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After his wife's return his family was increased not only with children, but also with his wife's rela tions, her father and mother, her brothers and fifters, coming to live with him in the general diftrefs and ruin of the royal party: and he was fo far from refenting their former ill treatment of him, that he generously protected them, and entertained them very hofpitably, till their affairs were accommodated thro' his intereft with the prevailing faction. And then upon their removal, and the death of his own father, his houfe looked again like the house of the Mufes but his ftudies had like to have been interrupted by a call to public bufinefs; for about this. time there was a design of conftituting him Adjutant. General in the army under Sir William Waller; but the new modeling of the army foon following, that defign was laid afide. And not long after, his great house in Barbican being now too large for his family, he quitted it for a fmaller in High Holborn, which opened backward into Lincoln's Inn Fields, where he profecuted his ftudies till the King's trial and death, when the Prefbyterians declaming tragically against the King's execution, and afferting that his perfon was facred and inviolable, provoked him to write the Tenure of Kings and Magiftrates, proving that it is lawful to call a tyrant to account and to depofe and put him to death, and that they who of late fo much blame depofing are the men who did it themselves: and he published it at the beginning of the year 1649, to fatisfy and compofe the minds of the people. Not long after this he wrote his Obfervations on the articles of peace between the Earl of Ormond and the Irish rebels. And in these and

all

all his writings, whatever others of different parties may think, he thought himself an advocate for true liberty, for ecclefiaftical liberty in his treatifes against the bishops, for domeftic liberty in his books of divorce, and for civil liberty in his writings against the king in defenfe of the parlament and people of England.

After this he retired again to his private ftudies; and thinking that he had leisure enough for fuch a work, he applied himfelf to the writing of a Hiftory of England, which he intended to deduce from the earliest accounts down to his own times: and he had finished four books of it, when neither courting nor expecting any fuch preferment, he was invited by the Council of State to be their Latin Secretary for foreign affairs. And he ferved in the fame capacity under Oliver, and Richard, and the Rump, till the Reftoration; and without doubt a better Latin pen could not have been found in the kingdom. For the Republic and Cromwell fcorned to pay that tribute to any foreign prince, which is ufually paid to the French king, of managing their affairs in his language; they thought it an indignity and meannefs, to which this or any free nation ought not to fubmit; and took a noble refolution neither to write any letters to any foreign ftates, nor to receive any anfwers from them, but in the Latin tongue, which was common to them all. And it would have been well, if fucceeding princes had followed their example; for in the opinion of very wife men, the univerfality of the French language will make way for the univerfality of the French monarchy.

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But it was not only in foreign dispatches that the government made ufe of his pen. He had difcharged the bufinefs of his office a very little time, before he was called to a work of another kind. For foon after the King's death was published a book under his name intitled Εικων Βασιλικη, or the royal image: and this book, like Cæfar's laft will, making a deeper impreffion, and exciting greater commiferation in the minds of the people, than the King himfelf did while alive, Milton was ordered to prepare an answer to it, which was published by authority, and intitled Eixovoxλans or the image-breaker, the famous furname of many Greek emperors, who in their zeal against idolatry broke all fuperftitious images to pieces. This piece was tranflated into French; and two replies to it were published, one in 1651, and the other in 1692, upon the reprinting of Milton's book at Amfterdam. In this controversy a heavy charge hath been alleged against Milton. Some editions of the King's book have certain prayers added at the end, and among them a prayer in time of captivity, which is taken from that of Pamela in Sir Philip Sidney's Arcadia: and it is faid, that this prayer was added by the contrivance and artifice of Milton, who together with Bradshaw prevailed upon the printer to infert it, that from thence he might take occafion to bring a scandal upon the King, and to blaft the reputation of his book, as he hath attempted to do in the firft fection of his answer. This fact is related chiefly upon the authority of Henry Hills the printer, who had frequently affirmed it to Dr. Gill and Dr. Bernard his phyficians, as they themselves have teftified. But Hills was not himself

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the printer, who was dealt with in this manner, and
confequently he could have the story only from hear-
fay and tho' he was Cromwell's printer, yet after-
wards he turned papist in the reign of James II, in
order to be that king's printer, and it was at that
time that he used to relate this ftory; fo that, I
think, little credit is due to his teftimony. And in-
deed I cannot but hope and believe, that Milton
had a foul above being guilty of fo mean an action
!
to ferve fo mean a púrpofe; and there is as little real
fon for fixing it upon him, as he had to traduce the
King for profaning the duty of prayer "with the

polluted trash of romances.' For there are not many finer prayers in the best books of devotion; and the King might as lawfully borrow and apply it to his own occafions, as the Apoftle might make quotations from Heathen poems and plays: and it became Milton the leaft of all men to bring fuch an accufation against the King, as he was himself particularly fond of reading romances, and has made ufe of them in fome of the best and lateft of his writings.

But his most celebrated work in profe is his Defenfe of the people of England against Salmafius, Defenfio pro populo Anglicano contra Claudii Anonymi, alias Salmafii, Defenfionem Regiam. Salmafius, by birth a Frenchman, fucceeded the famous Scaliger as honorary Profeffor of the univerfity of Leyden, and had gained great reputation by his Plinian Exercitations on Solinus, and by his critical remarks on feveral Latin and Greek authors, and was generally esteemed one of the greatest and most confummate scholars of that age: and is commended by Milton himself in his Reason of Church Government, and called the learned

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learned Salmafius. And befides his great learning he had extraordinary talents in railing." This prince "of scholars, as fome body faid of him, feemed to "have erected his throne upon a heap of ftones, "that he might have them at hand to throw at every "one's head who paffed by." He was therefore courted by Charles II, as the most able man to write a defense of the late King his father and to traduce his adverfaries, and a hundred Jacobufes were given him for that purpofe, and the book was published in 1649 with this title Defenfio Regia pro Carolo I. ad Carolum II. No fooner did this book appear in England, but the Council of State unanimoufly ap pointed Milton, who was then prefent, to anfwer it: and he performed the task with amazing fpirit and vigor, tho' his health at that time was fuch, that he could hardly indure the fatigue of writing, and being weak in body he was forced to write by piece-meal, and to break off almost every hour, as he fays him felf in the introduction. This neceffarily occafioned fome delay, fo that his Defense of the people of England was not made public till the beginning of the year 1651: and they who cannot read the original, may yet have the pleasure of reading the English tranflation by Mr. Washington of the Temple, which was printed in 1692, and is inferted among Milton's works in the two laft editions. It was fomewhat extraordinary, that Salmafius, a penfioner to a republic, fhould pretend to write a defenfe of monarchy; but the States fhowed their difapprobation by publicly condemning his book, and ordering it to be fuppreffed. And on the other hand Milton's book was burnt at Paris, and at Toloufe by the

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