soners in the north, by some of the forces under William Marquis of Newcastle) he was saved, and had liberty allowed him as a prisoner at large."

Thus far the pleasing story is sufficiently proved to the honor of Milton. That Davenant endeavoured to return the favor is highly probable, from the amiable tenderness and benevolent activity of his character. Perhaps this probability may seem a little strengthened by the following verses of Davenant, in a poem addressed to the king on his happy return.

Your clemency has taught us to believe
It wise, as well as virtuous, to forgive;
And now the most offended shall proceed
In great forgiving, till no laws we need;
For laws slow progresses would quickly end
Could we forgive, as fast as men offend.

If Davenant was in any degree instrumental to the security of Milton, it is probable that he served him rather from gratitude than affection, as no two writers of the time

were more different from each other religious and political opinions. T poet-laureat of Charles was utterly scious of those inestimable poètic which the blind secretary of the was providentially reserved to disp may infer from a very remarkable towards the close of a second poem, 9 ed by Davenant to the King, he ven assert, that

Heav'n never made but one, who, being
Was fit to be a painter of the mind.

It is however very possible that D might doubly conduce to the produ Paradise Lost; first, as one of tho exerted their interest to secure the from molestation; and secondly, as ing by his Gondibert an incentive to nius of Milton to shew how infin could surpass a poem which Hobbs opinions he despised) had extravaga tolled as the most exquisite produ the epic muse. In Aubrey's ma Anecdotes of Milton it is said, that

gan his Paradise Lost about two years before the return of the king, and finished it about three years after that event; the account appears the more probable, as the following lines in the commencement of the seventh book pathetically allude to his present situation.

More safe I sing with mortal voice unchang'd
To hoarse or mute, though fall'n on evil days,
On evil days though fall'n and evil tongues,
In darkness and with dangers compass'd round
And solitude, yet not alone, while thou
Visit'st my slumbers nightly, or when morn
Purples the east, still govern thou my song,
Urania, and fit audience find though few!
But drive far off the barbarous dissonance
Of Bacchus and his revellers, the race
Of that wild rout that tore the Thracian bard
In Rodope, where rocks and woods had ears
To rapture, till the savage clamour drown'd
Both harp and voice; nor could the Muse defend
Her son so fail not thou who thee implores,
For thou art heav'nly, she an empty dream.

How peculiarly affecting are these

beautiful verses, when the history of the

poet suggests that he probably wrote while he was concealed in an obscu ner of the city, that resounded with t umphant roar of his intoxicated enen mong whom drunkenness arose to su travagance, that even the festive ro found it necessary to issue a proclan which forbade the drinking of healths poignant at this time must have be personal and patriotic feelings of who had passed his life in animating and his country to habits of temp truth, and public virtue, yet had the fication of finding that country, so him, now doubly disgraced; first, by pocrisy and treacherous ambition of r cans, to whose pretended virtues given too easy credit; and now by th licentious servility of royalists, whos open but not more dangerous vices right and high-toned spirit had ever abhorrence, For his country had thing to apprehend from the blind i tion with which the parliament had r the patriotic suggestion of Hale (afte

the illustrious chief justice) to establish constitutional limitations to the power of the king at the critical period of his reception. The neglect of this measure contributed not a little to subsequent evils, and the reign of Charles the Second was in truth deformed with all the public misery and disgrace which Milton had predicted, when he argued on the idea of his re-admission. For his own person, the literary champion of the people had no less to dread from the barbarity of public vengeance, or from the private dagger of some over-heated royalist, who, like the assassins of Dorislaus in Holland, and of Ascham in Spain, might think it meritorious to seize any opportunity of destroying a servant of the English republic. When royal government, restored to itself, could yet descend to authorise a mean and execrable indignity against the dead body of a man so magnanimous and so innocent as Blake, it was surely natural, and by no means unbecoming the spirit of Milton, to speak as he does, in the preceding verses, of evil days and evil tongues, of darkness and of danger.