dictionary, and for framing a Body of Divinity out of the Bible, and finally to the composing of the great poem, on the subject of which he had fixed at last after long hesitation.* These however did not occupy him wholly. In 1658 he published a manuscript of Sir Walter Raleigh's, named The Cabinet Council; and in the following year he printed a Treatise of Civil Power in Ecclesiastical Causes; and another, Considerations touching the Means of removing Hirelings out of the Church. He wrote also, but did not publish, A Letter to a Friend concerning the Ruptures of the Commonwealth, and The present Means and Brief Delineation of a Free Commonwealth, in a letter addressed to General Monk.† In 1660, when the Restoration seemed almost inevitable, he made a final effort against monarchy, in a piece also addressed to Monk, entitled The ready and easy Way to establish a Free Commonwealth. But all was in vain. The nation was weary of turmoil, and anxious to return to its former condition. The Royalists, seeing the state of the public mind, took courage, and the pulpit was once more converted into a political engine. Dr. Matthew Griffith, one of the late King's chaplains, published one of these political sermons which he had preached at Mercers' Hall; and Milton forthwith sent to the press a reply to it, named Brief Notes upon a late Sermon titled The Fear of God and the King. With this piece terminated his career of political controversy.

During the eight years that Milton lived in his house in Petty France he had enjoyed the society of some select friends,—such as Lawrence, Skinner, Marvell,-men of

* Aubrey says he began it two years before the coming-in of the King.

They were both printed for the first time by Toland.

*

virtue, talent, and learning. With men of power and political influence he appears to have had little intimacy. In his Second Defence he terms Col. Overton his friend, and he speaks of Whitlock, Pickering, Strickland, Sydenham, Sydney, Montague, and Lawrence, as known to him by friendship or by fame, which shows that he was intimate with some of them. With Lady Ranelagh, the mother and aunt of two of his former pupils, and sister to Lord Orrery and the celebrated Robert Boyle, he was on terms of close intimacy. He was also visited by distinguished foreigners, many of whom, Aubrey says, came to England for no other purpose but to see Cromwell and Milton. He was

mightily," he says, "importuned to go into France and Italy; foreigners came much to see him, and much admired him; and offered him great preferments to come. over to them." How far this account is correct we are unable to say, but certainly the fame of Milton was widely divulged all over Europe.

*In his letter to Heimbach, Dec. 18, 1657, he tells him that he cannot be of any service to him, "propter paucissimas familiaritates meas cum gratiosis,”

FOURTH PERIOD.

AFTER THE RESTORATION.

A. D. 1660-1674. A. ET. 52-66.

As it would not have been safe for the author of Iconoclastes and The Defence of the People of England to have appeared in public after the return of the King, Milton quitted his house in Petty France, and sought an asylum with a friend who lived in Bartholomew Close, near West Smithfield. His concealment here was complete; perhaps, though a proclamation was issued for his apprehension, no very diligent search was made after him. There were among the Royalists men of humanity who could feel compassion for him who was deprived of Nature's prime blessing, and men of taste who were capable of admiration for exalted genius. The names of Monk's cousin, Secretary Morrice, and his brother-inlaw, Sir Thomas Clarges, are mentioned as of those who interested themselves in Milton's favour; Andrew Marvell too, who had a seat in Parliament, is said to have exerted himself in behalf of his friend.* But the chief merit is usually assigned to Sir William Davenant, who, when he had been taken prisoner on his passage from France to America, in 1651, was ordered by the Parlia

* See Phillips.

ment to be tried for his life by the High Court of Justice, and the interest of Milton was then exerted to save him; he now, it is said, paid the debt of gratitude. Perhaps after all it was Monk himself, who we know had wished to have only four persons excepted from indemnity, that caused Milton's name not to appear among the exceptions.

Warton, who we need not say was no lover of Milton, tells us, on the authority of Thyer, who he says had it from good authority, that "when he was under persecucution with John Goodwin, his friends, to gain time, made a mock-funeral for him, and that when matters were settled in his favour, and the affair was known, the King laughed heartily at the trick." This account, improbable as it may appear, receives some confirmation from the fact that it is to be found in a work written long before the time of Thyer or Warton,† and with which neither of them can be supposed to have been acquainted. The story after all is by no means incredible, for Milton's friends might-but assuredly without his knowledge-have had recourse to such an artifice.

On the 16th of June, 1660, the Commons resolved that his Majesty should be "humbly moved to call in Milton's two books [Iconoclastes and The Defence] and that of John Goodwin [The Obstructors of Justice], written in justification of the murder of the late King, and order them to be burnt by the common hangman; and that the Attorney-General do proceed against them by indictment or otherwise." On the 27th of

* Richardson, from Pope, who said he had it from Betterton the actor, whose patron Davenant had been. Aubrey, in his MS. Life of Davenant, as Todd observes, ascribes his safety, without any mention of Milton, to two aldermen of York.

+ Cunningham's History of Great Britain, i. 14.

August following several copies of these works were committed to the flames. Two days after, the Act of Indemnity was passed, and Milton had nothing more to fear for his life. Yet we find him, for some cause or other, afterwards in the custody of the Sergeant-at-Arms, for there is an order of the 15th of December for his release, paying his fees; and another of the 17th, on his complaint of excessive fees being demanded, directing that inquiry should be made of what is fit to be given to the Sergeant. For his confinement on this occasion no adequate cause has been assigned. Birch conjectures that it was in consequence of the order given by the Commons for his prosecution; but there was no such order, it was merely a motion for an address to the King. We are therefore left in uncertainty. We may now however suppose that Milton's mind was at ease, and that he could give his undivided attention to the great work he had in hand. But if we may credit Richardson's informant, this was by no means the case. "He was,” he says, "in perpetual terror of being assassinated; though he had escaped the talons of the law, he had made himself enemies in abundance. He was dejected, he would lie awake at nights," etc. This, he says, Dr. Tancred Robinson had from a relation of Milton's-Mrs. Walker, of the Temple. To us it does not appear to be at all probable.

Milton now took a house in Holborn, near Red Lionstreet, but he did not remain long there, it is said; and he removed from it to a house in Jewin-street, near Aldersgate-street, but in what year is uncertain. In 1661 he published, under the title of Accidence commenced Grammar, a Latin grammar, which he had probably drawn up while he was engaged in tuition; for,