remarkable manner. What has become of you and your republic? The very children laugh it to scorn. Admit now that you acted the fool. In truth, when I think of the time we spent together in Rome, and compare the present to it, I am almost inclined to take compassion on you. At that time the world lay admiringly at your feet; beauty, wealth, and power offered themselves to you. All you needed to do was to stretch out your hands for them. Why did you not follow my advice? With the eye of a seer I divined events as they have come to pass. Instead of your so-called liberty, the throne stands firmer than ever; and in a few years, as is to be foreseen with absolute certainty, all England will return to the faith of its fathers."

"And you can really hope to bow my courage?" asked Milton. "It is true, I am poor, unfortunate, and weighed down by adversity; but I do not despair for all that. Out of the shipwreck of my life I have saved my most precious treasure, the consciousness of having remained true to myself, and of never having denied my convictions. I know full well that man is not infallible, but the Lord forgives errors arising from thirst for truth. God will be a mild judge to me. Now I am sitting here like Job, whom Heaven had given into the hands of the tempter. My houses have sunk into ruin, my gardens are devastated, my children have forsaken me; my enemies are triumphant, my very friends deride me; but, like him, I am firm in my faith. Therefore, the all-merciful Father will not forsake me, but sustain me in my sore distress."

"But I believe you have not yet experienced the full extent of the sufferings which you have brought upon your head," remarked the duke, exasperated at the firmness which Milton still displayed amidst his misfortunes. "What more can befall me?" asked the blind poet. "Since I have become blind, I am no longer afraid of any thing. The greatest

loss which I have sustained is that of my eyesight. To be blind, oh! that is worse than imprisonment, poverty, or the infirmities of age; for a blind man is at the same time a prisoner, buried in everlasting night, poorer than the most wretched beggar, and more decrepit than the feeblest old man. The lowest animal is better off; the worm creeps in the dust, but it sees, while I live in darkness. O darkness! darkness! And I know that the golden sun is now shining in the heavens. This terrible gloom deprives me of all hope and joy. And why is the noblest of boons intrusted to an organ so delicate and weak as the eye?"

In this touching manner the poet lamented over his fate. Even Sir Kenelm Digby was profoundly moved; but the Duke of York had no compassion on him. With his innate cruelty he gloated over the sufferings of the unfortunate man, which he tried to sharpen by his bitter taunts.

"And do you not see yet," he asked, sneeringly, "that your blindness is only the just penalty of your misdeeds?"

"I am not sensible of any guilt," replied Milton, with the calmness of a clear conscience.

"You forget entirely your sins against the late king, whom you reviled even in his grave. Do you confess your guilt?"

"I do not, for I acted only in accordance with my convictions."

"You do not know with whom you are speaking," whispered Sir Kenelm to the poet. "Beware! your imprudent utterances might *still endanger your life."

"I am afraid of no man," replied Milton, aloud.

"Not even of me?" asked the duke. "Not even of you, even though you were the king himself."

"I am not the king," replied James, frowning, "but his brother, the Duke of York. I repeat it to you, that Heaven is just. He bs

deprived you of your eyesight, because you, an incorrigible republican, insulted my late lamented father even after his assassination. You deserve your fate; the vengeance of Heaven has overtaken you."

Milton was not frightened by this unexpected visit, nor did he humble himself before the most powerful of his enemies. With a calm smile he rose from his chair, and saluted the duke by bowing slightly to him.

"If your royal highness," he replied, " is of opinion that our misfortunes are evidences of the wrath of God, and that they befall us only in consequence of our crimes, how do you explain the death of your father?"

The duke turned pale with rage; muttering a terrible threat between his clinched teeth, he left the inflexible republican, a prey to the most violent agitation.

"By the bloody head of my father!" he exclaimed, on leaving the house, "this blind monster shall find out that a worse fate than the loss of his eyesight is in store for him." Flushed with excitement and vindictiveness, he went to the king his brother. Charles II. was promenading in his park with his boon companions, and engaged in his favorite pastime of feeding the ducks in the pond of St. James's. While the birds were snapping greedily at the crumbs which he threw to them, he made all sorts of witty remarks as to their haste and the manner in which one duck tried to deprive another of the morsels destined for her.

'They are my parasites," said the king, who was in excellent humor. "Look, Buckingham, how they are fighting for a few crumbs! If this goes on for any length of time, my pockets will soon be empty, and I shall not have a morsel left. These parasites will utterly impoverish me. Do you not think so too, Rochester? How loud they scream! I sup

pose they are relating how well they have served me. I bet that old drake is an excel

lent cavalier, who believes himself justly entitled to my gratitude; and that waddling duck yonder is urgently requesting me to promote and reward her young ones. All my favors have been distributed for to-day, and I am sorry that I can no longer do any thing for the birds."

The courtiers joined in these playful sallies, and delighted the king by applying to the ducks the names of well-known office-seekers. Meanwhile the Duke of York had approached. On perceiving his brother, Charles said to him in a kind tone: "Come, James, we are giving an audience in the open air, and conferring orders and offices on our faithful subjects in the pond."

"Will you do me a favor?" said the duke. “Well, I do not care if you get a crumb too, though you are in want of nothing, because you have always been more economical than I."

"I do not ask for money, but for the punishment of an offender."

Always the same old strain," said the king, more gravely; "always the same old cry for revenge. Do you know, James, that your vindictiveness begins to be tedious? I think we have done enough, and you may be satisfied.”

"There lives as yet one of the most infamous adversaries of our lamented father—a man who, in my eyes, is more criminal than the regicides. Sire, it is your fault that old Milton has not yet been hanged."

"Then you have been at his house?" asked Charles, throwing the rest of his crumbs with a careless air into the pond.

"I have had an interview with him." "And in what condition did you find him?" "Bowed down by age, and, it seemed also, very poor."

"And he is blind, too, is he not?" "He is totally blind."

"Go, go, James," replied the king; “you are a downright fool to believe that the gallows would be a punishment for such a man.

If he is old, poor, and blind, he is sufficiently punished, and we may spare his life."

The young Quaker was in an ecstasy of delight when Milton permitted him to read the manuscript. On returning it to him, he expressed the warmest thanks.

"In truth," he said, with the frankness peculiar to his sect, “thou hast created a work which will outlive all thy other writings. Thou

HENCEFORTH Milton was safe from further persecutions, and he had ample leisure to complete his immortal epic. He dictated it alternately to his daughters and young Ellwood, who had been recommended to him, and who now lived at his house. Ellwood was a Quaker, and by his modesty, and the reverential homage which he paid to the blind poet, he won Milton's friendship and esteem. Perhaps Milton secretly entertained the desire of making him his son-in-law; but his youngest daughter Deborah, his only child that had never treated him in an undutiful and disrespectful manner, and whom he had destined to his young friend, left her parental home and eloped to Ireland, where she married. This event, however, did not dissolve the intimate relations between the master and his pupil; and when the plague which had broken out in London made sad havoc among the inhabitants of the capital, Ellwood rented for Milton a small cottage at Chalfont, in Bucks, where the poet, in the *healthy country air, and protected from all dis

and forcest the reader's soul to follow thee with transports or horror wherever thou mayst lead it. Through thee we become acquainted with the terrible majesty of Satan, who, in spite of his wickedness, still exhibits traces of his divine origin. We see the prince of hell a prey to the most violent grief and looking up to heaven with intense longing; only his still unbroken pride sustains him and fans the flames devouring his bosom. Guided by thy hand, we walk in an ecstasy of delight through Paradise, and rejoice in the innocence of Adam and Eve, in their pure love, in their devout prayers, and in the sweet charms of the scenery surrounding them. We tremblingly see the evil one, in the shape of a seductive serpent, approach the credulous Eve and tempt her to eat of the forbidden fruit. We take compassion on the fallen woman, and, although she has delivered mankind to sin and death, we forgive her, as did Adam, touched by her prayers and supplications. We follow Adam and Eve as they are driven out of Paradise, and listen with solemn awe to the teachings and prophecies of the messenger of God, who reveals the fate of his descendants, until he finally promises them, in the name of the Lord, that He will send them a Redeemer to deliver the human race from the bondage of sin."

"I am glad," replied Milton, to the enthusiastic youth, "that my poem has pleased you so well, and that you have so clearly penetrated its spirit and object. My only merit is the firm confidence that, in the struggle be

tween the good and evil powers, truth and liberty must triumph over all the wiles and arts of hell,"

"For this reason I do not consider thy work complete. Thou hast given us only the promise, but not the fulfilment; thou hast shown us 'Paradise Lost,' but not 'Paradise Regained.""

Milton made no reply to the honest Quaker; he sat for a time absorbed in his reflections, and in his soul dawned the plan of a new epic, the subject of which was to be the salvation of mankind.

No sooner had the plague ceased raging in the metropolis, than the poet returned thither to find a publisher for his work. He applied to Samuel Simmons, a well-known bookseller, to whom be offered the manuscript. After reading the poem, Simmons returned it to the poet.

"The poem is not so bad," said the bookseller, "but it is not suitable to the times. A few years ago I should have gladly given you ten times as much for it as I can offer you now. The times are changed, and taste is changed with them. The public no longer cares for religious books; nobody buys them nowadays. There is no demand for grave and learned treatises. Ah, if you had written a satire or a witty farce, I might pay you a round price for it. I want such works as Butler's 'Hudibras,' of which thousands of copies have been sold, and which every one wants to read. I admit that it is a low and scurrilous book; but we publishers have to humor the wishes of the public."

"Tell me what you will give me for it. I do not like to haggle about the price, although I greatly need the money."

"Well, I will give you five pounds," said the penurious bookseller. "That is a handsome sum, and I will pay it to you immediately. Are you satisfied with it?"

"Nothing remains for me but to accept your offer."

"And you will receive the like sum as soon as a new edition is issued. You shall see that I am not niggardly, and treat authors in a generous manner."

A melancholy smile played over the poet's lips when he delivered his immortal work, the fruit of years of toil and reflection, to the avaricious publisher for this ridiculous sum. Simmons immediately drew up a contract, which Milton, who stood in need of the money, signed with a deep sigh.

When the book was issued from the press. the predictions of Mr. Simmons seemed to be fully verified. The public appeared insensible to the merits of the divine poem then entering on its course of immortality. Taste was changed indeed. Literature, which always reflects the time and its sentiments, languished in the midst of the general decay and corruption which had seized the whole English nation. The greatest licentiousness and most shameless immorality reigned at that period in the productions of the poets, and on the stage, which had become the scene of all vices and extravagances. Obscene wit levelled its shafts at all that was sacred and venerable. Innocence and truth were mercilessly derided,

'That is the difficulty, and I cannot help it. But in order that you may see how willing I am to help talented men, I will take your poem on liberal terms. It is true, I know beforehand that it will not sell, but I will do the best I can."

of talent. Only the books of authors who pursued this course, and penned the most dis graceful things, were bought, and eagerly de voured. Hardly any notice was taken of Milton's sublime epic, which was kept out of sight by the rankling weeds of contemporary., literature. The publisher was dissatisfied