He had taken a larger house in Barbican for the reception of fcholars; but the nume rous relations of his wife, to whom he generously granted refuge for a while, occupied his rooms. In time, however, they went "and the house again," fays Philips, "now looked like a house of the Muses only,

away;

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though the acceffion of scholars was not great. Poffibly his having proceeded so far "in the education of youth, may have been. "the occafion of his adversaries calling him pedagogue and school-mafter; whereas it "is well known he never fet up for a pub"lick school, to teach all the young fry of

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"a parish; but only was willing to impart "his learning and knowledge to relations, "and the fons of gentlemen who were his intimate friends; and that neither his

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writings nor his way of teaching ever fa"voured in the least of pedantry."

Thus laborioufly does his nephew extenuate what cannot be denied, and what might be confeffed without difgrace. Milton was not a man who could become mean by a mean employment. This, however, his warmeft

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warmest friends feem not to have found; they therefore fhift and palliate. He did not fell literature to all comers at an open shop; he was a chamber-milliner, and measured his commodities only to his friends.

Philips, evidently impatient of viewing him in this state of degradation, tells us that it was not long continued; and, to raise his character again, has a mind to invest him with military fplendour: "He is much mistaken," he fays, "if there was not about this time "a defign of making him an adjutant-general "in Sir William Waller's army. But the

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new modelling of the army proved an ob"ftruction to the defign." An event cannot be fet at a much greater distance than by having been only defigned, about fome time, if a man be not much mistaken. Milton shall be a pedagogue no longer; for, if Philips be not much mistaken, fomebody at forme time defigned him for a foldier.

About the time that the army was newmodelled (1645) he removed to a smaller house in Holbourn, which opened backward into Lincoln's-Inn-Fields. He is not known

to

to have published any thing afterwards till the King's death, when, finding his murderers condemned by the Prefbyterians, he wrote a treatise to justify it, and to compofe the minds of the people.

He made fome Remarks on the Articles of Peace between Ormond and the Irish Rebels. While he contented himself to write, he perhaps did only what his confcience dictated; and if he did not very vigilantly watch the influence of his own paffions, and the gradual prevalence of opinions, first willingly admitted and then habitually indulged, if objections, by being overlooked, were forgotten, and defire fuperinduced conviction; he yet fhared only the common weakness of mankind, and might be no less fincere than his opponents. But as faction seldom leaves a man honeft, however it might find him, Milton is fufpected of having interpolated the book called Icon Bafilike, which the Council of State, to whom he was now made Latin fecretary, employed him to cenfure, by inferting a prayer taken from Sidney's Arcadia, and imputing it to the King; whom he charges, in his Iconoclaftes, with the ufe of

this prayer as with a heavy crime, in the indecent language with which prosperity had emboldened the advocates for rebellion to

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infult all that is venerable or great: " Who “would have imagined fo little fear in him "of the true all-feeing Deity-as, immediately before his death, to pop into the "hands of the grave bishop that attended "him, as a special relique of his faintly exercises, a prayer ftolen word for word "from the mouth of a heathen woman praying to a heathen god?"

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The papers which the King gave to Dr. Juxon on the scaffold the regicides took away, fo that they were at least the publifhers of this prayer; and Dr. Birch, who had examined the question with great care, was inclined to think them the forgers. The ufe of it by adaptation was innocent; and they who could fo noifily cenfure it, with a little extenfion of their malice could contrive what they wanted to accufe.

King Charles the Second, being now fheltered in Holland, employed Salmafius, profeffor of Polite Learning at Leyden, to write a de

defence of his father and of monarchy; and, to excite his industry, gave him, as was reported, a hundred Jacobufes. Salmafius was a man of skill in languages, knowledge of antiquity, and fagacity of emendatory criticism, almost exceeding all hope of human attainment; and having, by exceffive praises, been confirmed in great confidence of himself, though he probably had not much considered the principles of fociety or the rights of government, undertook the employment without distrust of his own qualifications; and, as his expedition in writing was wonderful, in 1649 published Defenfio Regis.

To this Milton was required to write a sufficient answer; which he performed (1651) in fuch a manner, that Hobbes declared himfelf unable to decide whofe language was best, or whofe arguments were worst. In my opinion, Milton's periods are smoother, neater, and more pointed; but he delights himself with teizing his adversary as much as with confuting him. He makes a foolish allufion of Salmafius, whofe doctrine he confiders as fervile and unmanly, to the stream of Salmacis, which whoever entered left half