lay so costly a sacrifice. As a Christian, he bore the privation with noble fortitude; as a patriot, with the Just consciousness of having deserved well of his country,-a debt still unpaid; for England, proud of the Poet whom the world reveres, has shrunk from the acknowledgment of the Patriot's claims; and the monument that bears his name in Westminster Abbey is more a memorial of its titled donor than a tribute to the memory of England's gifted son.

"It is not miserable to be blind," says Milton, with calm dignity, in reply to one of his heartless antagonists "He only is miserable who cannot acquiesce in his blindness with fortitude; and why should I repine at a calamity which every man's mind ought to be so prepared and disciplined, as to be able to undergo with patience; a calamity to which every man by the condition of his nature is liable, and which I know to have been the lot of some of the greatest and best of my species?"

So completely unimpaired were his energies, that he continued till the Restoration to dictate all the most important foreign correspondence of the Commonwealth. In this high office he took an active share in the foreign policy of Cromwell, which, whatever be the opinion formed of the Protectorate, as the government of a free people, is universally acknowledged to have elevated England to the highest rank among the kingdoms of Europe,-to have made her respected and feared wherever she was known. Milton penned the indignant remonstrance that stayed the sword of persecution against the helpless Protestants of Piedmont, as well as the Bonnet that records their sufferings. He conducted the bold correspondence that set at defiance the haughty bigotry of Spain; and Johnson closes his narrative of this period of his life with this account:-"His agency was considered as of great importance; for when a treaty with Sweden was artfully suspended, the delay was publicly imputed to Milton's indisposition; and the Swedish agent was provoked to express his wonder that only one man in England could write Latin, and that man blind."

Like other great geniuses, Milton appears to have sought relaxation only in a change of mental labour. His habit was to devote as many hours each day to irtense study as his faculties could bear, and he now

engaged in this manner on three great works;-& Latin Dictionary, which, though never published, served as the basis of one afterwards issued from the Cambridge press;-a History of England, and his great epic poem.

The dependant situation in which he was now placed by the loss of his sight, and with a young family around him, which his studious habits were alone sufficient to nave incapacitated him from taking any charge of, speedily induced him to marry again. He chose as his second wife, Catherine, the daughter of Captain Woodcock, a zealous republican. She proved a most tender and affectionate wife, and Milton seems to have been devotedly attached to her; but their happiness was destined to be very brief. Within the year of their marriage she gave birth to a daughter, and very soon followed her to the grave.

In 1665, he was joined in his office of Latin Secretary by his friend, Andrew Marvell; and after his severe affliction, he seems to have withdrawn into the closest retirement, only visiting the court or government offices when absolutely called thither by his public duties. He was equally silent as an author for several years. In a letter, written the year before Cromwell's death, to a young friend in Holland, who had besought his influence for him in some public matter, he says "I have very few farmiliars with the gratiosi of the court. who keep myself almost wholly at home, and am willing to do so."

Milton seems to have felt at this period that the time for using his pen in behalf of the Commonwealth was past. Notwithstanding all that has been said on the subject by political opponents and injudicious apologists, there seems no reason to think that Milton disapproved of the general policy of Cromwell. He willingly lent his services till the close of the Protectorate, and he was not the man to co-operate in a government he deemed inimical to the true interests of his country. During the convulsions that succeeded, the probability of his writing being productive of any benefit was still more doubtful, and he remarked on it in a letter to an old pupil,--"My country does not now stand in need of a person to record her intestine commotions, but of one qualified to bring them to an auspicious conclusion." The crisis that seemed rapidly approaching, at length

urged him to make a last effort in the cause of liberty; and he published, almost immediately before the Restoration had been determined on by the leaders that now assumed the government, an eloquent remonstrance against abandoning "this goodly tower of a Commonwealth which they had begun to build," foretelling in strong language what proved to be the consequences of restoring the hereditary claimant to the throne. But the courageous effort in behalf of his favourite scheme of a Republic was addressed to unwilling ears. General Monk had already taken his resolution, and this display of Milton's patriot zeal was made in vain.

CHAPTER IV.

THE RESTORATION.

GENERAL MONK having perfected his arrangements, and the Parliament concluded their negotiations with Charles II. at Breda, Milton was discharged from his office as Latin Secretary. He was compelled to secrete himself for a time in a friend's house in St. Bartholomew Close until the first burst of vindictive rage in the triumphant royalists was past; and the more effectually to screen him from the search that would otherwise have been instituted, his friends spread a report of his death, and, assembling in mournful procession, followed his supposed corpse to the grave. On the King afterwards learning of this device, it is said to have afforded him much mirth, and he commended his policy "in escaping death by a seasonable show of dying."

In this concealment he remained safe, while some of his old friends expiated their alleged offences by bloody execution, and other cruel indignities, as regicides. Even his public funeral did not stay the issue of a proclamation for his arrest, though it probably prevented any further search. The Parliament endeavoured to testify their loyalty by ordering the Attorney-General to commence a prosecution against him; and immediately before the passing of the General Act of Oblivion, his two books, the "Eiconoclastes," and the "Defence of the People," were publicly burnt by the common hangman. The same had been done to the latter work long before

B

at Paris; and now the unfinished reply of Salmasius was published, to crown the whole, it may well be believed only exciting a smile in him against whom these annoy ances were directed.

Fortunately for the honour of England the name of Milton was not included in the list of exceptions to the Act of Oblivion, and, accordingly, on its passing, he left his place of concealment where he had continued nearly four months, only three days after the burning of his writings.

He was arrested on his appearance by the obsequious Parliament, but released after a time on the payment of costly fees. From this time till his death, he interfered no more in politics, though ever faithful to his cause; he withdrew entirely into private life, content, like Bacon, to leave his reputation to the judgment of posterity.

He had on many occasions exercised his influence during the period of the Commonwealth, in acts of generosity and benevolence to the discomfited royalists. Sir Willam Davenant, the poet-laureate of Charles, owed his life to his intercession, and it became a graceful act of gratitude to use his influence in returning the favour. But from this period the few friends of the blind old man seemed to have been found among those who, having sympathized with him in his high aspirations for the people's liberty, now mourned over the dissolute excesses in which every hope of it was being swept away.

The account furnished by Aubrey as to the periods at which he wrote the Paradise Lost, is further corroborated both by external and internal evidence. According to him it was begun two years before the restoration of the king, and finished about three years after that event. It formed his solace and occupation during these months of concealment, to which a passage in the seventh book is, with much probability, supposed to allude.

Released, however, as we have seen, from nis anxious durance, he withdrew to a small house in the Artillery Walk, near Bunhill Fields; a humble dwelling, suited to his reduced circumstances, where he continued to reside during the remainder of his life.

The poet, now experiencing the premature advances of age, with his name held up to public scorn, his hopes

blighted, and his means of support withdrawn, had yet added to all these the bitterness of ungrateful children. His two elder daughters seem to have been destitute alike of affection and pity; and he who was from his infirmities so peculiarly dependant on domestic enjoyments, found there his sharpest sorrows. Such circumstances must almost have compelled him to seek again to supply their undutiful neglect by marriage; and, accordingly, shortly after this, in his fifty-fourth year, he married his third wife, Elizabeth Minshall, the daughter of a gentleman in Cheshire. He is said to have formed this attachment on the recommendation of his friend, Dr. Paget, an eminent physician of the city, to whom the lady was related.

The marriage was probably rather dictated by prudence and mutual respect than any deeper feelings; but Aubrey, to whom she was personally known, mentions her as "a gentle person, of a peaceful and agreeable humour." Her memory deserves to be had in grateful remembrance by the admirers of the great poet; she alleviated his sufferings, soothed his cares, and proved to him a tender and affectionate wife.

It is painful to reflect on this great and good man needing a protector against his own daughters; and with those who have proved so ready to avail themselves of every means of blasting his reputation, and casting a shadow around his great name, this has not been overlooked as a source of defamation. But it is pleasing to think that he had, in his youngest daughter, Deborah, one dutiful and favourite child, who deemed it no cruelty to be required to read to her blind father, or pen for him his immortal works.

The discovery of Milton's will, which had been long sought in vain, brought to light much interesting information regarding his domestic life, exhibiting the suffering to which he was subjected by the ingratitude of those most bound to alleviate his misfortunes; while it brings out his own disposition in a remarkably pleasing and amiable light. It may in some degree account for the conduct of his daughters, though it cannot be an excuse for it-that they were early left without a mother, and their father, from studious habits and his official duties, as well as his early loss of sight, was anable to take any charge of them, so that they may