Oliver Cromwell, lord protector, and Mr John Milton.' But he had acted too conspicuous a part against the royal cause to be safe under the restored monarch. He was therefore secreted by his friends for about four months, till the act of oblivion put an end to his danger. How it happened that so capital an offender was suffered to escape the royal vengeance, is a problem his biographers find it difficult to solve. But the most probable account is, that the king having bound himself, by his declaration from Breda, to pardon all but such as the parliament should except, Milton was indebted to the interest of his friends in the House, and especially to Sir William Davenant, whom he had himself saved when in similar danger in 1651. In December, 1660, however, we find him in the custody of the house of commons, most probably in virtue of an act of parliament passed in June, which the act of oblivion of the following August had superseded. But the blow from which the author was defended, fell impotently upon his books. His two most offensive political works, the Eikonoclastes, and the Defence of the People of England, were by order of parliament burnt by the common hangman, August 27th, 1660. Thus ends the history of his public controversies. Yet not long after, he is said to have been offered the Latin secretaryship under Charles. His wife, the third he married, urged him to accept it. right,' said Milton; 'you, as other women, would ride in your coach; for me, my aim is to live and die an honest man.' He magnanimously refused the employ

ment.

Thou art in the

On his retirement, he again gave himself up to study, and the three great tasks I have already mentioned. But in 1661, his desire to improve the modes of education in use, led him to compose and publish ' Accedence commenced Grammar, supplied with sufficient Rules for the use of such as, Younger or Elder, are desirous, without more Trouble than needs, to attain the Latin Tongue; the Elder sort especially, with little Teaching and their own Industry.' It had been generally complained, 'that the tenth part of man's life, ordinarily extended, is taken up in learning, and that very scarcely, the Latin tongue.' By this little work, it was his design to shorten that period, and it would prove, if it were not evinced in a thousand other ways, that with all his genius, he was not destitute of that condescending humility, which regards no employment by which good may be effected as mean or undignified. In this year, 1661, he published another tract of Sir Walter Raleigh's, called Aphorisms of State.' But he published no more prose works of his own till 1670, when appeared his History of Britain; that Part of it especially now called England; from the First traditional Beginning, continued to the Norman Conquest. Collected out of the ancientest and best Authors thereof.' Some see in the execution of this work every thing to commend; others, nothing. It has been regarded by different critics as the best and the worst specimen of Milton's prose. Dr Johnson says the style is harsh; but it has something of rough vigor, which may perhaps often strike, though it cannot please.' In this instance, as unjust as he is to Milton's e*

style, he is decidedly less so than usual. But why the History should comprise the whole of Geoffrey of Monmouth, universally rejected, his malignity found it difficult to conjecture; which is not the only circumstance that makes me suspect the Doctor never attentively read the works he so malevolently criticises. Milton

has himself assigned a reason in the following words: Seeing that ofttimes relations heretofore accounted fabulous, have been after found to contain in them many footsteps and relics of something true, as what we read in poets of the flood, and giants little believed, till undoubted witnesses taught us, that all was not feigned; I have therefore determined to bestow the telling over even of these reputed tales; be it for nothing else but in favor of our English poets and rhetoricians, who by their art will know how to use them judiciously.'*

I could make many noble extracts from this work, but shall content myself with two. The first I give the rather because of the following remarks upon it by bishop Warburton. It [the History] is written,' he says, 'with great simplicity, contrary to his custom in his prose works; and is the better for it. But he sometimes rises to a surprising grandeur in the sentiment and expression, as at the conclusion of the second book, "Henceforth we are to steer," &c. I never saw any thing equal to this, but the conclusion of Sir Walter Raleigh's History of the World.' To enable the reader better to understand the passage, I shall transcribe a sentence or two preceding.

* History of England, Prose Works, vol. IV. p. 2.

'Thus expired this great empire of the Romans; first in Britain, soon after in Italy itself; having borne chief sway in this island, though never thoroughly subdued, or all at once in subjection, if we reckon from the coming in of Julius to the taking of Rome by Alaric, in which year Honorius wrote those letters of discharge into Britain, the space of 462 years. And with the empire fell also what before in this western world was chiefly Roman; learning, valor, eloquence, history, civility, and even language itself, all these together, as it were, with equal pace, diminishing and decaying. Henceforth we are to steer by another sort of authors; near enough to the things they write, as in their own country, if that would serve; in time not much belated, some of equal age; in expression barbarous, and to say how judicious, I suspend a while. This we must expect; in civil matters to find them dubious relaters, and still to the best advantage of what they term holy church, meaning indeed themselves : in most other matters of religion, blind, astonished, and struck with superstition as with a planet; in one word, monks. Yet these guides, where can be had no better, must be followed; in gross, it may be true enough; in circumstances each man, as his judgment gives him, may reserve his faith, or bestow it. But so different a state of things requires a several relation.' *

The next extract immediately follows the last, and makes the introduction to the third book. It includes a passage, which was expunged from the first edition of

*Prose Works, vol. IV. p. 79.

the work by the licenser, presented to the earl of Anglesea in manuscript, published separately in 1681, and restored to its place in the folio edition of Milton's prose works in 1738. It is on these accounts curious. Besides, it shows how Milton, when his republican hopes were disappointed, could characterize the same parliament on which he had in former days bestowed the eloquent eulogiums found in various parts of this Selection. It is moreover a good example of his historical style. The part suppressed by the licenser, is included in brackets. It might be called A Character of the Long Parliament and the Westminster Assembly of Divines.

'This third book having to tell of accidents as various and exemplary as the intermission or change of government hath any where brought forth, may deserve attention more than common, and repay it with like benefit to them who can judiciously read; considering especially that the late civil broils had cast us into a condition not much unlike to what the Britons then were in when the imperial jurisdiction departing hence left them to the sway of their own councils; which times by comparing seriously with these latter, and that confused anarchy with this interreign, we may be able from two such remarkable turns of state, producing like events among us, to raise a knowledge of ourselves both great and weighty, by judging hence what kind of men the Britons generally are in matters of so high enterprise; how by nature, industry, or custom, fitted to attempt or undergo matters of so main consequence. For if it be a high point of wisdom in