Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 8.djvu/33

 10 s. vm. JULY 13, 1907.J NOTES AND QUERIES.

the " print," or picture, may yet be estab- lished. The year is postdated by a decade, and the collection seems understated, but these are minor errors, possibly typographical, and I summon first, for the main issue, italicized in the note, the evidence of Carlyle (' Cromwell's ' Letters and Speeches,' vol. iii. p. 103), who in his ' Chronological ' Preface to Part IX. writes :

"This day [3 June, 1655] the French Treaty, not unimportant to him, was to be signed : this day he refuses to sign it till the King [Louis XIV.] and Cardinal [Mazarin] undertake to assist him in getting right done in those poor valleys. He sends the poor exiles 2,000^. from his own purse ; appoints a Day of Humiliation and a general collection over

England for that object [14 June] How Envoys

were sent ; how blind Milton wrote. Letters to all Protestant States calling on them for Cooperation ; how the French Cardinal was shy to meddle, and yet had to meddle, and compel the Duke of Savoy to do justice all this, recorded in the unread- ablest stagnant deluges of old Official Correspond- ence, is very certain, and ought to be fished there- from and made more apparent."

Thus for the year 1655. Three years later, " the poor Protestants of Piedmont," writes Carlyle (ibid., p. 357),

" it appears, are again in a state of grievance, in a state of peril. The Lord Protector finds time to think of these poor people and their case. Here is a Letter to Ambassador Lockhart, who is now at Dunkirk Siege, in the French King and Cardinal's neighbourhood : a generous pious Letter ; dictated to Thnrloe, partly perhaps of Thurloe's composition, but altogether of Oliver's mind and sense. Among the Lockhart Letters in Thurloe, which are full of Dunkirk in these weeks, I can find no trace of this new Piedmont business : but in Milton's Latin State - Letters, among the Literce Oliverii Pro- tectoris, there are three, to the French King, to the Swiss Cantons, to the Cardinal, which all treat of it. The first of which, were it only as a sample of the Milton-Oliver Diplomacies, we will here copy, and translate that all may read it. An Emphatic State-Letter ; which Oliver Cromwell meant, and John Milton thought and wrote into words ; not unworthy to be read. It goes by the same Expres as the Letter to Lockhart himself; and is very specially referred to there."

Three things, unless words have lost their meaning, are clear from the italicized sentences in these two passages: (1) that Thurloe was Cromweirs English Secretary, (2) that Milton was his Latin Secretary, and (3) that Cromwell " meant," i.e. dictated, and Milton " thought and wrote," i.e., translated into Latin, the former's State- letters or dispatches. And if the " emphatic State-Letter " of 1658 to Louis XIV. was dictated by Cromwell to Milton, so dlso that of 1655 to the Duke of Savoy must have been likewise. Carlyle seems to have over- looked this, which preceded the others he refers to.

My next evidence for the accused consists of a pamphlet kindly placed at my disposal by Mr. James Watts, of Abney Hall, the ^resent owner of the picture under discussion, md bearing the title :

"Description of the Grand Historical Picture,

romwell dictating: to Milton his Letter to the Duke

of Savoy, demanding Religious Liberty for the

^rotestants of Piedmont, A.D. 1655. Painted by

?. Newenham, Esq."

The pamphlet is dated 1852, and is signed 3. P. H. From it I make a few extracts : " The Picture is of very large dimensions, the igures being life-size, and that of Cromwell in the .ustly celebrated Mr. F. Newenham, and this magnificent production of his genius, having obtained the highest eulogiums of the artistic
 * rect attitude. The painter is the well-known and

world, is now in process of engraving The

Painting is valuable in other respects ; for it presents portraits of Oliver Cromwell, England's Protestant Protector, and John Milton, England's Protestant Poet. These portraits have the in- valuable merit of unimpugnable authenticity. They have been copied from originals in the posses- sion of his Grace the Duke of Buccleuch, originals which are well known to have been painted by Cooper, an artist contemporary with the great men

whose miniatures he has presented to posterity

History declares that when Cromwell received the sad intelligence from Piedmont he burst into a flood

of tears On the day the news came to him he

was about to sign a very important treaty with the King of France ; but he at once refused to sign it till the King and Cardinal Mazarin undertook to assist him in getting right done to the Vaudois. He employed Milton to write letters to all Pro- testant States ; with his own hand he wrote to

the King of France ; and in ' thoughts that breathe and words that burn ' he dictated to Milton a letter to the Duke of Savoy (the letter which we see him dictating in Mr. Newenham's picture). His indignation was expressed in the most decided tone, In no very indirect terms he hinted his determina- tion, if neccessary, to support his remonstrance by force. 'A voice which seldom threatened in vain,' says Macaulay ['Hist, of Eng.,' vol. i. p. 69], 'de- clared that, unless favour were shown to the people of God, the English guns should be heard in the

Castle of St. Angelo' We read his decision, his

deep feeling, and his fervent zeal, in the very words of the letter which at his dictation Milton wrote to the Duke of Savoy. We subjoin a copy of it. The original is preserved in the State Paper Office."

The said letter bears date 25 May, 1655 r and is the eighth of the ' Literse Oliverii Proctectoris.' Morland bore it next day to the Duke (Charles Emmanuel II.), and on 19 August a Patente di gratia e Perdono was granted by him to the Vaudois Protestants.

But as the ipse dixit of an anonymous pamphleteer may be questioned as unsup- ported by authority, I turn for my third witness to vol. v. of Masson's ' Life of Milton,' which supplies me with the sub- joined evidential excerpts :