66 poffible to public utility: you fee what I "preferred, and what I loft, with the principle "on which I acted; let flanderers therefore "ceafe to talk irreverently on the judgment of "God, and to make me the subject of their "fictions; let them know that I am far from "confidering my lot with forrow or repentance; "that I perfift immoveable in my sentiment; that "I neither fancy nor feel the anger of God, "but, on the contrary, experience and ac"knowledge his paternal clemency and kindness "in my most important concerns, in this espe"cially, that, by the comfort and confirmation "which he himself infufes into my fpirit, I ac"quiefce in his divine pleasure, continually "confidering rather what he has bestowed upon 66 me, than what he has denied. Finally, that "I would not exchange the consciousness of my 66 own conduct for their merit, whatever it may "be, or part with a remembrance, which is to 66 my own mind a perpetual source of tran"quillity and fatisfaction.

Whenever he is induced to mention himself, the purity and vigor of Milton's mind appear in full luftre, whether he speaks in verfe or in profe the preceding paffage from his Second Defence is confonant to the fonnet on his blindnefs, addressed to Syriac Skinner, which, though different critics have denied the author to excel in this minute fpecies of compofition, has hardly

been surpassed; it deferves double praise energy of expreffion and heroifm of fentiment.

Cyriac, this three-years day these eyes, tho' clear
To outward view of blemish or of spot,
Bereft of fight their feeing have forgot,
Nor to their idle orbs does day appear
Or fun, or moon, or ftar, throughout the year,
Or man or woman; yet I argue not

or

Against Heav'n's hand or will, nor bate one jot,
Of heart or hope, but ftill bear up and steer
Right onward. What fupports me doft thou ask?
The confcience, friend, to have loft them over-ply'd
In liberty's defence, my noble task,

Of which all Europe talks from fide to fide:
This thought might lead me thro' theworld's vain
mafk

Content, tho' blind, had I no better guide."

The ambition of Milton was as pure as his genius was fublime; his first object on every. oc cafion was to merit the approbation of his conscience and his God; when this most important point was fecured, he feems to have indulged the predominant paffion of great minds, and to have exulted, with a triumph proportioned to his toil, in the celebrity he acquired: he must have been infenfible indeed to public applause, had he not felt elated by the fignal honors which were paid to his name in various countries, as

the eloquent defender of the English nation. "This This I can truly affirm," (fays Milton, in mentioning the reception of his great political performance)" that as foon as my defence of "the people was published, and read with "avidity, there was not, in our metropolis, any ambaffador from any ftate or fovereign "who did not either congratulate me if we met 66 by chance, or express or exprefs a defire to receive me "at his house, or vifit me at mine."

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Toland relates, that he received from the parliament a present of a thousand pounds for the defence. The author does not include this circumftance among the many particulars he mentions of himself; and if such a reward was ever bestowed upon him, it must have been after the publication of his Second Defence, in which he affirms, that he was content with having difcharged what he confidered as an honorable public duty, without aiming at a pecuniary recompence; and that inftead of having acquired the opulence with which his adversary reproached him, he received not the flightest gratuity for that production t. Yet he appears to have been

Hoc etiam vere poffum dicere, quo primum tempore nof. tra defenfio eft edita, & legentium ftudia incaluere, nullum vel principis vel civitatis legatum in urbe tum fùiffe, qui non vel forte obvio mihi gratularetur, vel conventum apud fe cuperet vel domi inviferet.- Profe Works, vol. 2. p. 394.

Contentus quæ honefta factu funt, ea propter fe folum appetiffe, & gratis perfequi id alii viderent tuque feito me

ali

perfectly fatisfied with the kindness of his affociates; for, in speaking of his blindness, he says, that "far from being neglected on this account by "the higheft characters in the republic, they "conftantly regarded him with indulgence and "favor, not seeking to deprive him either of "diftinction or emolument, though his powers "of being useful were diminished; " hence he compares himself to an ancient Athenian, fupported by a decree of honor at the expense of the public. Among the foreign compliments he received, the applause of Chriftina afforded him the highest gratification; for he regarded it as an honorable proof of what he had ever affirmed, that he was a friend to good fovereigns, though an enemy to tyrants: he understood that the queen of Sweden had made this diftinction in commending his book, and in the warmth

illas "

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opimitates," atque opes, quas mihi exprobas, non attigiffe neque eo nomine quo maxime accufas obolo, factum ditiorem. Profe Works, vol. ii. p. 378.

* Quin & fummi quoque in republica viri quandoquidem non otio torpentem me, fed impigrum & fumma difcrimina pro libertate inter primos adeuntem oculi deferuerunt, ipfi non deferunt; verum humana qualia fint fecum reputantes, tanquai“ emerito favent, indulgent vacationem atque otium faciles concedunt; fi quid publici muneris, non adimunt; fi quid ex ea re commodi, non minuunt; & quamvis non æque nunc utili præbendum nihilo minus benigne cenfent; eodem plane honore, ac fi, ut olim Athenienfibus mos erat, in Prytaneo alendum decreviffent. Profe Works, vol. ii. pag. 376.

of his gratitude he bestowed on the northern princess a very splendid panegyric, of which the subsequent conduct of that fingular and fantastic perfonage too clearly proved her unworthy; yet Milton cannot fairly be charged with fervile adulation. Chriftina, when he appeared as her eulogift, was the idol of the literary world. The candor with which she spake as a queen on his defence of the people would naturally ftrike the author as an engaging proof of her discernment and magnanimity; he was also gratified in no common degree by the coolness with which fhe treated his adversary; for Salmafius, whom she had invited to her court for his erudition, was known to have loft her favor, when his literary arrogance and imbecility were expofed and chaftifed by the indignant spirit of Milton. The wretched Salmafius, indeed, was utterly overwhelmed in the encounter: he had quitted France, his native country, where he honorably disdained to purchase a pension by flattering the tyranny of Richlieu, and had fettled in Leyden as an asylum of liberty; he feemed, therefore, as one of his Parifian correspondents obferved to him, to "cancel the merit of his former conduct by "writing against England." Salmafius was extravagantly vain, and trufted too much to his great reputation as a fcholar; his antagonist, on the contrary, was fo little known as a Latin writer before the defence appeared, that several riends advised Milton not to hazard his credit

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