ject of which I treat was never surpassed in any age, in dignity or in interest. It has excited such general and such ardent expectation, that I imagine myself not in the forum or on the rostra, surrounded only by the people of Athens or of Rome; but about to address in this, as I did in my former Defence, the whole collective body of people, cities, states, and councils of the wise and eminent, through the wide expanse of anxious and listening Europe." Jam videor mihi, ingressus iter, transmarinos tractus et porrectas latè regiones, sublimis perlustrare; vultus innumeros atque ignotos, animi sensus mecum conjunctissimos. Hinc Germanorum virile et infestum servituti robur, inde Francorum vividi dignique nomine liberales impetus, hinc Hispanorum consulta virtus, Italorum inde sedata suique compos magnanimitas ob oculos versatur. Quicquid uspiam liberorum pectorum, quicquid ingenui, quicquid magnanimi aut prudens latet aut se palâm profitetur, alii tacitè favere, alii apertè suffragari, accurrere alii et plausu accipere, alii tandem vero victi, dedititios se tradere. Videor jam mihi, tantis circumseptus copiis, ab Herculeis usque columnis ad extremos Liberi patris terminos, libertatem diu pulsam atque exulem, longo intervallo domum ubique gentium reducere: et, quod Triptolemus olim fertur, sed longè nobiliorem Cereali illa frugem ex civitate mea gentibus importare; restitutum nempe civilem liberumque vitæ cultum, per urbes, per regna, perque nationes disseminare." I seem to survey, as from a towering height, the far extended tracts of sea and land, and innumerable crowds of spectators, betraying in their looks the liveliest interest, and sensations the most congenial with my own. Here I behold the stout and manly prowess of the German, disdaining servitude; there the generous and lively impetuosity of the French; on this side the calm and stately valour of the Spaniard; on that the composed and wary magnanimity of the Italian. Of all the lovers of liberty and virtue, the magnanimous and the wise, in whatever quarter they may be found, some secretly favour, others openly approve; some greet me with congratulations and applause; others, who had long been proof against conviction, at last yield themselves captive to the force of truth. Surrounded by congregated multitudes, I now imagine, that, from the columns of Hercules to the Indian ocean, I behold the nations of the earth recovering that liberty which they so long had lost; and that the people of this island are transporting to other countries a plant of more beneficial qualities, and more noble growth, than that which Triptolemus is reported to have carried from region to region; that they are disseminating the blessings of civilization and freedom among cities, kingdoms, and nations. Nor shall I approach unknown, nor perhaps unloved, if it be told that I am the same person, who engaged in single combat that fierce advocate of despotism, till then reputed invincible in the opinion of many, and in his own conceit, who insolently challenged us and our armies to the combat; but whom, while I repelled his virulence, I silenced with his own weapons; and over whom, if I may trust to the opinion of impartial judges, I gained a complete and glorious victory."

Toland, and succeeding biographers, have asserted that Milton was rewarded by the council with a present of £1000. The Second Defence, published three years after the first, denies that its author was ever the richer by one half-penny for these and similar works, and the council book shews that the gratitude of his task-masters, to their shame be it recorded, expended itself in commendation.

"1651. June 18. Ordered, that thanks be given to Mr. Milton on the behalf of the commonwealth, for his good services done in writing an answer to the booke of Salmasius, written against the proceedings of the commonwealth of England." But all this, says Mr. Todd, in his account of the life and writings of Milton, is crossed over, and nearly three lines following are obliterated, in which, Mr. Lemon says, a grant of money was made to Milton. After the cancelled passage, the regular entry thus follows: "The councill taking notice of the many good services performed by Mr. John Milton, their secretary for foreign Languages, to this state and commonwealth, particularlie for his Booke in vindication of the

C

Parliament and People of England against the calumnies and invectives of Salmasius, have thought fit to declare their resentment and good acceptance of the same; and that the thanks of the councill be returned to Mr. Mylton, and their sense represented in that behalf."

The Defence of the People of England does not contain any abstract principle which was not acted upon in the Revolution of 1688, and is not now formally embodied in the British Constitution, and approved of by the vast majority of those who enjoy its protection. The Earl of Bridgewater, who had performed the part of the first brother in the Masque of Comus, is said to have written on the title-page of the Defensio, " Liber ignè, author furcá, dignissimi." So thought the friends of liberty in France, and would doubtless have carried the latter part of the sentence as they did the former into execution. It may be unhesitatingly asserted that there is no governmental or political maxim or opinion therein delivered or maintained to which a good king would not willingly subscribe." If I write," says Milton in the Second Defence, "against tyrants, what is that to kings, whom I am far from associating with tyrants? As much as an honest man differs from a rogue, so much I contend that a king differs from a tyrant. Whence it is clear that a tyrant is so far from being a king, that he is always in direct opposition to a king. And he who peruses the records of history, will find that more kings have been subverted by tyrants, than by subjects. He, therefore, that would authorize the destruction of tyrants, does not authorize the destruction of kings, but of the most inveterate enemies of kings."

Far distant be the day when an English king shall require the assistance of another Salmasius!

The superabundant malice of Bishop Horsley, and the industry of Mr. Todd, have only been able to make a joint nibble at the Defensio. These luminaries of the church of England, differing in magnitude not density, have endeavoured to throw the shade of a foul slander over the Miltonic orb in this controversy. As Mr. Todd adds nothing of weight to the Bishop's paragraph, we shall content ourselves with the episcopal charge. "When Salmasius" (says Bishop Horsley in the Appendix to his Sermon before the House of Lords, Jan. 30, 1793, p. 38) "upbraided the Cromwell faction with the tenets of the Brownists, the chosen advocate of that execrable faction (Milton) replied, that if they were Brownists, Luther, Calvin, Bucer, Zuinglius, and all the most celebrated theologians of the orthodox, must be included in the same reproach. A grosser falsehood as far as Luther, Calvin, and many others, are concerned, never fell from the unprincipled pen of a party writer. However sedition might be a part of the puritanick creed, the general faith of the Reformers rejects the infamous alliance."

A serious charge is here brought, but is it attempted to be sustained? The independents were a religious sect, and so named from the form of their church-government. With this form it is evident that their theological doctrines had no necessary connexion-nor were their political tenets necessarily either of the royal or rebel faction. How, therefore, the Bishop can, after Salmasius, class sedition as a part of the creed of a sect, which, as such, disclaims the alliance between the church and state-how a religious community, as such, can adopt so destructive a principle into their very articles of faith, will ever remain an incomprehensible marvel. As independents they could not profess the principle of sedition, nor could the religious reformers as such-therefore from the charge of sedition (which is a political offence) they are both equally clear. If in what the independents did believe, the reformers, as far as it was possible, believed also, the inference must be that the charge brought against the commonwealthsmen (of sedition) includes the reformers. The ultimate principle on which the reformers rested their opposition to the pope of Rome, was that which justified the independents (and other sectaries) in their religious opposition to the English pope, or the head of the English church; so that inasmuch as there can be re

ligious sedition, the sectaries might (if they chose) shelter themselves under the example of the greatest protestant reformers. The independents could not as such act in political opposition to the king of England ;-herein they acted as Englishmen upon the common ground of liberty, on which alone the protestant reformers as against their popish rulers could be justified, and on which alone the members of the church of England could be justified in expelling Pope James the 2nd from the English throne.

Now for the fact as to what was really the opinion of the reformers on the right of subjects to rebel against tyrants. The Bishop we have seen denies that the reformers acknowledged this right. What says Milton? "We have put to death neither a good, nor a just, nor a merciful, nor a devout, nor a godly, nor a peaceable king, as you style him; but an enemy that has been so to us almost ten years to an end; nor one that was a father, but a destroyer of his country. You confess that such things have been practised; for yourself have not the impudence to deny it: but not by protestants upon a protestant king. But there being so few protestant kings, it is no great wonder, if it never happened that one of them has been put to death. But that it is lawful to depose a tyrant, and punish him according to his deserts; nay, that this is the opinion of many protestant divines, and of such as have been most instrumental in the late reformation, do you deny it if you dare." This is in the 1st chapter-the concluding paragraph of the 5th of the Defensio is the passage on which the Bishop animadverts. In the 1st chapter the opinion is reiterated.

"You confess that some protestants whom you do not name, have asserted it lawful to depose a tyrant;' but though you do not think fit to name them, I will, because you say 'they are far worse than the Jesuits themselves;' they are no other than Luther, and Zuinglius, and Calvin, and Bucer, and Pareus, and many others."

Again in the 3rd chapter towards the end: "But would you know the reason why he (Salmasius) dares not come so low as to the present times? Why he does as it were hide himself, and disappear, when he comes towards our own times? The reason is, because he knows full well, that as many eminent divines as there are of the reformed churches, so many adversaries he would have to encounter. Let him take up the cudgels if he thinks fit; he will quickly find himself run down with innumerable authorities, out of Luther, Zuinglius, Calvin, Bucer, Martyr, Pareus, and the rest. I could oppose you with testimonies out of divines, that have flourished even in Leyden."

Reformation whether opposed to reigning government or to a reigning superstition is equally liable to the charge of" sedition." Milton at the end of this chapter says, "I cannot but smile at this man's preposterous whimsies; in ecclesiastics he is Helvidius, Thraseas, a perfect tyrannicide. In politics no man more a lackey and slave to tyrants than he. If his doctrine hold, not we only that have deposed our king, but the protestants in general, who against the minds of their princes have rejected the pope, are all rebels alike."

These passages assert that it was the opinion of protestant divines, that tyrants whether in civil or ecclesiastical affairs might be resisted. Milton refers to them as undeniably favourable to the proceedings of the commonwealth. Not merely does he assert this coincidence of the opinion of the reformers with the conduct of his party in these and other places, in the Defensio, and also in the Second Defence, but it will be remembered that in the appendix to "the Tenure of Kings and Magistrates," quotations from Luther, Zuinglius, Calvin, Bucer, Pareus, Gilby, Christopher Goodman, are expressly given to this effect. Safely therefore may we set off against the Bishop's the Appendix of John Milton. Civil and religious liberty are in fact convertible terms-there is neither where there is not both.

Salmasius threw a handful of dust on his conqueror before he died. He terminated his days at the Spa in Germany, in 1652, shortly after he had finished a most virulent reply to Milton, which however was not published until the year of the Restoration, when it was

produced with a dedication to Charles the 2nd, and entitled, " Claudii Salmasii ad Joannem Miltonum Responsio, opus posthumum; Dijon, Sept. 1660." Answer of Claudius Salmasius to John Milton; a posthumous work, &c. The learned Dr. Birch says, that the virulence which it displays is unexampled. He treats his antagonist as an ordinary schoolmaster; qui ludimagister in Scholâ triviali Londinensi fuit ;" and charges him with divorcing his wife after a year's marriage, for reasons best known to himself, and defending the lawfulness of divorce for any causes whatsoever. He styles him, impura bellua, quæ nihil hominis sibi reliqui fecit præter lippiantes oculos. He charges him with some false quantities in his juvenile Latin poems; and throughout the whole book gives him the title of Bellua, fanaticus latro, homunculus, lippulus, cæculus, homo perditissimus, nebulo, impurus, scelestus audax et nefarius alastor, infandus impostor, &c. &c. And declares that he would have him tortured with burning pitch or scalding oil till he expired: "pro cæteris autem suis factis dictisque dignum dicam videri, qui pice ardenti, vel oleo fervente, perfundaris, usque dum animam effles nocentem et carnifici jam pridem debitam." So much for the "great" Salmasius.

The First Defence is the last of Milton's writings-the last work which he wrote with his own hand. Before the end of the year in which he completed it, he was quite blind. All his future works therefore, whether prose or verse, must have been dictated. This is pure eloquence, and true bardic rapture,-the utterance-the hallowed fire, for which" to touch and purify his lips," he so devoutly prayed. The visitation of blindness must have been to a mind like his, so admirably framed to enjoy the wonders and beauties of the visible universe, a severe and afflictive dispensation-a hard sentence of exclusion from the palace of the magnificent creation. But his spirit had already conversed with the domain of materialisms; the light, though faded from his eyes, was yet "pleasant" to his soul; and the capacious vision of memory was perhaps more splendid than the actual revelation of visual sense. He had taken a spiritual possession of suns and systems, and turned them all into thoughts. Time itself became to him a part of the past, and the present was to him the portion of a privileged eternity. He was thus brought into perpetual contact or rather converse with the invisible. One veil of flesh was removed. His complete external dependence upon the kindnesses and sympathies of his fellow-creatures, must have taught him the lesson we have all to learn, of total dependence and reliance upon the Creator. Faith, now a necessary portion of his animal life, became more intensely identified with his spiritual nature. His mind was not benighted, nor even darkened. The lustre of these heavens and the luxuriance of this earth he was not destined to see any more -but he knew that the time of his departure was at hand-and that his eyes should soon be opened, in "supereminence of beatific vision," upon the "new heavens, and the new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness!"

Adversity, says Lord Bacon, does best discover virtue. Milton bore his affliction with exemplary patience and fortitude. His episcopalian enemies boasted that they saw in it a retribution for the transgressions of his pen. In the Second Defence, written three years after this calamity had befallen him, he explains, in a passage already quoted, the motives by which he was governed in the measures which he took, and under the losses which he sustained—and thus replies to such miserable antagonists:

"Let then the calumniators of the divine goodness cease to revile, or to make me the object of their superstitious imagination. Let them consider that my situation, such as it is, is neither an object of my shame or my regret; that my resolutions are too firm to be shaken, that I am not depressed by any sense of the divine displeasure; that on the other hand, in the most momentous periods, I have had full experience of the divine favour and protection, and that, in the solace and the strength, which have been infused into me from above, I have been enabled to do the will of God; that I may oftener think on what he

has bestowed, than on what he has withheld; that in short I am unwilling to exchange my consciousness of rectitude with that of any other person; and that I feel the recollection a treasured store of tranquillity and delight. But if the choice were necessary, I would, Sir, prefer my blindness to yours: yours is a cloud spread over the mind, which darkens both the light of reason and of conscience; mine keeps from my view only the coloured surfaces of things, while it leaves me at liberty to contemplate the beauty and stability of virtue and of truth. How many things are there besides, which I would not willingly see; how many which I must see against my will; and how few which I feel any anxiety to see! There is, as the apostle has remarked, a way to strength through weakness. Let me then be the most feeble creature alive, as long as that feebleness serves to invigorate the energies of my rational and immortal spirit; as long as in that obscurity, in which I am enveloped, the light of the divine presence more clearly shines: then, in proportion as I am weak, I shall be invincibly strong; and in proportion as I am blind, I shall more clearly see. O! that I may thus be perfected by feebleness, and irradiated by obscurity! And indeed," (let these few sentences sink deep in our minds, and then we shall form a proper estimate of his posthumous detractors,) “ in my blindness, I enjoy in no inconsiderable degree the favour of the Deity; who regards me with more tenderness and compassion in proportion as I am able to behold nothing but himself. Alas! for him who insults me, who maligns and merits public execration! For the divine law not only shields me from injury; but almost renders me too sacred to attack; not indeed so much from the privation of my sight, as from the overshadowing of those heavenly wings, which seem to have occasioned this obscurity; and which, when occasioned, he is wont to illuminate with an interior light, more precious and more pure. To this I ascribe the more tender assiduities of my friends, their soothing attentions, their kind visits, their reverential observances; among whom there are some with whom I may interchange the Pyladean and Thesean dialogue of inseparable friends. This extraordinary kindness which I experience, cannot be any fortuitous combination; and friends, such as mine, do not suppose that all the virtues of a man are contained in his eyes. Nor do the persons of principal distinction in the commonwealth, suffer me to be bereaved of comfort, when they see me bereaved of sight, amid the exertions which I made, the zeal which I shewed, and the dangers which I ran for the liberty which I love. But, soberly reflecting on the casualties of human life, they shew me favour and indulgence as to a soldier who has served his time; and kindly concede to me an exemption from care and toil. They do not strip me of the badges of honour which I have once worn; they do not deprive me of the places of public trust to which I have been appointed; they do not abridge my salary or emoluments; which, though I may not do so much to deserve as I did formerly, they are too considerate and too kind to take away; and in short they honour me as much, as the Athenians did those, whom they determined to support at the public expense in the Prytaneum. Thus, while both God and man unite in solacing me under the weight of my affliction, let no one lament my loss of sight in so honourable a cause. And let me not indulge in unavailing grief; or want the courage either to despise the revilers of my blindness, or the forbearance easily to pardon the offence." What say the revilers, not of his blindness, but of his memory, to this magnanimous effusion?

Time was yet his tabernacle-he yet a sojourner-and though he neither shunned nor courted publicity, he continued diligently to discharge all the common duties of life. Well might Wordsworth sing:

Thou hadst a voice whose sound was like the sea,

Pure as the naked heavens, majestic, free:

So didst thou travel on life's common way,

In cheerful godliness; and yet thy heart

The lowliest duties on herself did lay.