dignity in insolence; who neglect no means to gratify the corruption of their friends, or the keenness of their resentments; who disperse their kindred and their creatures over the country to levy the taxes, and to confiscate property ?-men the most base and degraded, who buy themselves what they pretend to put up to sale, whence they amass exorbitant wealth diverted from the public coffers. They plunder the country, and emerge in a moment from poverty and rags into a state of affluence and splendour. Who could endure such scoundrels of servants, such vicegerents of their masters? Who could conceive that the leaders of robbers should be fitted to preserve liberty? Who could suppose that he had become a hair's breadth more free for such a race of functionaries they might amount to five hundred, elected after this fashion by the shires and boroughs-when, among those who ought to be the true guardians of liberty, there are so many who know neither how to use nor how to enjoy that liberty, and who comprehend neither the principles nor the merits of that right*."

*

Nothing stronger has ever been urged against par

After a careful search through Milton's prose works, the Translator has been unable to discover this passage, and he has been, in consequence, obliged to give it diluted by a double translation, instead of quoting the nervous original language of the great author.-TRANSLATOR.

liamentary reform. Cromwell had tried this reform, and was soon obliged to dissolve the Parliament, which was the result of an extension of the right of election. But what was true in Milton's time is not equally true now-a-days. The disproportion between the landed proprietors and popular classes is not so great. The progress of education and civilisation has begun to render the electors of the middle class better qualified to judge of interests which, formerly, they did not comprehend. The England of the present age has been able, though not without peril, to confer rights on a class of citizens, who in the seventeenth century would have overturned the State if the House of Commons had been opened to them.

Thus all the questions, both general and particular, agitated at the present day among the nations of the continent and in the English Parliament, were discussed and resolved by Milton, in the same spirit in which the present age is resolving them; nay, he even created the modern constitutional language; the terms functionaries, decrees, motions, &c. are his. What then was that genius, capable of creating at once a new world and a new language in politics and poesy.

THE RESTORATION.

MILTON ARRESTED, AND SET AT LIBERTY-THE POET'S

FIDELITY TO CROMWELL.

MILTON had the mortification of seeing the son of Charles I. restored to the throne; not that the poet's firm heart was dismayed, but his chimeras of Republican Liberty vanished; every chimera thus dispelled gives pain, and leaves a void. Charles II., in his Declaration of Breda, announced a general pardon, leaving it for the Commons to except unworthy objects. The instances of sanguinary vengeance which occurred under the Stuarts and the House of Hanover cannot be imputed to the Crown; they were the work of the houses of Parliament. Bodies of men are more implacable than individuals, because they include more passions, and are less responsible.

At the return of Charles II., Milton retired from his situation as Latin Secretary, and left his home in Petty France, where, for eight years, he had received such homage. He withdrew to the

house of a friend, in Bartholomew Close, near West Smithfield. Proceedings were commenced against the "Defence of the English People," and the "Eiconoclastes." On the 27th of June, 1660, Parliament ordered that the author of those works should be arrested. At first he could not be found; but a few months afterwards he was in the hands of the Sergeant at Arms. He was, however, soon released. In December of the same year, he had the boldness to address this terrible Parliament, who fancied that it had treated him generously in not bringing him to the block. He exclaimed against the exorbitant fees demanded by the Sergeant, and thought himself more outraged by the privation of liberty than he would have been by the loss of life.

The Journals of the House of Commons contain two entries relative to this subject. The first, dated Saturday, December 15th, 1660, records the Resolution of the House, that Mr. Milton, then in the custody of the Sergeant at Arms, be liberated, on paying the fees.

The other, dated Monday, December 17th, 1660, states that, a complaint having been made that the Sergeant at Arms has demanded excessive fees, for the detention of Mr. Milton, the House resolved, that he be referred to the Committee of Privileges, for the investigation of this affair.

Davenant saved Milton-an honourable episode

in the History of the Muses, on which I formerly scribbled some execrable doggrel. Cunningham gives another version of the poet's deliverance. He pretends that Milton gave himself out for dead, and that his obsequies were celebrated. Charles II. would have applauded the artifice of a man who escaped death by feigning it The character of the author of the "Defence," as well as the records of history, forbid us to believe this anecdote. Milton was forgotten, in the retreat where he had buried himself; and to that oblivion we owe "Paradise Lost." If Cromwell had lived ten years longer, as M. Mosneron observes, his Secretary would never have been thought of. The rejoicings for the Restoration over, the illuminations extinguished, next came its punishments. Charles had charged his Commons with all responsibility of that nature, and they were not sparing of violent re-actions. Cromwell was disinterred, and his body hung, as if they hoisted the flag of his glory on the posts of a gibbet. History has preserved in her archives the receipt of the mason who was ordered to break open the tomb of the Protector, and who received the sum of fifteen shillings for his pains.

66

May the 4th, 1661, recd. then in full of the worshipful Sergeant Norforke, fiveteen shillinges, for taking up the corpes of Cromwell, Ierton, and Brassaw. "Rec. by me, John Lewis."