language. The circumstances attending his appointment have been illustrated by Mr. Todd, in the third edition of his Life of Milton, from papers communicated by Mr. Lemon of the State Paper Office. "March 13, 1648-9, it was ordered by the Council, that the Committee do speak with Mr. Milton, to know whether he will be employed as Secretary for the Forreign Tongues ;" and on the fifteenth of the same month, his employment in that capacity was officially directed, as it appears, with a yearly salary of nearly three hundred pounds. His predecessor was Mr. Weckherleyn, whose daughter was the mother of Sir William Trumball, the celebrated friend of Pope. But Milton's labours were not confined to the translation of correspondence. The publication of the Icon Basilike, and its extraordinary and rapid circulation throughout the country, had produced a very strong sensation, even in quarters not favourable to the royal party: and with a view of counteracting a feeling so dangerous to the stability of the government, Milton was commanded by the council, verbally it is concluded, for no written order has been discovered, to prepare an answer to the book. The assertion that the poet, with the assistance of Bradshaw, interpolated the work of the King with a prayer out of Sir Philip Sydney's Arcadia, has been advanced with great pertinacity, but upon very improbable testimony. Those who desire to understand the various arguments which have been adduced upon the subject, may consult the labours of the Master of Trinity, and Mr. Todd. Milton's reply, entitled Eiconoclastes, appeared in 1649, and was evidently written with great diligence. All the resources of ingenuity and learning are exhausted to furnish materials for the argument, and in none of his 66 polemical productions does he hang upon his adversary's path with a more severe and unwearied hostility. Yet he seems to have undertaken the task with no pleasure. “He took it upon him,” he says, as a work assigned, rather than chosen or affected by himself," which he adds, was the "cause of beginning it so late, and finishing it so leisurely in the midst of other employments and diversions *.” دو We are now arrived at the celebrated controversy with Salmasius. That illustrious scholar, with the exception of Grotius, the most eminent individual of the age for the extent and variety of his acquirements, was employed by Charles the Second to prepare a vindication of the monarchy, and of his unfortunate parent. To inspire his pen with greater ardour, it is affirmed, that a considerable present was given to him. This assertion is contradicted by Wood, who declares that the king sent Dr. Morley with his thanks, but not with a purse of gold. The story appears to have originated with Milton. Salmasius had in his youth been honoured by the praise of Scaliger, and at that period stood without any superior in the paths of ancient learning. Grotius was his only rival, and if that great man surpassed him in anything, it was in the christian tendency of his philosophy. But Salmasius was not chosen the champion of the monarchy for his acquirements alone; his previons writings upon matters connected with the church, had awakened considerable interest in England, and he had even been consulted by persons of rank and influence upon our ecclesiastical affairs +. What greater stimulant, therefore, could he have required, than his own reputation? *Preface to Eiconoclastes. + But see Mitford's Life of Milton, p. 52, (Aldine Poets.) It was against this antagonist that Milton was ordered by the council, January 8, 1649-50, to compose an answer. Salmasius had contended for the divine right of kings, and Milton replied by asserting the unlimited sovereignty of the people. Hobbes professed himself unable to decide whose language is best, or whose arguments are worst. Johnson thought the periods of Milton smoother, neater, and more pointed. Both too frequently forgot the cause they were to support, in the blind fury of their intemperate partisanship; and rather aimed their blows against each other, than at the avowed objects of their contention. Who would imagine, from a perusal of these treatises, that the writer of one was the noblest poet of his country, and that the other, in his domestic habits, was amiable and unassuming, gentle and affectionate! Milton's success, as might be anticipated for the advocate of the popular and triumphant party, was rapid and extensive: he was gratified by the visits and compliments of all the foreign ministers in London. That the parliament presented him with a thousand pounds, is asserted by Toland, whose statement has been usually credited by the poet's biographers. But the extracts from the orderbooks of the council, given by Todd, do not countenance the story. Three lines, in which Mr. Lemon says a grant of money was made to Milton, are erased, and the entry is as follows;-“The Council takeing notice of the manie good services performed by Mr. John Milton, their Secretarie for Forreigne Languages, to this state and commonwealth, particularlie for his book in vindication of the Parliament and the people of England, against the calumnies and invectives of Salmasius, have thought fit to declare their resentment and good acceptance of the same; and that the thanks of the Council be returned to Mr. Mylton, and their sense represented in that behalfe." The reception of Salmasius was of course less enthusiastic, but the slanderous account of his disgrace at the court of Christina, has been propagated on the worthless authority of the Mercurius Politicus, where it first appeared. His health had been long declining, and an improper use of the mineral waters of Spa, whither he went to seek relief for his maladies, is supposed to have accelerated his death*. Voltaire might boast that he killed a cardinal through vexation at a political hoax, but the destruction of an adversary like Salmasius, need not be numbered among the mightier exploits of Milton. In the Summer of 1651 he was removed, notwithstanding the influence of the council exerted in his favour, from his apartments at Whitehall; and soon after, says Philips, (who was evidently unacquainted with the cause of the change,) took a pretty garden-house in Petty France, in Westminster, next door to the Lord Scudamore, opening into St. James's Park. He was now suffering under almost total blindness, being entirely deprived of the use of one eye; yet he continued to discharge the duties of his office with the assistance of his nephew, Edward Philips. In the following year, his sight was completely gone. His eyes had been gradually growing feeble since 1644, and his intense application to the Defensio Populi, against the urgent advice of his physician, hastened the melancholy event. He has given a most affecting history of his sufferings, in a letter addressed to his friend Leonard Philaras, ambassador from the Duke of Parma at Paris, who was anxious to lay his * Mitford. case before Thevenot, a physician celebrated for his success in the treatment of ocular complaints. The following passage is extracted from Hayley's translation:-" It is about ten years, I think, since I perceived my sight to grow weak and dim. Early in the morning, if I began as usual to read, my eyes immediately suffered pain, but after some moderate bodily exercise were refreshed; whenever I looked at a candle, I saw a sort of Iris around it. Not long afterwards, on the left side of my left eye, (which began to fail some years before the other,) a darkness arose, that hid from me all things on that side; if I chanced to close my right eye, whatever was before me seemed diminished. In the last three years, as my remaining eye failed by degrees, some months before my sight was utterly gone, all things that I could discern, though I moved not myself, appeared to fluctuate, now to the right, now to the left. Obstinate vapours seem to have settled all over my forehead and temples, overwhelming my eyes with a sort of sleepy heaviness, especially after food, till the evening; so that I frequently recollect the condition of the prophet Phineas in the Argonautics; Enveloped, and the earth appeared to roll But I should not omit to say, that while I had some little sight remaining, as soon as I went to bed, and reclined on either side, a copious light used to dart from my closed eyes; then as my sight grew daily less, darker colours seemed to burst forth with vehemence, and a kind of internal noise; but now, as if everything lucid were extinguished, blackness, either absolute, or chequered, and interwoven, as it were, with ash-colour, is accustomed |