The Life of John Milton: 1660-2674

II. Milton in Abscondence: The House in Bartholomew Close: His
Extreme Danger at the Restoration: Review of his Antece-
dents as they might bear on his chances with the new Powers:
Milton's fate bound up with the progress of the Indemnity
Bill through the two Houses of the Convention Parliament:
Two possible forms of the question regarding him, viz.
(1) whether he should be excepted in the Category of the
Regicides, (2) whether he should be excepted among the
General Political Delinquents: Fatal possibility of the first
arrangement: Special importance of his Tenure of Kings and
Magistrates in that connexion: Milton, by that Pamphlet,
legally an accessory to the Regicide before the Fact: First
naming of Milton in the Commons in the course of the In-
demnity Bill: Named in the process of Selecting the Twenty
General Delinquents to be excepted non-capitally; Not
selected among the Twenty after all, but conjoined with John
Goodwin for special prosecution: Order of the Commons,
June 16, 1660, for his Arrest and Indictment on account of
his Eikonoklastes and Pro Populo Anglicano Defensio, with
petition to the King respecting those Pamphlets and Goodwin's
Obstructors of Justice: Subsequent vote of the Commons in-
cluding Goodwin among the Twenty, and leaving Milton to
be prosecuted by himself: Risk then that he might have
been coupled with Hugh Peters: Milton still in abscondence
when the Indemnity Bill went up to the Lords: No disturb.
ance by the Lords of the arrangement in his case made by
the Commons: Royal Proclamation of August 13 against
Milton's Pro Populo Anglicano Defensio and Eikonoklastes and
Goodwin's Obstructors of Justice: The Indemnity Bill passed,
Aug. 29, without mention of Milton in any way whatever
among the Exceptions: Milton legally safe from that moment.
-Milton's escape at the Restoration a Historical Puzzle: Tra-

ditions on the subject and examination of them: Concern of

Davenant, Marvell, and others in the matter: A Combination

of more powerful influences and Dexterous Parliamentary

management of Milton's Case the only sufficient Solution.-

Milton in Custody for some time: Burnings of his and Good-

win's condemned Books by the Hangman: Apparently still in

Custody during the Trials and Executions of the Regicides:

Order of the Commons for his release, Dec. 15, 1660: His

Dispute with the Sergeant-at-Arms as to his prison-fees: Order

of the Commons in that matter: Last mention of Milton in

the Commons.-Milton a free man from December 1660: His

temporary residence in Holborn, near Red Lion Fields: Various

fates of his old friends and acquaintances: Marchamont

Needham back in England: Royalist Denunciation of Need-

ham, called A Rope for Pol.: Journalists in succession to

Needham Publication in London of the Posthumous Answer

of Salmasius to Milton, entitled Ad Johannem Miltonum

Responsio: Account of that Book, with a Translated Specimen :

Milton necessarily precluded from reply: Morus, Du Moulin,

and other old Antagonists of Milton: His Condition in his

Holborn obscurity in the beginning of 1661: Hardly safe from

mobbing or assassination: His thoughts on public affairs and

the Clarendon Policy in Church and State

PAGE

162

BOOK II.

MAY 1661-AUGUST 1667.

HISTORY:-I. THE CLARENDON ADMINISTRATION CONTINUED.

II. DAVENANT'S REVIVED LAUREATESHIP, AND THE FIRST SEVEN

YEARS OF THE LITERATURE OF THE RESTORATION.

BIOGRAPHY:-MILTON'S LIFE FROM 1661 To 1667: WITH PARADISE Lost.

CHAP.

I. Programme of the first Six Sessions of the Cavalier Parliament:

Clarendon's continued Premiership and settled Policy: Acts

of July 1661: Acts of May 1662, including the Corporations

Act, Act against Quakers, The Act of Uniformity, a Militia

Act, and a new Press Act: Unsatiated Revengefulness of

the Royalists: Case of John James: Ignominious Exhi-

bition of three of the imprisoned Regicides: Capture and

Execution of Barkstead, Corbet, and Okey: Arrival of

the Portuguese Infanta: Her Marriage with Charles: The

new Queen and Lady Castlemaine: Trials of Vane and Lam-

bert, and Execution of Vane: St. Bartholomew's Day, Aug. 24,

1662: Ejection and Silencing of over Two Thousand Non-

conformist Ministers: Importance of that Event in English

History: Responsibility of Clarendon for it: Ministerial

Changes in 1662: Crypto-Catholicism of Charles and the Court:

Mission of Bellings to Rome: King's Inclinations in favour of

the Nonconformists: His Toleration Edict of December 1662 :

Perplexity of Clarendon : Second Session of the Parliament,

February-July, 1663: King's designs of Toleration quashed

and Clarendon's Policy confirmed: Abortive attack on Clar-

endon by Bristol: Marriage of the young Duke of Monmouth:

Growing dislike of Clarendon at Court: The Conventicles Act,

and other Proceedings of the Third Session of the Parliament,

March-May, 1664: Clarendon's new Mansion in Piccadilly:

Fourth Session of the Parliament, Nov. 1664-March 1664-5:

Foreign Policy since the Restoration: Sale of Dunkirk: War

with the Dutch: Battle off Lowestoft, June 3, 1665: The

Duke of York and the Earl of Sandwich: The Great Plague

in London Its Progress and Ravages: The Fifth or Oxford

Session of the Cavalier Parliament, Oct. 1665, with the passing

of the Five Miles Act: Gradual Abatement of the Plague:

Continued War with the Dutch: Battles of Albemarle and

Prince Rupert against Ruyter and De Witt: The Great Fire

of London, Sept. 1666: Outcries against the Court: Sixth

Session of the Parliament, Sept. 1666-Feb. 1666-7: Apparent

Security of Clarendon : Intrigues against him, and more

Ministerial Changes: Exhaustion of Finances, and Mutiny

among the Seamen: Negotiations for a Peace with the Dutch:

The Dutch Fleet in the Thames, June 1667: Panic among the

Londoners: Dutch Revenges in the Thames and Medway:

endon's Piccadilly Mansion: Extraordinary Call of Parliament,

July 25, 1667: Peace with the Dutch announced and Par-

liament dismissed: Fall of Clarendon, Aug. 1667: His Disgrace

II. Resumption of the Laureateship by Sir William Davenant: His

Antecedents: His Gondibert, and his Plays and other Poems.

-The Septuagenarian Thomas Hobbes: His Life and Writings

before the Restoration: General Account of his Philosophy:

Hobbes personally and socially: Prevalence of Hobbism at the

Restoration and forms of antagonism to it.-The Septuagena-

rians Sanderson and Wither-The Sexagenarians of Davenant's

Restored Laureateship, viz. Herrick, King, Hacket, John

Goodwin, Bramhall, Izaak Walton, Shirley, Howell, Prynne,

Dr. Brian Walton, Ogilby, Heylin, Calamy, and Thomas

Goodwin.-Davenant's Coetaneans, viz. Earle, Lightfoot, Sir

Kenelm Digby, Thomas Fuller, Jasper Mayne, Pocock,

Edmund Waller, Browne of Norwich, Dugdale, Whitlocke,

Rushworth, Hyde, Fanshawe, Cockayne, Feltham, and Which-

cote more particular notice of Waller and his Poetry.-

Davenant's immediate Juniors, viz. Harrington, Thomas

Killigrew, Samuel Butler. Jeremy Taylor, Leighton, Pearson,

Dr. Henry More, Wilkins, Baxter, Denham, Birkenhead,

L'Estrange, Owen, Wallis, Cudworth, Algernon Sidney,

Worthington, Cowley, Chamberlayne, Needham, Neville, and

Evelyn Antecedents of Butler: Account of Dr. Henry More

and the Cambridge Platonists: Denham and his Poetry:

Cowley and his Poetry: Peculiar Reputation and Position of

Cowley at the Restoration.-Flecknoe, Carlell, Sir Samuel

Tuke, and Sir Robert Stapylton.-Younger Effectives and

Latest Recruits of Davenant's Laureateship, viz. Andrew

Marvell, Henry Vaughan, Alexander Brome, the Earl of Orrery,

Sir William Petty, the Marchioness of Newcastle, George Fox,

Sydenham, Thomas Stanley, Aubrey, Dalgarno, Sir Robert

Howard and his brothers, John Wilson, the Duke of Bucking-

ham, Robert Boyle, John Bunyan, Temple, Barrow, Tillotson,

Howe, Charles Cotton, Edward and John Phillips, Anthony

Wood, Dryden, Katherine Philips, Henry Stubbe, John Locke,

Pepys, South, the Earl of Roscommon, Flatman, Stillingfleet,

Etherege, Sprat, George Mackenzie, Lord Buckhurst, Sir

Charles Sedley, Shadwell, and Wycherley.-Traditional Fallacy

as to the effects of the Restoration on English Literary Activity:

The Restoration credited with much that does not belong to it:

No general new outburst or abundance of Literature in conse-

quence of the Restoration, but rather the reverse: Statistics

on the subject from the Stationers' Registers. - Especial

Paralysis of the Newspaper Press and of all Cognate Literature

of Public Affairs at and after the Restoration: Birkenhead and

his Newspapers, 1660- 1663: L'Estrange's Considerations

and Proposals for the Regulation of the Press, June 1663:

L'Estrange as Book-Licencer, State-Journalist, and Inquisitor-

General of the Press, from 1663 to 1666: The Oxford Gazette,

the London Gazette, &c.-The Distinctive Literature of the

Restoration and its Characteristics: Its uncompromising Anti-

finer Anti-Puritanism: His Discourse of Cromwell by way of

Vision: Appearance of Butler's Hudibras, 1662-3: Immediate

tendencies of the Restoration Literature: Prevalence of the

Mock-Heroic and the Comic: Coarseness: Tastes and Manners

of Charles II. and his Court.-Revival of the Drama just before

the Restoration: Formal Reconstitution of the London Stage

in August 1660: The two London Theatres, Killigrew's or

the King's and Davenant's or the Duke's: List of Actors and

Actresses: Reproduction of Old Plays, and new Dramatic In-

PAGE

CHAP.

dustry: Glimpses of London theatrical life from August 1660
to August 1667: Characteristic Comedies and Farces: French
Influence on the Restoration Drama: The Heroic Play, or
Tragedy of Rhymed Declamation: Davenant's Operas and the
Earl of Orrery's Heroic Plays: Other Tragedies: The Dramas
of John Wilson: Emergence of Dryden as, all in all, the chief
man of the Restoration Literature.-Dryden's First Poems
after the Restoration: His First Comedy, The Wild Gallant :
His marriage, and his Literary Relations with his brother-in-
law, Sir Robert Howard: His Rival Ladies, Indian Emperor,
Maiden Queen, and Sir Martin Mar-all: Dryden's Supremacy
in the Restoration Drama assured before 1667: His Character
and Habits, and his notions of Literature: His Annus Mirabilis,
published 1666-7: His Essay of Dramatic Poesy, published
1667: Its Literary Criticisms and Review of English Literary
History: Its Championship of Rhymed Verse and of Rhymed
Tragedy in particular. Two delusions propagated or fostered
by Dryden's Essay, viz. (1) That the true art of English Verse
was a novelty of his own Time, (2) That the Restoration was
the time of a general return of the banished English Muses:
Re-exposure of this latter delusion from Dryden's own Essay
and from the Registers of English Publications between
1660 and 1667: Allowance for Intellect in reserve, and for
Clever Stray Versifying: Lyrics of Sedley and Buckhurst.-
English Science before and after the Restoration: Origins and
Foundation of the Royal Society: Sketch of the History of the
Society from 1662 to 1667: Boyle, Hooke, and the other chief
Fellows: Henry Oldenburg's Secretaryship to the Society.-
Retrospect of the London Book Trade from 1610 to 1660:
Chief Booksellers and Publishers of those Twenty Years:
Humphrey Moseley the most memorable among them: Moseley
still alive and active at the Restoration: His death, Jan.
1660-61 Booksellers and Publishers of the first Seven Years
of the Restoration: Henry Herringman their chief, and the
real Successor of Moseley in the finer Book Trade: Herring-
man's Shop in the New Exchange: Death of Cowley