used to meet once a year, and after they warmed with strong beer, they sacrificed to the flames the author's Defensio pro Populo Anglicano, es also this treatise against the EIKON. I in my power to produce more instances of the like sacerdotal spirit, with which in some future publication I may entertain the world. Milton was Latin Secretary. : Soldiers; this is a severe insinuation against a standing army. Besides, whilst people are not free, but straitened in accommodations for life, their spirits will be dejected and servile: and conducing to that end, there should be an improving of our native commodities, as our manufactures, our fishery, our fens, forests, and commons, and our trade at sea, &c. which would give the body of the nation a comfortable subsistence; and the breaking that cursed yoke of tithes would much help thereto. Also another thing I cannot but mention, which is, that the Norman conquest and tyranny is continued upon the nation without any thought of removing it; I mean the tenure of lands by copy hold, and holding for life under a lord, or rather tyrant of a manor; whereby people care not to improve their land by cost upon it, not knowing how soon themselves or theirs may be outed it; nor what the house is in which they live, for the same and they are far more enslaved to the lord of the manor, than the rest of the nation is to a king or supreme magistrate. reason: We have waited for liberty, but it must be God's work and not man's, who thinks it sweet to maintain his pride and worldly interest to the gratifying of the flesh, whatever becomes of the precious liberty of mankind. But let us not despond, but do our duty; and God will carry on that blessed work in despite of all opposites, and to their ruin if they persist therein. Sir, my humble request is, that you would proceed, and give us that other member of the distribution mentioned in your book; viz. that Hire doth greatly impede truth and liberty: it is like if you do, you shall find opposers: but remember that saying, Beatius est pati quam frui: or, in the apostle's words, James v. 11, We count them happy that endure. I have sometimes thought (concurring with your assertion of that storied voice that should speak from heaven) when ecclesiastics were endowed with worldly preferments, hodie venenum infunditur in ecclesiam : for to use the speech of Genesis iv. ult. according to the sense which it hath in the Hebrew, then began men to corrupt the worship of God. I shall tell you a supposal of mine, which is this: Mr. Dury has bestowed about thirty years time in travel, conference, and writings, to reconcile Calvinists and Lutherans, and that with little of no success. But the shortest way were,-take away ecclesiastical dignities, honours, and preferments, on both sides, and all would soon be hushed; the ecclesiastics would be quiet, and then the people would come forth into truth and liberty. But I will not engage in this quarrel; yet I shall lay this engagement upon myself to remain Your faithful friend and servant, Causham, May 26, 1659. JOHN WALL. From this letter the reader may see in what way wise and good men of that age employed themselves: in studying to remove every grievance, to break every yoke. And it is matter of astonishment, that this age, which boasts of greatest light and knowledge, should make no effort toward a reformation in things acknowledged to be wrong; but both in religion and in civil government be barbarian! Below Blackheath, RICHARD BARON. June 20, 1756. ἘΙΚΟ Ν Ο Κ Λ Α Σ Τ Η Σ. Prov, xxvii. 15. As a roaring lion and a raging bear, so is a wicked ruler over the poor people. 16. The prince that wanteth understanding, is also a great oppressor; but he that hateth covetousness, shall prolong his days. 17. A man that doth violence to the blood of any person, shall fly to the pit, let no man stay him. SALLUST. CONJURAT. CATILIN. Regium imperium, quod initio, conservandae libertatis, atque augendæ reipublicæ causâ fuerat, in superbiam, dominationemque se convertit. Regibus boni, quam mali, suspectiores sunt, semperque his aliena virtus formidolosa est. as not usually meeting with that force of argument in such courtly antagonists, which to convince might add to his reputation. Kings most commonly, though strong in legions, are but weak at arguments; as they who ever have accustomed from the cradle to use their will only as their right hand, their reason always as their left. Whence unexpectedly constrained to that kind of combat, they prove but weak and puny adversaries: nevertheless, for their sakes, who through custom, simplicity, or want of better teaching, have no more seriously considered kings, than in the gaudy name of majesty, and admire them and their doings as if they breathed not the same breath with other mortal | men, I shall make no scruple to take up (for it seems to be the challenge both of him and all his party) to take up this gauntlet, though a king's, in the behalf of liberty and the commonwealth. in the world, and to find out her own readers: few perhaps, but those few, of such value and substantial worth, as truth and wisdom, not respecting numbers and big names, have been ever wont in all ages to be contented with. And if the late king had thought sufficient those answers and defences made for him in his lifetime, they who on the other side accused his evil government, judging that on their behalf enough also hath been replied, the heat of this controversy was in all likelihood drawing to an end; and the further mention of his deeds, not so much unfortunate as faulty, had in tenderness to his late sufferings been willingly forbørn; and perhaps for the present age might have slept with him unrepeated, while his adversaries, calmed and assuaged with the success of their cause, had been the less unfavourable to his memory. But since he himself, making new appeal to truth and the world, hath left behind him this book, as the best advocate and interpreter of his own actions, and that his friends by publishing, dispersing, commending, and almost adoring it, seem to place therein the chief strength and nerves of their cause; it would argue doubtless in the other party great deficience and distrust of themselves, not to meet the force of his reason in any field whatsoever, the force and equipage of whose arms they have so often met victoriously: and he who at the bar stood excepting against the form and manner of his judica And further, since it appears manifestly the cunning drift of a factious and defeated party, to make the same advantage of his book, which they did before of his regal name and authority, and intend it not so much the defence of his former actions, as the promoting of their own future designs; (making thereby the book their own rather than the king's, as the benefit now must be their own more than his ;) now the third time to corrupt and disorder the minds of weaker men, by new suggestions and narrations, either falsely or fallaciously representing the state of things to the dishon-ture, and complained that he was not heard; neither our of this present government, and the retarding of a general peace, so needful to this afflicted nation, and so nigh obtained; I suppose it no injury to the dead, but a good deed rather to the living, if by better information given them, or, which is enough, by only remembering them the truth of what they themselves know to be here misaffirmed, they may be kept from entering the third time unadvisedly into war and bloodshed: for as to any moment of solidity in the book itself, (save only that a king is said to be the author, a name, than which there needs no more among the blockish vulgar, to make it wise, and excellent, and admired, nay to set it next the Bible, though otherwise containing little else but the common grounds of tyranny and popery, dressed up the better to deceive, in a new protestant guise, trimly garnished over,) or as to any need of answering, in respect of staid and well-principled men, I take it on me as a work assigned rather, than by me chosen or affected: which was the cause both of beginning it so late, and finishing it so leisurely in the midst of other employments and diversions. And though well it might have seemed in vain to write at all, considering the envy and almost infinite prejudice likely to be stirred up among the common sort, against whatever can be written or gainsaid to the king's book, so advantageous to a book it is only to be a king's; and though it be an irksome labour, to write with industry and judicious pains, that which, neither weighed nor well read, shall be judged without industry or the pains of well-judging, by faction and the easy literature of custom and opinion; it shall be ventured yet, and the truth not smothered, but sent abroad, in the native confidence of her single self, to earn, how she can, her entertainment he nor his friends shall have that cause now to find fault, being met and debated with in this open and monumental court of his erecting; and not only heard uttering his whole mind at large, but answered: which to do effectually, if it be necessary, that to his book nothing the more respect be had for being his, they of his own party can have no just reason to exclaim. For it were too unreasonable that he, because dead, should have the liberty in his book to speak all evil of the parliament; and they because living, should be expected to have less freedom, or any for them, to speak home the plain truth of a full and pertinent reply. As he, to acquit himself, hath not spared his adversaries to load them with all sorts of Blame and accusation, so to him, as in his book alive, there will be used no more courtship than he uses; but what is properly his own guilt, not imputed any more to his evil counsellors, (a ceremony used longer by the parliament than he himself desired,) shall be laid here without circumlocutions at his own door. That they who from the first beginning, or but now of late, by what unhappiness I know not, are so much affatuated, not with his person only, but with his palpable faults, and doat upon his deformities, may have none to blame but their own folly, if they live and die in such a strooken blindness, as next to that of Sodom hath not happened to any sort of men more gross, or more misleading. Yet neither let his enemies expect to find recorded here all that hath been whispered in the court, or alleged openly, of the king's bad actions; it being the proper scope of this work in hand, not to rip up and relate the misdoings of his whole life, but to answer only and refute the missayings of his book. |