it by his intereft; he loves himself rather than truth.

His wife and her relatións now found that Milton was not an unrefifting sufferer of injuries; and perceiving that he had begun to put his doctrine in practice, by courting a young woman of great accomplishments, the daughter of one Doctor Davis, who was however not ready to comply, they refolved to endeavour a re-union. He went fometimes to the houfe of one Blackborough, his relation, in the lane of St. Martin's le-Grand, and at one of his ufual vifits was furprised to fee his wife come from another room, and implore forgiveness on her knees. He refifted her intreaties for a while: "but partly," fays Philips, "his own generous nature, more inclinable to reconciliation than to perfeverance in anger or revenge, and partly the ftrong interceffion of friends * on both fides, foon brought him to an act of ob

livion and a firm league of peace." It were injurious to omit, that Milton afterwards received her father and her brothers in his own houfe, when they were diftreffed, with other Royalifts.

He published about the fame time his Areopagitica, a Speech of Mr. John Milton for the Liberty of unlicenfed Printing. The danger of fuch unbounded liberty, and the danger of bounding it, have produced a problem in the fcience of government, which human understanding feems hitherto unable to folve. If nothing may be published but what civil authority fhall have previously approved, power muft always be the ftandard of truth: if every dreamer of innovations may propagate his projects, there can be no fettlement; if every murmurer at government

may

may diffuse difcontent, there can be no peace; and if every sceptick in theology may teach his follies, there can be no religion. The remedy against these evils is to punish the authors; for it is yet allowed that every fociety may punith, though not prevent, the publication of opinions which that fociety fhall think pernicious; but this punishment, though it may crufh the author, promotes the book; and it feems not more reasonable to leave the right of printing unrestrained because writers may be afterwards cenfured, than it would be to fleep with doors unbolted, because by our laws we can hang a thief.

But whatever were his engagements, civil or domeftick, poetry was never long out of his thoughts.

About this time (1645) a collection of his Latin and English poems appeared, in which the Allegro and Penferofo, with fome others, were firft publifhed.

He had taken a larger houfe in Barbican for the reception of fcholars; but the numerous relations of his wife, to whom he generously granted refuge for a while, occupied his rooms. In time, however, they went away; "and the houfe again," fays Philips, "now looked like a houfe of the Mufes only, though "the acceffion of fcholars was not great. Poffibly "his having proceeded fo far in the education of "youth may have been the occafion of his adverfaries "calling him pedagogue and fchool-mafter; whereas "it is well known he never fet up for a publick school, to teach all the young fry of a parish; but only was willing to impart his learning and know"ledge to his relations, and the fons of gentlemen "who were his intimate friends, and that neither

his writings nor his way of teaching ever favoured "in the leaft of pedantry."

Thus laboriously does his nephew extenuate what cannot be denied, and what might be confeffed without difgrace. Milton was not a man who could become mean by a mean employment. This, however, his warmeft friends feem not to have found; they therefore fhift and palliate. He did not fell literature to all comers at an open fhop; he was a chamber-milliner, and measured his commodities only to his friends.

Philips, evidently impatient of viewing him in this state of degradation, tells us that it was not long continued; and, to raife his character again, has a mind to inveft him with military splendour: "He "is much mistaken," he says, "if there was not "about this time a defign of making him an adju

46

tant-general in Sir William Waller's army. But "the new-modelling of the army proved an ob"ftruction to the defign." An event cannot be set at a much greater diftance than by having been only defigned, about fome time, if a man be not much mistaken. Milton shall be a pedagogue no longer; for, if Philips be not much mistaken, fomebody at fome time defigned him for a foldier.

About the time that the army was new-modelled (1645), he removed to a smaller houfe in Holbourn, which opened backward into Lincoln's-Inn-Fields. He is not known to have published any thing afterwards till the King's death, when, finding his murderers condemned by the Presbyterians, he wrote a treatise to justify it, and to compofe the minds of the people.

He

He made fome Remarks on the Articles of Peace between Ormond and the Irish Rebels. While he contented himself to write, he perhaps did only what his confcience dictated; and if he did not very vigilantly watch the influence of his own paffions, and the gradual prevalence of opinions, firft willingly admitted, and then habitually indulged; if objections, by being overlooked, were forgotten, and defire fu, perinduced conviction; he yet fhared only the common weakness of mankind, and might be no lefs fincere than his opponents. But as faction seldom leaves a man honeft, however it might find him, Milton is fufpected of having interpolated the book called Icon Bafilike, which the Council of State, to whom he was now made Latin fecretary, employed him to cenfure, by inferting a prayer taken from Sidney's Arcadia, and imputing it to the King; whom hẹ charges, in his Iconoclaftes, with the ufe of this prayer, as with a heavy crime, in the indecent language with which profperity had emboldened the advocates for rebellion to infult all that is venerable or great: "Who would have imagined fo little fear in "him of the true all-feeing Deity -as, immedi"ately before his death, to pop into the hands of the

graye bishop that attended him, as a special re"lique of his faintly exercises, a prayer ftolen word "for word from the mouth of a Heathen woman praying to a Heathen God ?"

The papers which the King gave to Dr. Juxon on the fcaffold the regicides took away, fo that they were at leaft the publishers of this prayer; and Dr, Birch,

Birch, who had examined the queftion with great care, was inclined to think them the forgers. The use of it by adaptation was innocent; and they who could fo noifily cenfure it, with a little extenfion of their malice could contrive what they wanted to accufe.

King Charles the Second, being now fheltered in Holland, employed Salmafius, profeffor of polite learning at Leyden, to write a defence of his father and of monarchy; and, to excite his industry, gave him, as was reported, a hundred Jacobufes. Salmafius was a man of skill in languages, knowledge. of antiquity, and fagacity of emendatory criticism, almost exceeding all hope of human attainment; and having, by exceffive praises, been confirmed in great confidence of himself, though he probably had not much confidered the principles of fociety or the rights of government, undertook the employment without distruft of his own qualifications; and, as his expedition in writing was wonderful, in 1649 published Defenfio Regis.

To this Milton was required to write a fufficient anfwer; which he performed (1651) in fuch a manner, that Hobbes declared himself unable to decide whofe language was beft, or whofe arguments were worft. In my opinion, Milton's periods are fmoother, neater, and more pointed; but he delights himself with teafing his adversary as much as with confuting him. He makes a foolish allufion of Salmafius, whofe doctrine he confiders as fervile and unmanly, to the ftream of Salmafius, which, whoever entered, left half his virility behind him. Salmafius was a

French