Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 8.djvu/34

 NOTES AND QUERIES. [io s. vni. JULY is, 1007.

" On Thursday, the 17th of May [1655], and for many days more, the business of the Savoy Pro- testants was the chief occupation of the Council. Letters, all in Milton's Latin, but signed by the Lord Protector in hi* own name, were despatched (May 25th) to the Duke," &c. P. 40.

" Ten State-Letters all at once, implying as they do consultation with Thurloe, if not also interview* with the Protector and the Council [1657]." P. 374.

"So ends the Series of Milton's Letters for Oliver. As there had been eighty-eight in all during the four years and nine months of the Pro- tectorate that fact in itself is rather remarkable

when we remember that Milton came into the Pro- tector's service totally blind always, when the

occasion was very important, as when there had to be the burst of circular letters about the Pied- montese massacre, the blind man had to be sent to, or sent for. Positively, in reading Milton's des- patches for Cromwell on such subjects as the perse- cutions of the Vaudois and the scheme of a Pro- testant European League, one hardly knows which is speaking, the Secretary or the ruler. Cromwell melts into Milton, and Milton is Cromwell eloquent and Latinizing." P. 396.

And in a note to this last passage Mr. Masson observes :

"The uniformly Mil tonic style of the greater letters for the Protector, the same style as had been used in the more important letters for the Common- wealth, utterly precludes the idea that Milton was

only the translator of drafts furnished him

There was not a man about the Council that could have furnished the drafts of the greater letters as we now have them. My idea as to the way in which they were composed is that, on each occasion, Milton learnt from Thurloe, or even in a pre- appointed interview with the Council, or with Cromwell himself, the sort of thing that was wanted, and that then, having himself dictated and sent in an English draft, he received it back, .approved or with corrections and suggested addi- tions, to be turned into Latin. Special Cromwellian hints to Milton for the letter to Louis XIV. on the alarm of a new persecution of the Pied- montese must have been, I should say, the casual reference to a certain pass as the best military route into Italy from France, and the suggestion of an exchange of territory between Louis and the Duke of Savoy so as to make the Vaudois French subjects. The hints may have been given to Milton beforehand, or they may have been notched in by Cromwell in revising MUtont English draft."

To the common man this testimony alone is sufficient to justify Mr. Newenham's picture. The drafts of Milton's " greater letters " were supplied by Thurloe, the Council, or Cromwell ; the Savoy letter was one of the " greater " series ; pre- sumably, therefore, the draft of one so important was supplied by dictation to Milton by the Protector himself. The con- clusion may be inferential, but it is not invalidated by mere negation. The argu- ment ex silentio is always risky, and not seldom faulty ; and here, I contend, Mr. Birrell is less likely to be right than Mr.

Masson. It is next to impossible that Crom- well " was never in the same room nor ever exchanged words " with his Latin secretary. Even Mr. Morley admits (' Cromwell,' p. 356) that " they must sometimes have been in the Council Chamber together," although he follows Mr. Birrell's lead in the matter of the picture, though for other reasons. The full passage runs thus :

" Historic imagination vainly seeks to picture the personal relations between the two master- spirits, but no trace remains. They must sometimes have been in the Council Chamber together ; but whether they ever interchanged a word we do not know. When asked for a letter of introduction for a friend to the English Ambassador in Holland (1657), Milton excused himself, saying, 'I have very little acquaintance with those in power, inasmuch as I keep very much to my own house, and prefer to do so.' A painter's fancy has depicted Oliver dictating to the Latin Secretary the famous des- patches on the slaughtered Saints whose bones lay scattered on the Alpine mountains cold ; but by then the poet had lost his sight, and himself pro- bably dictated the English drafts from Thurloe's instructions, and then turned them into his own sonorous Latin."

1. It is matter of surprise to me that Mr. Morley could admit that the " two master-spirits " must have met, and yet doubt whether they " ever interchanged a word," simply because " we do not know," i.e., because it is not recorded that they ever did so. Many things left unchronicled we may take as having actually happened on a less well-founded surmise. 2. The poet's refusal of a letter of introduction was based on non-acquaintance with the Am- bassador, not with Cromwell. 3. Mr. Morley's reference to the famous picture is inaccurate. Oliver is therein depicted dictating not the Vaudois dispatches, but one of them only ; while the reason alleged for the fancifulness (otherwise inaccuracy) of the picture is singularly misleading. The poet's blind- ness would not debar him from jotting down the headings of Cromwell's points. I have known of a similar feat being achieved by the blind. Mr. Morley almost admits the possibility when he says, two sentences before the passage quoted, that

" Milton's fervid Latin appeal of this date [1655] did but roll forth in language of his own incom- parable splendor the thoughts that lived in Cromwell."

Such is well or ill upheld my thesis on the fidelity to history of Mr. Newenham's noble work, confirmed by the sound readings of historiographers such as Mr. Masson and Carlyle, and left undamaged by Mr. Birrell and Mr. Morley.

J. B. McGovEBN.

St. Stephen's Rectory, C.-on-M., Manchester.