Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 38.djvu/39

 are two letters to her son at Oxford, showing that Milton disapproved even of the reformed university. He also saw Hartlib, Marchmont Needham, and [q. v.], who was tutor to Lady Ranelagh's son at Oxford. His old pupil, Cyriac Skinner, and Henry Lawrence, son of the president of Cromwell's council, were also friends. But his most famous acquaintance was Andrew Marvell, who succeeded Meadows in 1657, though Milton had recommended him as early as 1652 as his assistant in the secretary's office. There are no traces of acquaintance with other famous men of the time. His religious prejudices separated him from all but a small party, and the lofty severity of his character probably emphasised such separation. It has been vaguely suggested that Milton procured an offer of help from the council for Brian Walton's Polyglott Bible. Foreigners, however, frequently came to see Milton, and, according to Aubrey, visited England expressly to see Milton and Cromwell. His writings upon the regicide were received with interest by learned men on the continent, who were surprised that a fanatic could write Latin as well as Salmasius. It is said that Milton had an allowance from parliament, and afterwards from Cromwell, to keep a ‘weekly table’ for the entertainment of distinguished foreigners (, Life of Milton, App. p. cxlvi).

Milton retained his secretaryship during the protectorate of Richard Cromwell and through the distracted period which intervened before the Restoration. Some brief pamphlets written at this time are a despairing appeal on behalf of a policy which all practical men could perceive to be hopeless. Two of them, published in 1659, are arguments in favour of a purely voluntary ecclesiastical system. In another, published early in 1660, he proposes that parliament should simply make itself perpetual. A second edition was apparently quashed by the speedy establishment of the monarchy. Finally, as late as April 1660, he wrote ‘Brief Notes,’ attacking a royalist sermon. These writings show that Milton was now inclined to the old republican party. His republicanism was anything but democratic. He desired the permanent rule of the chiefs of the army and the council, with a complete separation between church and state, and abstention from arbitrary measures of government.

At the Restoration Milton concealed himself in a friend's house in Bartholomew Close. He remained there during the long debates as to the list of regicides to be excepted from pardon. On 16 June 1660 it was ordered by the House of Commons that Milton's ‘Defensio’ and John Goodwin's ‘Obstructors of Justice’ should be burnt by the common hangman, and that Milton and Goodwin should be indicted by the attorney-general, and taken into custody by the sergeant-at-arms. A proclamation was issued on 13 Aug. ordering the surrender of all copies of the books named. It states that both the authors have hitherto concealed themselves. Milton was arrested in the course of the summer, but in the next session it was ordered that he should be released on paying his fees. Milton protested, through Marvell, against the excessive amount of the fees (150l.), and his complaint was referred to the committee on privileges. The Indemnity Act freed him from all legal consequences of his actions.

Pattison thinks that Milton owed his escape to his ‘insignificance and harmlessness.’ Burnet, however, says that his escape caused general surprise. Pattison's sense of the unpractical nature of Milton's political writings probably led him to underestimate the reputation which they enjoyed at the time. A new edition of the ‘Defensio’ had appeared in 1658, and Salmasius's posthumous ‘Responsio’ was published in September 1660. Cominges, the French ambassador in London, writing to his master on 2 April 1663 of the condition of English literature, declared that in recent times there was only one man of letters—‘un nommé Miltonius qui s'est rendu plus infâme par ses dangereux écrits que ces bourreaux et les assassins de leur roi’ (, French Ambassador at the Court of Charles II, p. 205). Milton clearly had enemies who might have sought to make him an example. Professor Masson has endeavoured to construct a history of the negotiations by which such attempts, if made, may have been frustrated (vi. 162-95). The only direct statements are by Phillips and Richardson. Phillips says that Marvell ‘made a considerable party’ for Milton in the House of Commons, and, with the help of other friends, obtained immunity for him. He adds incorrectly that Milton was disqualified for holding office. Richardson, writing in 1734 (Explanatory Notes, p. lxxxix), mentions a report that Secretary [q. v.] and Sir [q. v.] ‘managed matters artfully in his favour.’ He gives, however, as the real secret that Milton had entreated for the life of Sir [q. v.], and that D'Avenant now returned the favour. Richardson heard this from Pope, Pope heard it from Betterton, and Betterton from his steady patron, D'Avenant. The objection to the anecdote is its neatness. Rh