at this time taken a house in Barbican; and as this was not yet ready, instead of taking his wife home to her former abode, he placed her for the present in the house of a friend.*

Among the documents in the State-Paper Office is a Protection, signed T. Fairfax, and bearing date the 27th of June, 1646, granted to Mr. R. Powell, of Forest Hill, "who was in the city and garrison of Oxford at the surrender thereof," empowering him "without let or interruption to pass the guards, with his servants, horses, arms, goods, and all other necessaries; and to repair unto London or elsewhere upon his necessary occasions;

and to have full liberty at any time within six months, to go to any port, and to transport himself, with his servants, goods, and necessaries, beyond scas." The use Mr. Powell made of this protection was to remove, with his wife and his large family of children, to London, where they were all received into the house of his generous son-in-law. It was probably soon after their arrival that Milton's first child, a daughter named Anne, was born, on the 29th of July. His wife's family appear to have remained with him for some months, for her father died at his house, in or about the following New-Year's Day ;† soon after which probably his widow and children, their affairs being settled in some measure, may have returned to Forest Hill. After their departure, the house, says Phillips, "looked again like a house of the Muses."

letters are addressed to this young man. Phillips tells us that "the accession of scholars was not great."

* This, Phillips informs us, was "the Widow Webber's house, in St. Clement's Churchyard, whose second daughter had been married to the other brother many years before."

+ See Note F. at the end of this Part.

In the beginning of the following year, January 23, 1646-7, Milton wrote his last Latin poem, the irregular ode sent to John Rouse, the Keeper of the Bodleian Library at Oxford, in a copy of his poems. It was in the course of this year also that his venerable father paid the debt of nature. Toward the end of the year, Milton, as the number of his family, and probably also that of his pupils, was reduced,-finding his house in Barbican to be larger than he required, left it and went to reside in a smaller house in Holborn, which opened backwards into Lincoln's Inn Fields. Here his second child, also a daughter, and named Mary after her mother, was born, on the 25th of October, 1648.

Phillips says, "he is much mistaken, if there was not about this time a design of making him an adjutantgeneral in Sir William Waller's army. But the newmodeling of the army proved an obstruction to the design." Of the correctness of this statement some of the biographers doubt, because Waller was a Presbyterian ; and as Milton had broken with that party, he could not serve under him with honour. There is however a much simpler answer. Waller had not and could not have any command at the time; for the New Model and the Self-denying Ordinance had taken place early in 1645; so that if any such offer was made to Milton, which is not very likely, it must have been before that year.

Milton seems to have been now employed on his History of England, as the four first books of it were written before the year 1649. His only effort in poetry was a version of nine of the Psalms, executed in 1648.

When the Independent and military faction had

* Phillips says, "not long after the march of Fairfax and Cromwell through the City," which was on the 7th of August, 1647.

brought their King to trial and to the scaffold, the Presbyterians raised a great outcry at the deed. Milton, who bore them a private grudge, and who was in general disgusted with their hypocrisy and tyranny, published in the month after the death of the King a piece named The Tenure of Kings and Magistrates, in which he undertook to prove that subjects have a right in certain cases to depose, and even put to death, a tyrant or wicked king; and then to show, that it was they who deposed and, in effect, put the King to death. He also published at this time, Observations on the Articles of Peace which the Earl of Ormond had lately concluded in the King's name with the Irish Catholics.

Royalty having been abolished, England was now to form a Commonwealth, presided over by a Council of State. As the republics of ancient Greece and Italy were the great objects of admiration to all Anti-Royalists at this time, it was deemed that the Commonwealth of England, which trod in their footprints, ought to use their language in its intercourse with foreign States; and as Greek, from its difficulty and other obvious causes, was out of the question, the Council of State fixed on the Latin, then in general use among men of learning in their personal intercourse and correspondence. The office of Secretary for Foreign Tongues, as it was termed, was offered to Milton without any solicitation, or even knowledge, on his part. His two late seasonable pieces had probably drawn attention to him; he was known to be a distinguished scholar, acquainted with both ancient and modern languages; and finally, Bradshaw, the President of the Council, was his kinsman or connection. The offer, as appears from the Book of Orders, of the Council of State, was made to him on the 13th of March or the

day following; and he seems not to have hesitated about accepting it, as the 15th is the date of his appointment. From the Book of Orders we may infer that his place was no sinecure, and that he was kept pretty well occupied. A portion of his occupation this year, in the service of the Parliament, was to write a reply to the work named Ikon Basiliké, which, passing under the name of the late King, was going through numerous editions, and rendering great service to the Royal cause. His reply was named Iconoclastes, or Image-breaker.

There is no doubt whatever that that daring act of folly, as we may perhaps term it, of the English Parliament, the execution of their King, had aroused throughout Europe a strong feeling of horror and indignation. Excited probably more by this feeling than by the alleged gift of one hundred gold Jacobuses from the son of that unhappy monarch, Claude de Saumaise, or, as he Latinized his name, Salmasius, one of the most distinguished scholars in Europe, published at the close of this year a piece named Defensio Regia pro Carolo Primo ad Carolum Secundum, in which he boldly and openly asserted the divine right of kings, and their accountability to God alone for their actions. As the name of the author, independently of the merits of the subject and the execution, was sure to draw much attention to the work, and so might prejudice the cause of the Parliament, the Council, on the 8th of January, 1649-50, made an Order that "Mr. Milton do prepare something in answer to the book of Salmasius;" and we find another Order of the 23rd of the following December, "that Mr. Milton do print the treatise which he hath written," etc.

This was his celebrated, his noble Defensio pro Populo Anglicano; in which, though he certainly goes much

further than any one of sound sense and judgement will agree to accompany him, in justifying the late act of the dominant party, every true friend of man must admire the clear and vigorous manner in which he asserts and proves that the people are the true source of power, and that to them the holders of it are accountable for its exercise. The impression made by this treatise was great; the general feeling on the Continent had been adverse to the Parliament, and the name of their advocate was little known; but, perhaps in some measure owing to the reputation of Salmasius, it speedily found readers, and consequently admirers. Milton himself tells us, that soon after its publication he received the congratulations of all the Foreign Ministers in London, who, with two or three exceptions, must have been those of crowned heads.

It must be recorded to Milton's honour, that though his sight had been decaying for some years, and his physicians assured him that if he undertook this work he would become totally blind, he nobly resolved to sacrifice what may be regarded as the greatest of earthly blessings, to what he deemed a sacred duty. He wrote the Defence, and the prediction of the physicians was verified.

In the course of this year appeared a reply to the Defence, which Milton erroneously ascribed to Bishop Bramhall, but whose real author was a clergyman of the name of Rowland. To this an answer, also in Latin, was made by Milton's younger nephew John Phillips, now only in his twentieth year, but which was so carefully revised and corrected by Milton before it went to press, that it may in effect be regarded as his own work. There were some other answers attempted to the Defence, but of these its author took no notice. A truce