been some eyebrightening electuary of knowledge and foresight, though it were sweet in his mouth, and in the learning, it was bitter in his belly, bitter in the denouncing. Nor was this hid from the wise poet Sophocles, who, in that place of his tragedy, where Tiresias is called to resolve king Edipus in a matter which he knew would be grievous, brings him in bemoaning his lot, that he knew more than other men. For surely to every good and peaceable man, it must in nature needs be a hateful thing to be the displeaser and molester of thousands; much better would it like him doubtless to be the messenger of gladness and contentment, which is his chief intended business to all mankind, but that they resist and oppose their own true happiness.

"But when God commands to take the trumpet, and blow a dolorous or a jarring blast, it lies not in man's will what he shall say, or what he shall conceal. If he shall think to be silent, as Jeremiah did, because of the reproach and derision he met with daily, and all his familiar friends watched for his halting,' to be revenged on him for speaking the truth, he would be forced to confess as he confessed, 'his word was in my heart as a burning fire shut up in my bones; I was weary with forbearing, and could not stay;' which might teach these times not suddenly to condemn all things that are sharply spoken, or vehemently written, as proceeding out of stomach, virulence, and ill nature; but to consider rather that if the prelates have leave to say the worst that can be said, or do the worst that can be done, while they strive to keep to themselves, to their great pleasure and commodity, those things which they ought to render up, no man can be justly offended with him that shall endeavor to impart and bestow, without any gain to himself, those sharp but saving words, which would be a terror and a torment in him to keep back. For me, I have determined to lay up as the best treasure and solace of a good old age, if God vouchsafe it me, the honest liberty of free speech from my youth, where I shall think it available in so dear a concernment as the church's good. For if I be either by disposition or what other cause, too inquisitive, or suspicious of myself and mine own doings, who can help it? But this I foresee, that should the church be brought under heavy oppression, and God have given me ability the while to reason against that man that should be the author of so foul a deed, or should she, by blessing from above on the industry and courage of faithful men, change this her distracted estate into better days, without the least furtherance or contribution of those few talents which God at that present had lent me; I foresee what stories I should hear within myself, all my life after, of discourage and reproach. 'Timorous and ungrateful, the church of God is now again at the foot of her insulting enemies, and thou bewailest; what matters it for thee, or thy bewailing? When time was, thou couldst not find a syllable of all that thou hast read or studied, to

utter in her behalf. Yet ease and leisure was given thee for thy retired thoughts, out of the sweat of other men. Thou hadst the diligence, the parts, the language of a man, if a vain object were to be adorned or beautified; but when the cause of God and his church was to be pleaded, for which purpose that tongue was given thee which thou hast, God listened if he could hear thy voice among his zealous servants, but thou wert dumb as a beast; from henceforward be that which thine own brutish silence hath made thee.'

"Or else I should have heard on the other ear; 'Slothful, and ever to be set light by, the church hath now overcome her late distresses after the unwearied labors of many her true servants that stood up in her defence; thou also wouldst take upon thee to share amongst them of their joy; but wherefore thou? Where canst thou show any word or deed of thine which might have hastened her peace? Whatever thou dost now talk, or write, or look, is the alms of other men's active prudence and zeal. Dare not now to say, or do any thing better than thy former sloth and infancy; or if thou darest, thou dost impudently to make a thrifty purchase of boldness to thyself, out of the painful merits of other men; what before was thy sin, is now thy duty, to be abject and worthless.'

"These, and such like lessons as these, I know would have been my matins duly, and my even song. But now by this little diligence, mark what a privilege I have gained with good men and saints, to claim my right of lamenting the tribulations of the church, if she should suffer, when others that have ventured nothing for her sake, have not the honor to be admitted mourners. But, if she lift up her drooping head and prosper, among those that have something more than wished her welfare, 1 have my charter and freehold of rejoicing to me and my heirs.

"Concerning therefore this wayward subject against prelaty, the touching whereof is so distasteful and disquietous to a number of men, as by what hath been said I may deserve of charitable readers to be credited, that neither envy nor gall hath entered me upon this controversy, but the enforcement of conscience only, and a preventive fear lest the omitting of this duty should be against me when I would store up to myself the good provision of peaceful hours; so, lest it should be still imputed to me, as I have found it hath been, that some self-pleasing humor of vain glory hath incited me to contest with men of high estimation, now while green years are upon my head; from this needless surmisal I shall hope to dissuade the intelligent and equal auditor, if I can but say successfully that which in this exigent behoves me, although I would be heard only, if it might be, by the elegant and learned reader, to whom principally for a while I shall beg leave I may address myself. To him it will be no new thing, though I tell him that if I hunted after praise by the ostentation

of wit and learning, I should not write thus out of mine own season, when I have neither yet completed to my mind the full circle of my private studies, although I complain not of any insufficiency to the matter in hand; or were I ready to my wishes, it were a folly to commit any thing elaborately composed, to the careless and interrupted listening of these tumultuous times."

Another very natural inquiry relates to Milton's connection. with Cromwell. Milton was a republican of the severest school, and as such labored for the realization of his idea with untiring zeal, up to the very day, almost, of the Restoration. How, then, could he consistently connect himself as he did with the government of the Protector? The simple answer is, that he had confidence in Cromwell's principles and intentions; and sincerely believed, with some of his party (for on this point the republicans split), that the object of their hopes and labors would be more certainly and speedily secured, by acting with him, than by indignantly retiring, with Vane and others, from all participation in the management of public affairs. That he was faithful to his principles, is evident from his writings during the Protectorate; in which he never hesitated on proper occasions to tell Cromwell in the plainest terms the reasons of the support given him by the Republicans, and what they expected from him as the "patron of freedom." Take, for instance, the following direct appeal to the Protector, from the Defensio Secunda.

"Reflect then frequently, (how dear alike the trust, and the parent from whom you received it,) that to your hands your country has commended and confided her freedom; that, what she lately expected from her choicest representatives, she now hopes exclusively from you. Oh, reverence this high confidence, this hope of your country, relying exclusively upon yourself: reverence the countenances and the wounds of those brave men, who have so nobly struggled for liberty under your auspices, as well as the names of those who have fallen in the conflict. Reverence also the opinion and the discourse of foreign communities; their lofty anticipations with respect to our freedom, so valiantly obtained-to our republic, so gloriously established, of which the speedy extinction would involve us in the deepest and most unexampled infamy. Reverence, finally, yourself: and suffer not that liberty, for the attainment of which you have encountered so many perils, and endured so many hardships, to sustain any violation from your own hands, or any from those of others. Without our freedom, in fact, you cannot yourself be free for it, is justly ordained by nature, that he who invades the liberty of

others shall, in the very outset, lose his own, and be the first to feel that servitude which he has induced. * * *

You have engaged in a most arduous undertaking, which will search you to the quick; which will bring to the severest test your spirit, your energy, your stability; which will ascertain whether you are really actuated by that living piety, and honor, and equity, and moderation, which seem, with the favor of God, to have raised you to your present high dignity. To rule with your counsels three mighty realms, in the place of their erroneous institutions; to introduce a sounder system of doctrine and of discipline; to pervade their remotest provinces with unremitting attention and anxiety, vigilance and foresight; to decline no labors, to yield to no blandishments of pleasure, to spurn the pageantries of wealth and of power-these are difficulties, in comparison of which those of war are the mere levities of play; these will sift and winnow you; these demand a man sustained by the Divine assistance, tutored and instructed almost by a personal communication with his God. These, and more than these, you often, as I doubt not, revolve in your mind, and make the subjects of your deepest meditations, greatly solicitous how most happily they may be achieved, and your country's freedom be strengthened and secured."

He afterwards saw his error; and in his fervent appeal in favor of a Free Commonwealth, published on the eve of the Restoration, held the following language:

"It is true indeed, when monarchy was dissolved, the form of a commonwealth should have been forthwith framed, and the practice thereof immediately begun, that the people might soon have been satisfied and delighted with the decent order, ease, and benefit thereof. We had been, then, by this time firmly rooted, past fear of commotions or mutations, and now flourishing. This care of timely settling a new government instead of the old, too much neglected, hath been our mischief."

To maintain that all Milton's political plans were wise, or all his expectations reasonable, is no part of our design; but we pity the man who, knowing what he did and suffered in the cause of freedom, and how earnestly consistent was his language from first to last, cannot give him credit for sincerity, and sympathize with the elevated patriotism and noble aims with which he tore himself from the delights of study and those poetical pursuits to which only he looked for fame and an enduring influence over the hearts of men, to

Washington's Translation.

enter on the ungracious task of political controversy, in which he was conscious that he "had but the use of his left hand."

A few sentences are enough to show how fully Milton understood the principles to which we owe our institutions, and on which they depend for success and permanence :

"I perceived that the right way to liberty was taken-that if discipline beginning from religion held its course to the morals and institutions of the commonwealth, the advance would be direct from these beginnings, by these steps, to the deliverance of the whole life of man from slavery."-Defensio Secunda.

"The property of truth is, where she is publicly taught, to unyoke and set free the minds and spirits of a nation, first from the thraldom of sin and superstition, after which all honest and legal freedom of civil life cannot be long absent."-Reason of Church Government.

"If men within themselves would be governed by reason, and not generally give up their understanding to a double tyranny, of custom from without, and blind affections within, they would discern better what it is to favor and uphold the tyrant of a nation. But being slaves within doors, no wonder that they strive so much to have the public state conformably governed to the inward vicious rule by which they govern themselves. For indeed none can love freedom heartily but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license, which never hath more scope or more indulgence than under tyrants. Hence it is that tyrants are not oft offended, nor stand much in doubt of bad men, as being all naturally servile; but in whom virtue and true worth most is eminent, them they fear in earnest, as by right their masters."-Tenure of Kings and Magistrates.

"It is a work good and prudent to be able to guide one man; of larger extended virtue to order well one house; but to govern a nation piously and justly, which only is to say happily, is for a spirit of the greatest size, and divinest mettle. And certainly of no less a mind, nor of less excellence in another way, were they who by writing laid the solid and true foundations of this science, which being of greatest importance to the life of man, yet there is no art that hath been more cankered in her principles, more soiled and slubbered with aphorisming pedantry, than the art of policy; and that most, where a man would think should least be, in Christian commonwealths. They teach not, that to govern well, is to train up a nation in true wisdom and virtue, and that which springs from thence, magnanimity, (take heed of that,) and that which is our beginning, regeneration, and happiest end, likeness to God, which in one word we call godliness; and that this is the true flourishing of a land,-other things follow as the