L'Estrange; and if a pen employed fo favagely against Milton could obtain public encouragement and applause, he might surely, without affectation or timidity, think himself exposed to the dagger of fome equally hoftile and more fanguinary royalift. L'Eftrange, for fuch fufferings in the cause of royalty as really entitled him to reward, obtained, not long after the restoration, the revived but unconftitutional office of licenser to the press. It was happy for literature that he poffeffed not that oppreffive jurifdiction when the author of the Paradife Loft was obliged to folicit an imprimatur, fince the excefs of his malevolence to Milton might have then exerted itself in such a manner as to entitle both the office and its poffeffor to the execration of the world. The licenfer of that period, Thomas Tomkyns, chaplain to archbishop Sheldon, though hardly fo full of rancour as L'Estrange (if L'Eftrange was the real author of the ribaldry ascribed to him) was abfurd or malignant enough to obftruct, in some measure, the publication of Paradife Loft. "He, among other frivolous exceptions (fays Toland) would needs fupprefs the whole poem, for imaginary treason in the following lines : as when the fun new rifen Looks thro' the horizontal mify air Shorn of his beams, or from behind the moon. In dim eclipfe difaftrous twilight sheds On half the nations, and with fear of change By what means the poet was happily enabled to triumph over the malevolence of an enemy in office we are not informed by the author, who has recorded this very interesting anecdote; but from the peril to which his immortal work was expofed, and which the mention of a licenfer to the press has led me to anticipate, let us return to his perfonal danger: the extent of this danger, and the particulars of his escape, have never been completely discovered. The account that his nephew gives of him at this momentous period is chiefly contained in the following sentence: "It was a friend's houfe in Bartholomew Close where he lived till the act of oblivion came forth, which, it pleased God, proved as favourable to him as could be hoped or expected, through the interceffion of fome that ftood his friends both in council and parliament; particularly in the House of Commons, Mr. Andrew Marvel, a member for Hull, acted vigorously in his behalf, and made a confiderable party for him." Marvel, like the fuperior author whom he fo nobly protected, was himself a poet and a patriot. He had been associated with Milton in the office of Latin fecretary in 1657, and cultivated his friendship by a tender and respectful attachment. As he probably owed to that friendship the improvement of his own talents and virtues, it is highly pleafing to find, that he exerted them on different occafions. in establishing the fecurity, and in celebrating the genius of his incomparable friend. His efforts of regard on the present emergency are liberally described in the preceding expreffion of Philips; and his friendly verfes on the publi cation of the Paradise Lost deserve no common applause ; for the records of literature hardly exhibit a more just, a more fpirited, or a more generous compliment paid by one poet to another. But the friendship of Marvel, vigilant, active, and beneficial as it was, could not fecure Milton from being feized and hurried into confinement. It appears from the minutes of the House of Commons, that he was prifoner to their ferjeant on the 15th of December. The particulars of his imprisonment are involved in darknefs; but Dr. Birch (whose copious life of Milton is equally full of intelligence and candour) conjectures, with great probability, that on his appearing in public after the act of indemnity, and adjournment of Parliament, on the 13th of September, he was feized in confequence of the order formerly given by the Commons for his profecution. The exact time of his continuing in cuftody no researches have afcertained. The records of Parliament only prove,, that on the 15th of December the House ordered his releafe; but the fame upright and undaunted fpirit, which had made Milton in his younger days a refolute opposer. of injustice and oppreffion, ftill continued a characteristic of his declining life, and now induced him, disadvantageously fituated as he was for fuch a contest, to resist the rapacity of the parliamentary officer, who endeavoured to extort from him an exorbitant fee on his difcharge. remonftrated to the houfe on the iniquity of their fervant; and as the affair was referred to the committee of privileges, He. he. he probably obtained the redress that he had the courage to demand. In this fortunate escape from the grasp of triumphant and vindictive power, Milton may be confidered as terminating his political life: commencing from his return to the continent, it had extended to a period of twenty years; in three of these he had been afflicted with partial but increafing blindness, and in fix he had been utterly blind. His exertions in this period of his life had exposed him to infinite obloquy, but his generous and enlightened country, whatever may be the ftate of her political opinions, will remember, with becoming equity and pride, that the sublimeft of her poets, though deceived as he certainly was by extraordinary pretenders to public virtue, and subject to great illufion in his ideas of government, is entitled to the first of encomiums, the praise of being truly an honest man: fince it was affuredly his conftant aim to be the steady. difinterested adherent and encomiaft of truth and justice; hence we find him continually displaying those internal blessings, which have been happily called, "the clear witneffes of a benign nature," an innocent confcience, and a fatisfied understanding. Such is the imperfection of human existence, that miftaken notions and principles are perfectly compatible with elevation, integrity, and fatisfaction of mind. The writer must be a flave of prejudice, or a fycophant to power, who would reprefent Milton as deficient in any of these noble endowments. Even Addifon feems to lofe his rare Chriftian candour, and Hume his philofophical precifion, when thefe 6 these two celebrated though very different authors speak harshly of Milton's political character, without paying due acknowledgment to the rectitude of his heart. I truft, the probity of a very ardent but uncorrupted enthusiast is in fome measure vindicated in the course of these pages, happy if they promote the completion of his own manly wish to be perfectly known, if they impress a just and candid estimate of his merits and miftakes on the temperate mind of his country. END OF THE SECOND PART. PART |