his sake I have been something curious to consider the scantlet of ground that angry monsieur would have had in, but cannot find it could deserve his choler, nor any of the other side ours, did not the king think it did. The account I shall now give you of the war will be but imperfect, since I conceive it to be in the state that part of the four and twenty hours is, in which we can neither call it night nor day. I should judge it dawning towards earnest, did not the Lords' Covananters' letters to our Lords hero something divide me. So, sir, you may now imagine us walking up and down the banks of the Tweed like the Tower lions in their cages, leaving the people to think what we would do if we were let loose. The enemy is not yet much visible. It may be it is the fault of the climate, which brings men as slowly forward as plants; but it gives us fears that the men of peace will draw all this to a dumbshow, and so destroy a handsome opportunity, which was now offered, of producing glorious matter for future chronicle. These are but conjectures, sir. The last part of my letter I reserve for a great and known truth, which is, that I am, sir, your most humble servant, LXX. J. S. Appointed by the Council of State in 1649 as Secretary for Foreign Tongues to the Commonwealth, Milton found himself overpowered with business at the very moment when his eyesight, long threatened with blindness, became finally extinguished. In 1650 he lost his right eye, and the controversy with Salmasius cost him his left. Unwilling to give up his post of danger at such a troublous time, his growing infirmity forced him to ask for the help of an amanuensis, and in the following terms he suggested as his assistant a young poet of rising reputation, a Puritan like himself, and favourably recommended to him by the friendly family of Fairfax. John Milton to John Bradshaw. February 21, 1652. My Lord,-But that it would be an interruption to the public, wherein your studies are perpetually employed, I should now and then venture to supply thus my enforced absence with a line or two, though it were only of businesse, and that would be noe slight one, to make my due acknowledgments of your many favours; which I both doe at this time, and ever shall: and have this farder, which I thought my parte to let you know of, that there will be with you to-morrow, upon some occasion of business, a gentleman whose name is Mr. Marvile; a man whom, both by report, and the converse I have had with him, of singular desert for the State to make use of; who alsoe offers himselfe, if there be any employment for him. His father was the Minister of Hull; and he hath spent four years already in Holland, France, Italy, and Spaine, to very good purpose, as I believe, and the gaineing of those four languages; besides, he is a scholler, and well read in the Latin and Greek authors; and no doubt of an approved conversation, for he comes now lately out of the house of the Lord Fairfax, who was a Generall, where he was intrusted to give some instructions in the languages to the Lady, his daughter. If upon the death of Mr. Weckerlyn, the Councell shall think that I shall need any assistance in the performance of my place (though for my part I find no encumbrances of that which belongs to me, except it be in point of attendance at Conferences with Ambassadors, which I must confess in my condition I am not fit for), it would be hard for them to find a man soe fit every way for that purpose as this gentleman; one who, I believe, in a short time, would be able to do them as much service as Mr. Ascan. This, my lord, I write sincerely, without any other end than to perform my duty to the publick, and helping them to an humble servant : laying aside those jealousies, and that emulation, which mine own condition must suggest to me, by bringing in such a coadjutor; and remaine, my lord, Your most obliged and faithful servant, JOHN MILTON. LXXI. The following examples of the epistolary style of Edward Hyde, Earl of Clarendon, are selected from the State Papers bearing his name. In this first short note there are two points not unworthy of notice. The oft-repeated charge of the critics that he embarrasses his sentences with frequent parentheses is brought home to him; and the want of accuracy in the details of 'The History of the Rebellion' is indirectly explained by the unavoidable necessity of acquiring information at second-hand and on mere hearsay evidence. Sir Edward Hyde to Lord Witherington. Jersey: August 5, 1646. My good Lord,-Being now left to leisure eno' to exercise my own thoughts and it being much easier to revolve what is passed than to foresee what is to come, (tho' I fear there is no notable sharpsightedness requisite even to that) I have prevailed with myself, how unequal soever to the task, to endeavour the compiling a plain, faithful narrative of the proceedings of these last ill years; that so posterity may see, by what fatal degrees, that wickedness hath grown prosperous which I hope is now at its height. I have not been at too immoderate a distance (if that were qualification enough) from the public agitations, to venture upon this relation; yet the scene of action lying in so many several places, a much wiser and more conversant person than myself must desist from this work, except others assist him by communicating what hath been transacted in their several spheres. Your Lordship hath had a noble part in those attempts which have been made to rescue our miserable country from the tyranny she now groans under; and by the happiness you enjoy in the friendship of that excellent person (whose conduct was never unprosperous) well known by what skill and virtue the north of England was recovered to his Majesty, and with what difficulties defended. And if you find that his Lordship himself may not be prevailed with to adorn those actions with his own incomparable style, (which indeed would render them fit to be bound up with the other commentaries) vouchsafe I beseech your Lordship, that by your means I may be trusted with such counsels and occurrences as you shall judge fit to be submitted to the ill apparel I shall be able to supply them with; which I will take care (how simple soever) shall not defraud them of their due integrity which will be ornament enough. What your Lordship thinks fit to oblige me with of this kind, Mr. Nicholls will convey to, My Lord, Your Lordship's most affectionate and obedient Servant EDWARD HYDE, LXXII. The staunchest and most self-denying friend of Charles II. during his period of exile and almost abject poverty, misjudged the state of affairs in June, 1659, as well as the character of his royal debtor; for the cause of Monarchy could only have suffered by a show of force at the moment the Rump and the army were caballing over the grave of Oliver Cromwell. And in so confidently extolling the gratitude of his chief, Edward Hyde little thought he would be an early victim to the caprice of an indolent king who had no belief in human virtues, and to whom, as Lord Macaulay puts it, 'honour and shame were as light and darkness to the blind.' Edward Hyde, Earl of Clarendon to Mr. Mordaunt. June 13, 1659. Sir,-It is indeed great pity that we here, and our friends there, have not been better prepared to appear in arms upon these great mutations which have lately happened. But methinks I do not see anything yet done to make us despair of the like opportunities, nor do I conceive that we have at present one friend less or one enemy more than we had two months ago. It is possible all men's hopes and fears are not the same they were; but these ebbs and flows will happen upon every wind; nor do I think that the Army and the Parliament will the sooner agree upon a Government because they are out of apprehension of the Cromwells, nor that their tameness and desertion of spirit will find the greater remorse. Now is the time for the Parliament to raise monuments of their justice and severity for the future terror of those whose ambition may dispose them to break their trusts (and I hope you are not without good instruments to kindle that fire), and I cannot believe it possible that the Army and Parliament can continue long of a mind. I suppose a list of the names of all the Parliament men is in print, which I would be very glad to see, as I would to know whether you continue to have the same good opinion still of Sir Anthony Ashley Cooper, and whether he received the King's letter. I have seen a letter from Mr Baron to the Secretary, by which I perceive there remains some jealousies and distances between our friends, which I hope proceed rather from misunderstanding than from any formed waywardness, and that the interposition of discreet persons will qualify all, and extinguish those distempers. We have yet heard from none of them, and you may bo very confident that the King will not gratify any man's passions by the disobliging others who serve him faithfully, and I have so good an opinion of them to believe they cannot propose any extravagant thing. I have no more to add but that I am very faithfully Yours &c. LXXIII. The feverish condition of the public pulse, sickened by the Edward Hyde, Earl of Clarendon, to Sir Henry Bennet. Sir,-The Parliament was, as you have heard, to be dissolved upon Thursday the 15th of last month, but there had been so many artifices used by the Republican party, to stay the business of the Militia, and afterwards to stop and corrupt it at the Press that the house resolved to sit again the next day, and then about seven o'clock at night they dissolved to the universal joy of all the kingdom, the republican party only excepted, who had no mind to cashier themselves of a power they were like again never to be possessed of; the people not being like to choose many of them to serve in the next parliament. Before they dissolved they declared the engagement, by which men were bound to submit to the government without King or House of Lords, to be void and null, and to be taken of the file of all records wherever it was entered; and this might be the ground of that report at Calais, that they had voted the Government to be by King, Lords and Commons; besides there was a pretty accident that might contribute thereunto, for the day before the Parliament dissolved, at full Exchange, there came a fellow with a ladder upon his shoulders and a pot of paint in his hand, and set the ladder in the place where the last King's statue had stood, and then went up and wiped out that inscription which had been made after the death of the King, Exit Tyrannus &c., and as soon as he had done it threw up his cap and cried 'God bless King Charles the Second,' in which the whole Exchange joined with the greatest shout you can imagine, and immediately |