524 JOHN MILTON. 



been held requisite : the right of private judgment, of personal de- 

 termination, of individual decision, about the fate of a monarch, has 

 been denied even to a Brutus. We now disapprove a Corday who 

 removes a Marat. We expect from the historian a resolute censure 

 of parties, who by abrupt violence endeavour to take off an hereditary 

 ruler ; and we claim that the extinction of a monarch should always 

 be accompanied with formalities which may necessitate the concur- 

 rence of many men reputable among the people, and responsible to 

 posterity. "Long bleeds the wound by which a king is slain :" we 

 ought, therefore, to deter the discontented from the repetition of such 

 acts, without mighty motives of national expediency. That trial 

 ought to precede punishment, however great the difficulty of appre- 

 hending the culprit, is become a maxim in the law national only since 

 this treatise. 



" Observations on the Articles of Peace between the Earl of Ormond 

 and the Irish." These are a series of comments of secondary value, 

 more factious than philosophic. 



' ( Iconoclastes." This tract is written with a spirit and a fluency far 

 more animating than the trailing affectation of the juvenile composi- 

 tions. Milton's first manner, to transfer a painter's phrase, smells too 

 much of the schools: his second manner begins with the " Tenure of 

 Kings and Magistrates," and pervades all his subsequent writings. 

 This latter style has more of nature and of real life, and is more 

 worthy of the man of business than his first manner ; it is less dilute. 

 While he was learning to write, he copied others too anxiously ; as 

 soon as he wrote off-hand, his own way, he wrote well. To a fas- 

 tidious writer the loss of leisure is a cause of excellence. 



Of the "Defence of the People of England/' we shall quote Mr. 

 Fletcher's own words, in the introductory review : 



"The eventful year of 1649 had not yet closed, when Claude de 

 Saumaise, latine Claudius Salmasius, the most celebrated scholar of the 

 age, published his 'Defensio Regiapro Carolo Primo ad Carolo Secundo/ 

 or a Royal Defence of Charles the First to Charles the Second. This in- 

 solent attack on the English Government and people, produced at a critical 

 juncture of affairs, by a man of unrivalled eminence in letters, and at the 

 especial solicitation of the illustrious exile to whom it is dedicated, must 

 have attracted attention both at home and abroad, and required refutation. 

 The achievements of a handful of heroes in England had roused the fears 

 of despotism ; and a willing ear was probably lent by the Continental po- 

 tentates to the present invocation of their interference on behalf of the 

 then Pretender. The Council of State thought it desirable to issue a reply 

 to this libellous and dangerous manifesto, and their determination is re- 

 corded in the folio wing laconic order of the 8th January, 1649-50 : ' That 

 Mr. Milton do prepare something in answer to the book of Salmasius, and 

 when he hath done it, bring it to the Council/ 



" Milton was present at the discussion which led to this characteristic 

 direction, and though warned that the loss of sight would be one certain 

 consequence of obeying it, he magnanimously undertook, and in spite of 

 constant interruptions from increasing ill health, nobly performed his 

 honourable task. ' I would not/ says he, in the Second Defence, ' have 

 listened to the voice of even Esculapius himself, from the shrine of 

 Epidauris, in preference to the suggestions of the heavenly monitor within 

 my breast ; my resolution (to undertake the reply to the defence of the 



