This thought might lead me thro' the world's vain mask

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

The ambition of Milton was as pure as his genius was sublime; his first object on every occasion was to merit the approbation of his conscience and his God; when this most important point was secured, he seems to have indulged the predominant passion of great minds, and to have exulted, with a triumph proportioned to his toil, in the celebrity he acquired: he must have been insensible indeed to public applause, had he not felt elated by the signal honors which were paid to his name in various countries, as the eloquent defender of the English nation. "This I can truly affirm," (says Milton, in mentioning the reception of his great political performance)" that as soon as

*Hoc etiam vere possum dicere, quo primum tempore nostra defensio est edita, et legentium studia incaluere, nullum vel principis vel civitatis legatum in urbe tum fuisse, qui non vel fortè obvio mihi gratularetur, vel conventum apud se cuperet vel domi inviseret.-Prose Works, vol. 2. p. 394.

my defence of the people was published, and read with avidity, there was not, in our metropolis, any ambassador from any state or sovereign, who did not either congratulate me if we met by chance, or express a desire to receive me at his house, or visit me at mine."

Toland relates, that he received from the parliament a present of a thousand pounds for the defence. The author does not include this circumstance 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 discharged what he considered as an honorable public duty, without aiming at a pecuniary recompence; and that instead of having acquired the ориlence with which his adversary reproached him, he received not the slightest gratuity for that production.* Yet he appears to

* Contentus quæ honesta factu sunt, ea propter se solum appetisse, et gratis persequi: id alii viderint tuque

have been perfectly satisfied with th ness of his associates; for, in speaki blindness, he says, that far from neglected on this account, by the characters in the republic, they co regarded him with indulgence and f seeking to deprive him either of dis or emolument, though his powers useful were diminished;" hence pares himself to an ancient Atheni ported by a decree of honor at the of the public. Among the foreign

scito me illas "opimitates," atque "opes,"quas bas, non atti gisse neque eo nomine quo maxi obolo factum ditiorem.-Prose Works, vol. ii

* Quin et summi quoque in republica viri dem non otio torpentem me, sed impigrum discrimina pro libertate inter primos adeunter seruerunt, ipsi non deferunt; verum humana secum reputantes, tanquam emerito favent, vacationem atque otium faciles concedunt; si lici muneris, non adimunt; si quid ex ea re non minuunt; et quamvis non æque nunc uti dum nihilo minus benignè censent; eodem pl ac si, ut olim Atheniensibus mos erat, in Pry dum decrevissent.-Prose Works, vol. ii. p. 3

ments he received, the applause of Christina 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 sovereigns, though an enemy to tyrants: he understood that the queen of Sweden had made this distinction in commending his book, and in the warmth of his gratitude he bestowed on the nothern princess a very splendid panegyric, of which the subsequent conduct of that singular and fantastic personage too clearly proved her unworthy; yet Milton cannot fairly be charged with servile adulation. Christina, when he appeared as her eulogist, was the idol of the literary world. The candour with which she spake as a queen on his defence of the people would naturally strike the author as an engaging proof of her discernment and magnanimity; he was also gratified in no common degree by the coolness with which she treated his adversary; for Salmasius, whom she invited to her court for his erudition, was known to have lost her favor, when his literary arrogance and imbecility were ex

posed and chastised by the indignant spirit of Milton. The wretched Salmasius, 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 settled in Leyden as an asylum of liberty; he seemed, therefore, as one of his Parisian correspondents observed to him, "to cancel the merit of his former conduct by writing against England." Salmasius was extravagantly vain, and trusted too much to his great reputation as a scholar; his antagonist, on the contrary, was so little known as a Latin writer before the defence appeared that several friends advised Milton not to hazard his credit against a name so eminent as that of Salmasius. Never did a literary conflict engage the attention of a wider circle; and never did victory declare more decidedly in favor of the party from whom the public had least expectation. Perhaps no author ever acquired a more rapid and extensive celebrity than Milton gained by this contest. Let us however remark, for the