the wing, and it may be a long while yet be- | escape. One of my men, a cowardly vagabond,

fore I shall be able to take repose." "You seem to long for it."

"To tell you the truth, I am tired of this rough life. You know that I prefer science and the muses to any thing else. War, however just the cause for which it is waged, is always a very melancholy business. I have recently seen all its horrors in Wales."

"In Wales?" asked Milton, eagerly.

asserted that he had seen her, and had even been wounded by her female companion on attempting to arrest them. I did not make any further inquiries concerning them, and, from regard for you, desisted from pursuing them. I should be very glad if the lady succeeded in making her escape. I will let you keep the diary, as it may be exceedingly interesting for you."

Milton received with profound emotion at the hands of his friend the pages which reminded him of the noble lady, and of his own youth. He thanked him by informing him of Cromwell's warning.

"I have fought there many a hard fight, and destroyed many a fine castle. It is true, I only did my duty, but I did it with a bleeding heart. The most painful duty imposed upon me was the destruction of Golden Grove. The garrison defended the castle with the most heroic intrepidity, and after the proprietor had fallen, his wife offered us a most unexpected resistance. I should have liked to spare her, but it was beyond my power. Nothing remained for me but to take the castle by storm. On this melancholy occasion I discovered accidentally that the distinguished lady must have formerly been on intimate terms with you." "Her name was Alice Carbury," said Mil- restore the monarchy and recall the Stuarts?" ton, deeply moved.

"I know that he is not partial to me," said Overton, with a sombre smile. "He is jealous of my influence, and afraid of the frankness with which I criticise his measures. I am a republican, and consider a republic our only salvation. According to his habit, the general tried to ascertain my opinions, and I did not conceal them from him."

"But you do not believe that he intends to

"He will assuredly not recall the Stuarts, but I should not like to pledge my word that he does not intend to convert our present gov ernment again into a monarchy. The general seems intent on becoming the tyrant of England; but before he is able to attain his ends, I and my comrades will oppose him and frustrate his plans."

"Alice Carbury. Carbury was the name of her husband, and she herself was the daughter of the Earl of Bridgewater, formerly Lord President of Wales. I penetrated into the castle and passed several days there. The rooms of the lady had been ransacked; my soldiers had destroyed the furniture, torn off the hangings, and broken open the cabinets. This diary, which I found there, attracted my attention. I opened it, and saw your name on almost every page; this excited my curiosity, and I kept it in order to give it to you." "But what became of the lady?" inquired and he hesitated whether he had a right to the poet, anxiously.

'Unfortunately, I am unable to give you any satisfactory information on this point, although all that I ascertained about it leads me to the belief that she succeeded in making her

So saying, Overton took leave of Milton. The poet held in his hands the diary, the first trace of his beloved friend with which he had met after so many years. A feeling of awe prevented him from opening it immediately,

penetrate into the secrets of this noble female heart. At last, it was not his curiosity that triumphed, but the tender interest which he took in Lady Alice's fate. In reading the diary, he felt anew that he once possessed and

"Save us!" she cried, in an anxious voice, be able to alleviate your sufferings, as I have which seemed well known to Milton.

"Would you inform me of the subject of this poem? Pardon my curiosity, to which I may assuredly give the nobler name of sincere sympathy."

of her fortune was restored to her, so that | from English history and from the Bible. Up she was sufficiently protected from want. to this time I have not felt inclined to write Lucy, however, was unable to obtain a pardon them, because I shrank from being compared for her husband. Thomas remained impris- with that immortal genius. For this reason I oned in the Tower, and a delay of his execu- really prefer an epic, with which I have been tion was all that Milton could obtain by his engrossed for some time past." intercession in his behalf. Alice passed her days henceforth in quiet retirement, mourning her heroic husband, and devoting herself exclusively to the education of her child. The only friend with whom she held intercourse was Milton, whom she now calmly saw coming and going. Notwithstanding their political and religious differences, she was still affectionately attached to him. Without timidly avoiding an exchange of their views, both took pains to meet on the neutral ground of art and poetry rather than in the arena of the wild struggle of parties. Each respected the other's convictions; the royalist and the republican exercised mutual forbearance, a mild toleration. So far as Milton was concerned, this intercourse exerted an extraordinary influence over his creative power as a poet, for Alice sought almost insensibly to lead him back to his original vocation. In her eyes his political labors were an aberration from the sublime task Nature had imposed upon him.

"You owe yet to me, or rather to the world, a more extensive work," said she once, half seriously, half jestingly. "But since you have been appointed foreign secretary to the Council of State, you have bidden farewell to the poor muses."

"You are mistaken, dear friend. Notwithstanding my manifold occupations, I do not lack leisure to think at least of divine poetry. I have conceived a great many plans; but I have not yet made up my mind whether to imitate the example of Shakespeare, or follow the sublime models of Homer, Virgil, and Tasso. I have already elaborated in my head several tragedies, the subjects of which I took

"I will not conceal any thing from you. During my sojourn in Italy several years ago, I attended at Florence the performance of a play which, despite many imperfections and faults, made a deep impression upon me. The subject was the fall of man. I was powerfully struck at the time with the simple grandeur of that revelation. The subject seemed to me sublime, and worthy to claim the earnest efforts of a poetical mind, and it gave rise to innumerable conceptions in my imagination. I saw the wonders of Paradise, that garden of God, with its magnificent trees and golden fruits, with its fragrant flowers and shady groves. There lived Adam and Eve in undisturbed peace, in pure innocence, until the serpent came and beguiled Eve to eat of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Thus Adam and his guilty wife were driven out of Paradise; death and sin clung to the heels of the sinners. The history both of mankind and of every individual is contained in that sacred tradition. Is not another Adam born in every man, and another Eve in every woman? Have we not all a lost paradise to weep over?

"Entitle your epic 'Paradise Lost,' ," said Alice, with a mournful smile. "You are right. Who has not a lost paradise to weep over? The innocence of childhood; the dreams of youth; our hopes and expectations, which are so often disappointed; the enthusiasm and ardor which prematurely succumb to stern reality; the still and calm peace, which is

drowned by the noisy clash of arms; the lofty | should bring about a counter-revolution. One faith, which doubts and sneers try to under- man only was able to neutralize its baneful mine; love, with its divine transports, which effects, and that man was Milton. He was pass away so swiftly; our most beautiful called upon to write a reply to the book. On ideals: all are the lost paradises of poor hu- assuming this task, he did not conceal from manity." himself the painful consequences which would arise from it for him. He was to attack an unfortunate man, who was pitied by a vast majority of the people even in his grave, and, as it were, act as an intellectual executioner toward the beheaded corpse; he was to expose himself to the hatred and resentment of the royalists, who, in their blind vindictiveness, did not shrink from assassination, as was afterwards proved in many instances. But all these considerations exercised a less painful effect upon him than the thought of his relations to Alice. His fair friend worshipped Charles I., and had made the greatest sacrifices for him. Was he to lose again, by his own fault, her who had just been restored to him?

"But, above all things," replied Milton, "I intend to give prominence to the great and eternal struggles between the good and evil powers, between heaven and hell. Before my eyes stands the form of the fallen angel, who rebelled, first of all, against the Creator; I behold him, still beautiful, with hypocritical features and seductive form, not denying his divine origin even after his fall. Again and again he rises against the sway of the Eternal; and again and again he must acknowledge his impotence, for heaven and its angels always triumph over him."

The poet thus laid the outlines of his immortal epic before Alice, who listened to him in an ecstasy of delight; and he left her with the promise to carry out his plan as soon as possible; but the time for him to do so had not yet come.

"I cannot refuse to fulfil my duty," he said to her, on informing her of the commission which had been intrusted to him. "I am almost afraid of losing thereby your friendship, my most precious boon; and yet I cannot act otherwise."

Soon afterward, Milton received from the Council of State a mission with which he was obliged to comply. A few days after the king's execution, there had been published in England a book entitled "Eikon Basilike," or "The Portraiture of His Most Sacred Majesty." It was ascribed to Charles I., and contained the feelings, sentiments, meditations, impressions, and struggles, in short, the whole soul of the unfortunate monarch, and a history of his sufferings and trials, which caused him to appear in the light of a sainted martyr. The book created the most extraordinary sensation. The partisans of the king raised their heads again, and every reader of the book was seized with compassion and admiration. In spite of its prohibition by the gov-ments of the noble lady. ernment, it was rapidly circulated throughout

"Obey your convictions," replied Alice, respectfully. "You are a republican, and I am a friend of the king; but this must not prevent us from holding intercourse on the same terms as heretofore. No one can regret more intensely than I that you have entered this path, and thrown your talents into the scale of the enemy; but these party struggles shall not deprive me of my old and well-tried friend. I honor and esteem you as a man, even though I can never share your political views."

"I esteem you only the more highly," replied Milton, deeply moved by the lofty senti

Both thus set a glorious example of tolera

the country, and Parliament trembled lest it tion. Amid the general discord, they remained