10 Colorado College Studies. 



where hee livVl in familiar conversation with the famous 

 Diodati. Thence through France hee returnd home, having, 

 with no ill management of his time, spent about fifteen 

 moneths abroad. 



Hee had by this time laid in a large stock of knowlege, 

 which as he designed not for the purchase of Wealth, so 

 neither intended hee^^ it, as a Misers hoard, to ly useless: 

 Having therefore ^"^ taken a house, to bee^^ at full ease and 

 quiet, & gotten his books about him, hee sett himselfe upon 

 Compositions, tending either to the public benefit of Man- 

 kind, and especially his Countrymen, or to the advancement 

 of the Commonwealth of Learning. And his first labours 

 w^ere very happily dedicated to, what had the chiefest place 

 in his affections, and had bin no small part of his Study, the 

 service of Religion.^^ 



It was now the Year 1640 : And the Nation was much 

 divided upon the Controversies about Church Government, 

 between the Prelatical party, and the Dissenters, or, as they 

 were commonly then calld, Puritans. Hee had study 'd Re- 

 ligion in the Bible and the best Authors, had strictly liv'd 

 up to it's^^ Rules, and had no temporal concern depending 

 upon any Hierarchy, to render him suspected, either to him- 

 selfe, or others, as one that writt for Interest ; and therefore *** 

 with great boldness, & Zeal offer 'd his Judgment,*^ first in 



" ' that ' crossed out. 



" ' gotten his Books about him ' crossed out. 



" ' full ' crossed out. 



** Most of this paragraph is omitted bj" Wood. 



'•Usually the apostrophe is not used in the manuscript, except to 

 mark elision. 



** Substituted for ' thence.' 



" This passage is too eulogistic of Milton for Wood. He drops out 

 the praises and inserts at the beginning a long section discussing Mil- 

 ton's relation to the struggle. A part of it is worth quoting as showing 

 Wood's attitude towards Milton's political views. ' Taking part with 

 the Independents, he became a great Antimonarchist, a bitter enemy to 

 K. Ch. I, and at length arrived to that monstrous and unparallel'd 

 height of profligate impudence, as in print to justify the most execrable 

 Murder of him the best of Kings . . . we find him a Cdmmonwealths 



