may diffuse discontent, there can be no peace; and if every sceptick in theology may teach his follies, there can be no religion. The remedy against these evils is to punish the authors; for it is yet allowed that every fociety may punish, though not prevent, the publication of opinions which that fociety fhall think pernicious; but this punishment, though it may crush the author, promotes the book; and it seems not more reasonable to leave the right of printing unrestrained because writers may be afterwards censured, than it would be to fleep with doors unbolted, because by our laws we can hang a thief.

But whatever were his engagements, civil or domestick, poetry was never long out of his thoughts. About this time (1645) a collection of his Latin and English poems appeared, in which the Allegro and Penferofo, with fome others, were first published.

He had taken a larger houfe in Barbican for the reception of scholars; but the numerous relations of his wife, to whom he generously granted refuge for a while, occupied his rooms. In time, however, they went away; "and the house again," fays Philips, "now looked like a houfe of the Mufes only, though "the acceffion of fcholars was not great. Poffibly "his having proceeded fo far in the education of "youth may have been the occafion of his adverfaries "calling him pedagogue and fchool-mafter; whereas "it is well known he never fet up for a publick "school, to teach all the young fry of a parish; but "only was willing to impart his learning and know

ledge to his relations, and the fons of gentlemen "who were his intimate friends, and that neither

"his writings nor his way of teaching ever favoured in the leaft of pedantry."

66

Thus laboriously does his nephew extenuate what cannot be denied, and what might be confeffed without difgrace. Milton was not a man who could become mean by a mean employment. This, however, his warmeft friends feem not to have found; they therefore fhift and pailiate. He did not fell literature to all comers at an open fhop; he was a chamber-milliner, and measured his commodities only to his friends.

Philips, evidently impatient of viewing him in this ftate of degradation, tells us that it was not long continued; and, to raise his character again, has a mind to inveft him with military fplendour: "He "is much mistaken," he fays, "if there was not "about this time a defign of making him an adju"tant-general in Sir William Waller's army. But "the new-modelling of the army proved an ob"ftruction to the defign." An event cannot be fet at a much greater diftance than by havineen only defigned, about fame time, if a man be not much iftaken. Milton fhall be a pedagogue no longer; for, if Philips be not much mistaken, fomebody at fome time defigned him for a foldier.

About the time that the army was new-modelled (1645), he removed to a fmaller houfe in Holbourn, which opened backward into Lincoln's-Inn-Fields. He is not known to have published any thing afterwards till the King's death, when, finding his murderers condemned by the Prefbyterians, he wrote a treatife to justify it, and to compofe the minds of the people.

He

He made fome Remarks on the Articles of Peace between Ormond and the Irish Rebels. While he contented himself to write, he perhaps did only what his confcience dictated; and if he did not very vigilantly watch the influence of his own paffions, and the gradual prevalence of opinions, first willingly admitted, and then habitually indulged; if objections, by being overlooked, were forgotten, and defire fuperinduced conviction; he yet fhared only the common weakness of mankind, and might be no lefs fincere than his opponents. But as faction feldom leaves a man honeft, however it might find him, Milton is fufpected of having interpolated the book called Icon Bafilike, which the Council of State, to whom he was now made Latin fecretary, employed him to cenfure, by inferting a prayer taken from Sidney's Arcadia, and imputing it to the King; whom he charges, in his Iconoclaffes, with the ufe of this prayer, as with a heavy crime, in the indecent language with which profperity had emboldened the advocates for rebellion to infult all that is venerable or great: "Who would have imagined fo little fear in him of the true all-feeing Deity -as, immedi"ately before his death, to pop into the hands of the

grave bishop that attended him, as a fpecial relique of his faintly exercifes, a prayer ftolen word for word from the mouth of a Heathen woman "praying to a Heathen God ?"

The papers which the King gave to Dr. Juxon on the fcaffold the regicides took away, fo that they were at leaft the publishers of this prayer; and Dr.

Birch,

Birch, who had examined the queftion with great care, was inclined to think them the forgers. The use of it by adaptation was innocent; and they who could so noifily cenfure it, with a little extenfion of their malice could contrive what they wanted ta accuse.

King Charles the Second, being now sheltered in Holland, employed Salmafius, profeffor of polite learning at Leyden, to write a defence of his father and of monarchy; and, to excite his industry, gave him, as was reported, a hundred Jacobufes, Salmafius was a man of fkill in languages, knowledge of antiquity, and fagacity of emendatory criticism, almost exceeding all hope of human attainment; and having, by exceffive praises, been confirmed in great confidence of himself, though he probably had not much confidered the principles of fociety or the rights of government, undertook the employment without diftruft of his own qualifications; and, as his expedition in writing was wonderful, in 1649 published Defenfio Regis.

To this Milton was required to write a fufficient answer; which he performed (1651) in such a manner, that Hobbes declared himself unable to decide whofe language was beft, or whofe arguments were worst. In my opinion, Milton's periods are smoother, neater, and more pointed; but he delights himself with teasing his adversary as much as with confuting him. He makes a foolish allufion of Salmafius, whofe doctrine he confiders as fervile and unmanly, to the ftream of Salmafius, which, whoever entered, left half his virility behind him, Salmafius was a

French

ceus.

Frenchman, and was unhappily married to a scold. Tu es Gallus, fays Milton, &, ut aiunt, nimium gallinaBut his fupreme pleasure is to tax his adver fary, fo renowned for criticism, with vitious Latin. He opens his book with telling that he has ufed Perfona, which, according to Milton, fignifies only a Mask, in a sense not known to the Romans, by applying it as we apply Perfon. But as Nemefis is always on the watch, it is memorable that he has enforced the charge of a folecifm by an expreffion in itself grossly folecistical, when for one of those fuppofed blunders, he fays, as Ker, and I think fome one before him, has remarked, propino te grammatiflis tuis vapulandum. From vapulo, which has a paffive fenfe, vapulandus can never be derived. No man forgets his original trade: the rights of nations, and of kings, fink into questions of grammar, if grammarians difcufs them.

Milton, when he undertook this answer, was weak of body and dim of fight; but his will was forward, and what was wanting of health was supplied by zeal. He was rewarded with a thousand pounds, and his book was much read; for paradox, recommended by spirit and elegance, eafily gains attention; and he, who told every man that he was equal to his King, could hardly want an audience.

That the performance of Salmafius was not difperfed with equal rapidity, or read with equal eagernefs, is very credible. He taught only the ftale doctrine of authority, and the unpleafing duty of fubmiffion; and he, had been fo long not only the monarch but the tyrant of literature, that almost all

man