400 MIL 
fubfervience and attachment to this ufurper,” fays one of 
his biographers, “is the part of his condubt which it is 
the moil difficult to juftify. When the wifeft and moll 
cor.fcientious of the republicans had become fenlible of 
his arts, and had openly oppofed his ambitious projects, 
it might have been expebted that the mind of Milton 
would neither have been blinded by his hypocrify, nor 
overawed by his power. If the general tenour of his cha¬ 
racter will exonerate him from the fufpicion of interefted 
motives on this occafion, it muft be luppoled that he was 
dazzled with the greatnefs of Cromwell’s ablions, and 
•was convinced that his fuperiority alone could allay that 
contention of parties which threatened ruin to the caufe 
that had proved victorious in the field. Milton, befides, 
was a zealous friend to religious liberty, for which he faw 
no refuge from the intolerance of the prefbyterians, except 
in the moderation of the proteblor. It may be added, 
that the very palfage in which he addrelfes Cromwell with 
the loftieft encomium, contains a free and noble exhorta¬ 
tion, that he ihouid refpebt that public liberty, of which 
he confiders him as the guardian.” 
Milton’s office as Latin fecretary, chiefly regarded tranf- 
ablions with foreign nations, in which it is admitted that 
Cromwell was meritorioufly attentive to the honour and 
intereft of his own. In 1652 he loft his wife; and, his in¬ 
firmity rendering a help-mate neceflary to his comfort, he 
married again after a fliort interval. His fecond wife, who 
was the daughter of a captain Woodcock, of Hackney, 
died in child-bed within a year, and appears to have been 
much regretted by her hufband. Employment was his 
relburce againft the gloom of his condition ; and, after he 
had concluded his controverfial warfare, he took up his 
lufpended Hiftory of England, which, however, he brought 
down no lower than theconqueft; and laid in materials 
fora Latin Thefaurus, intended as an improvement upon 
that of R. Stephanus. In the bufmefs of his office he had 
coadjutors ; but the moil important matters were ftill 
committed to him, and from his pen proceeded a Latin 
memorial of great ftrength and elegance, ftating the rea- 
fons for the war which the protestor declared againft Spain. 
A remonllrance which he drew up concerning the perfe- 
cution of the protellants in Savoy, ftrongly exprefied his 
deteftation of religious tyranny. 
After the death of Cromwell, when the fiubluations of 
•government threatened general anarchy, he was induced 
to give his advice on civil and eccleiiaftical topics in fome 
fliort publications, one of which was “ A ready and eafy 
Way to eftablilh a Free Commonwealth ; and the Excel¬ 
lence thereof, compared with the Inconveniences and 
Dangers of re-admitting Kingfhip.” This, as its title im¬ 
ports, was intended rather to expofe the evils neceflarily 
confequent to the nation’s relapfe into its old vaflalage 
under kings, and to demonftrate the preference of a re¬ 
publican to a monarchical government, than to jiropofe 
any juft model of a popular conftitution. In this work, 
as well as in another, entitled “ Brief Delineations, &c.” 
he (hows that he was fearful of an unqualified appeal to 
the people, and deems them incapable of determining with 
wiidom for their own interefts. It was, however, in vain 
to contend by pamphlets againft the national inclination. 
The king returned in triumph ; and Milton was dilcharged 
from his ofiice, and for a time lay concealed in the houle 
of a friend in St. Bartholomew’s Clofe, near Smithfield. 
Here his privacy from the world was perfebt, till after the 
palling the abl of oblivion, in the exceptions of which he 
was not comprehended, afcertained his fafety, and re-in- 
ltated him in fociety. To whom he was indebted, in this 
emergency, for his prefervation, is not known with cer¬ 
tainty ; but it feems probable that his life was laved prin¬ 
cipally by the earneftand grateful interpofition of fir Wil¬ 
liam d’Avenant, who had himfelf been formerly preferved 
by the mediation of Milton, when ordered by parliament, 
in 16 ji, to trial before the high court of juftice. Milton's 
name firft occurs in the proceedings of the new govern¬ 
ment, in an addrefs from the houle of commons to his ma- 
T O N. 
jelly, that he would illue his proclamation to call in Mil¬ 
ton’s Defences of the People, and Iconoclaftes, together 
with a book of Goodwyn’s, and caufe them to be burnt 
by the common hangman; and alfo that the authors 
Ihouid be profecuted by the attorney-general. The books 
were accordingly burnt, but the authors were returned as 
having abfconded. 
Reduced in his circumftances, and under the difcoun- 
tenance of power, Milton now removed to a private ha¬ 
bitation, near his former refidence in the city. But 
fcarcely had he left his concealment when he was taken 
into cuftody, by an order of the houfe of commons, from 
which he was difmifl'ed by paying his fees. In 1662, he 
was reliding in Jevvin-ftreet; and from this he removed 
to almall houfe in the Artillery Walk, adjoining Bunhiil 
Fields, where he continued during the remaining part of 
his life. 
While living in Jewin-ftreet, he married his third wife, 
Elizabeth Minihull, the daughter of a gentleman of Che- 
Ihire. He was now to relume that poetical charabter 
which, for many years, had been funk in that of the con- 
troverlialift and politician. Undifturbed by contentions 
and temporary topics, his powerful mind was left in re- 
pofe, to meditate upon the great ideas which had indiftinbt- 
ly rifen to its view ; and the refult of its energies was the 
“ Paradife Loft.” Much dilcuffion has taken place con¬ 
cerning the original conception of this grand performance; 
but, whatever hint may have iuggefted the rude outline* 
it is certain that all the creative powers of a ftrong imagi¬ 
nation, and all the accumulated ftores of a life devoted to 
learning, were expended in its completion. Though at 
the time when he firft formed the relolution of writing an 
epic poem, which was at an early period, he thought of 
fome fubjeblin the heroic times ofEnglilh hiftory; yet his 
religious turn, and afliduous ftudy of the Hebrew fcrip- 
tures, produced a final preference of a ftory derived from 
the facred writings, and giving i'cope to the introdublion 
of his theological 1 'yftem. He compofed in blank verfe, 
doubtlefson account of the greater facility with which he 
could pour forth the ftrains that rulhed into his mind with 
the force and rapidity of real infpiration. Of his procefs 
of compofition, his nephew Phillips has given lbme ac¬ 
count, obl'erving that “ he had the perufal of it from the 
very beginning, for lbme years, from time to time, in 
parcels of ten, twenty, or thirty, verfes at a time, which, 
being written by whatever hand came next, might pofli- 
bly want correblion as to the orthography and pointing.” 
He adds, from the information of the poet himfelf, that 
“ his vein never happily flowed but from the autumnal 
equinox to the vernal, and that whatever he attempted at 
other times was never to his farisfabtion a notion which 
Dr. Johnfon treats with ridicule, though it would feem 
that fome deference Ihouid be paid to Milton’s affirmation 
of it as a matter of fabl. Paradife Loft was firft printed 
in 1667, in a linall quarto, and divided into ten books -, 
and his biographers have been very minute in ftating the 
bargain made with the bookleller for the copy-right, from 
which it appears that he was only paid five pounds in 
hand, with a contingency of ten more, depending upon the 
fide of two other editions, and which he lived to receive. 
Thefe fifteen pounds, however, purchafed only the book- 
leller’s right to the feveral editions for which they were 
paid, as Miiton’s widow fold the irrevertible copyright of 
the work, which had been bequeathed to her, for eight 
pounds, to the lame bookfeiler, Samuel Simmons, who, 
almoft immediately, difipofed of what was thus wholly 
’transferred to him for twenty-five pounds to Ayimer 
another bookfeiler, from whom it palled, at a confiderable 
advance, to Jacob Tonfon. Much has'been laid of the 
deplorably low price advanced for this immortal work ; 
“ but,” lays Dr. Symnrons, “ if we would regard our- 
felves placed in the middle of the leventeenth century, 
and immerfed in all the party-violence of that miferabie 
period, we Ihouid father be inclined to wonder at the 
venturous liberality of the bookfeiler, who would give 
even 
