and by the sweetness of your manners. In that memorable battle of Marston Moor, when our left wing was routed, the chief officers looking back in their flight beheld you keeping your ground with your infantry, and repelling the attacks of the enemy amid heaps of slain on both sides; and afterwards in the war in Scotland, no sooner were the shores of Fife occupied, under the auspices of Cromwell, with your troops, and the way opened beyond Stirling, than both the western and the northern Scots acknowledged you for the humanest of enemies, and the farthest Orcades for their civilizing conqueror. I will yet add some, whom, as distinguished for the robe and arts of peace, you have nominated as your counsellors, and who are known to me either by friendship or reputation. Whitlocke, Pickering, Strickland, Sydenham, and Sydney1 (an illustrious name which I rejoice has steadily adhered to our side), Montague, Lawrence, both men of the first capacity, and polished by liberal studies, besides numberless other citizens, distinguished for their rare merits, some for their former senatorial exertions, others for their military services. A splendid eulogium rewarded 1 SYDNEIO SACRUM. There is a time when gentlest thoughts are ours, Disport, or through the wood-paths, wild with flowers, When we must dwell among the walks of men, And sternness on our front; and wearing then J. M. the virgin Queen of the north, the daughter of Adolphus, for the praise she was reported to have given to Milton's defence, and the magnanimity which led her to read and even to applaud what seemed written against her own right and dignity.2 Flushed with his victory, and proud of the great reputation which he had acquired, Milton opened his second defence with a triumphant anticipation of the sentence that would be passed on it: 'He now,' he says, 'feels himself not in the forum, or on the rostrum, surrounded by a single people only, whether Roman or Athenian, but as it were by listening Europe, confiding and passing judg ment. He addresses himself to all sittings and assemblies, wherever are to be found men of the highest authority, wherever there are cities and nations. He imagines himself set out on his travels, that he beholds from on high tracts beyond the seas, and wide extended regions, that he beholds countenances strange and numberless, and all in feelings of mind, his closest friends and neighbours. Wherever there are natures free, ingenuous, magnanimous, either they are prudently concealed or openly professed. Some favour in silence, others give their suffrages in public. Some hasten to receive me with shouts of applause, others, in fine, vanquished by truth, surrender themselves captive. Encompassed by 2 I would wish to remove the impression, if such exists, that Salmasius entered into this controversy as an advocate of the regal rights, from interested motives, without a conviction of the justice of his cause. The death, if not the dethronement of Charles, excited great horror and indignation in other nations; with what feelings Salmasius came to his task, may be judged by the language which N. Heinsius uses on this subject, see his Poemata, Eleg. Lib. ii. 4, p. 43, iii. 1, p. 64, 8, p. 79, x. p. 82. Sylv. Lib. iii. p. 192. Amtiphatâ dignus Rege Britannus erat. such countless multitudes, it seems to me, that from the columns of Hercules, to the farthest borders of India, that, throughout this vast expanse, I am bringing back, bringing home to every nation liberty, so long driven out, so long an exile; and, as is recorded of Triptolemus of old, that I am importing fruits for the nations from my own city, but of a far robler kind than those fruits of Ceres. That I am spreading abroad among the cities, the kingdoms, and nations, the restored culture of civility and freedom of life.' He had been reproached by his adversaries with his blindness; and his answer to the charge can be read by no one without high admiration of the magnanimity of his mind, and the strength of his piety. To be blind, he says, is not miserable, but not to be able to bear blindness, that is miserable indeed. He calls God to witness, the searcher of the inmost spirit, and of every thought, that he is unconscious of any thing, (though he has visited all the recesses of his heart) of any crime, the heinousness of which could have justly called down this calamity upon him above others. That he has written nothing which he was not persuaded at the time, and is still persuaded, was right and true and pleasing to God. And this, without being moved by ambition, by lucre, or by glory, but solely by a sense of duty, of grace, and of devotion to his country. Then let the slanderers (he says) of the judgments of God cease their revilings. Let them desist from their dreamy forgeries concerning me. Let them know that I neither repine at, nor repent me of my lot: that I remain fixed, immovable in my opinion: that I neither believe, nor have found that God is angry: nay, that in things of the greatest moment, I have experienced, and acknowledge his mercy, and his paternal goodness towards me. That above all in regard of this calamity, I acquiesce in his divine will, for it is he himself who comforts and upholds my spirit, being evermore mindful of what he shall bestow upon me, than of what he shall deny me. Besides how many things are there which I should choose not to see? How many which I might be unwilling to see; and how few remaining things are there which I should desire to see. Neither am I concerned at being classed, though you think this a miserable thing, with the blind, with the afflicted, with the miserable, with the weak. Since there is a hope that, on this account, I have a nearer claim to the mercy and protection of the sovereign Father. There is a way, and the Apostle is my authority, through weakness to the greatest strength. May I be one of the weakest, provided only in my weakness, that immortal and better vigour be put forth with greater effect: provided only in my darkness the light of the divine countenance does but more brightly shine; for then I shall at once be the weakest and most mighty ; shall be at once blind, and of the most piercing sight. Thus, through this infirmity should I be consummated, perfected. Thus, through this darkness should I be enrobed with light. And, in truth, we who are blind, are not the last regarded by the providence of God; who, as we are incapable to discern any thing but himself, beholds us with the greater clemency and benignity. Woe be to him who makes a mock of us. Woe be to him who injures us; he deserves to be devoted to the public curse. The divine law, the divine favour has made us not merely secure, but, as it were, sacred from the injuries of men; nor would have seemed to have brought the darkness upon us, so much by inducing a dimness of the eyes, as by the overshadowing of heavenly wings. Besides, as I am not grown torpid by indolence, since my eyes have deserted me, but am still active, still ready to advance among the foremost to the most arduous struggles for liberty; I am not therefore deserted by men even of the first rank in the state. Thus, while I can derive consolation in my blindness both from God and man, let no one be troubled that I have lost my eyes in an honourable cause: and far be it from me to be troubled at it; far be it from me to possess so little spirit as not to be able without difficulty to despise the revilers of my blindness, or so little placability as not to be able with still less difficulty to forgive them.' The treatise, after a succession of passages of great eloquence and animation, ends with an earnest and solemn address to the people of England to prove themselves worthy of the victory they have gained, and the position they have secured. He warns them to derive their liberty not from arms, but from piety, justice, temperance; in fine, from real virtue, not to make war alone their virtue, or highest glory, or to neglect the arts of peace. To banish avarice, ambition, luxury, and all excess from their thoughts; such is the warfare of peace. Victories hard, it is true, but blameless, more glorious far than the warlike or the bloody. As for myself,' he says (speaking with something of a prophetic sorrow), 'to whatever state things may return, I have performed, and certainly with good will, I hope not in vain, the service which I thought would be of most use to the commonwealth. It is not before our doors alone that I have borne my arms in defence of liberty. I have wielded them in a field so wide |