Chapter II (1)

MILTON'S LIFE AND SECRETARYSHIP THROUGH THE SECOND PROTECTORATE.

MILTON STILL IN OFFICE: LETTER TO MR. HENRY DE BRASS, WITH MILTON'S OPINION OF SALLUST: LETTERS TO YOUNG RANELAGH AND HENRY OLDENBURG AT SAUMUR: MORUS IN NEW CIRCUMSTANCES: ELEVEN MOBE STATE-LETTERS OF MILTON FOR THE PROTECTOR (NOS. CI.-CXI.): ANDREW MARVELL BROUGHT IN AS ASSISTANT FOREIGN SECRETARY AT LAST (SEPT. 1657): JOHN DRYDEN NOW ALSO IN THE PROTECTOR'S EMPLOYMENT: BIRTH OF MILTON'S DAUGHTER BY HIS SECOND WIFE: SIX MORE STATE-LETTERS OF MILTON (NOS. CXII.-CXIII.): ANOTHER LETTER TO MR. HENRY DE BRASS, AND ANOTHER TO PETER HEIMBACH: COMMENT ON THE LATTER: DEATHS OF MILTON'S SECOND WIFE AND HER CHILD: HIS TWO NEPHEWS, EDWARD AND JOHN PHILLIPS, AT THIS DATE: MILTON'S LAST SIXTEEN STATE-LETTERS FOR OLIVER CROMWELL (NOS. CXVIII.-CXXXIII.), INCLUDING TWO TO CHARLES GUSTAVUS OF SWEDEN. TWO ON A NEW ALARM OF A PERSECUTION OF THE PIEDMONTESE PROTESTANTS, AND SEVERAL TO LOUIS XIV. AND CARDINAL MAZARIN: IMPORTANCE OF THIS LAST GROUP OF THE STATE-LETTERS, AND REVIEW OF THE WHOLE SERIES OF MILTON'S PERFORMANCES FOR CROMWELL: LAST DIPLOMATIC INCIDENTS OF THE PROTECTORATE, AND ANDREW MARVELL IN CONNEXION WITH THEM: INCIDENTS OF MILTON'S LITERARY LIFE IN THIS PERIOD: YOUNG GUNTZER'S _DISSERTATIO_ AND YOUNG KECK'S PHALAECIANS: MILTON'S EDITION OF RALEIGH'S _CABINET COUNCIL_: RESUMPTION OF THE OLD DESIGN OF _PARADISE LOST_ AND ACTUAL COMMENCEMENT OF THE POEM: CHANGE FROM THE DRAMATIC POEM TO THE EPIC: SONNET IN MEMORY OF HIS DECEASED WIFE.

Through the Second Protectorate Milton remained in office just as before. He was not, however, as had been customary before at the commencement of each new period of his Secretaryship, sworn in afresh. Thurloe was sworn in, both as General Secretary and as full Councillor, and Scobell and Jessop were sworn in as Clerks;[1] but we hear of no such ceremony in the case of Milton. His Latin Secretaryship, we infer, was now regarded as an excrescence from the Whitehall establishment, rather than an integral part of it. An oath may have been administered to him privately, or his old general engagement may have sufficed.

[Footnote 1: Council Order Books, July 13 and 14, 1657.]

Our first trace of Milton after the new inauguration of Cromwell is in one of his Latin Familiar Epistles, addressed to some young foreigner in London, of whom I know nothing more than may be learnt from the letter itself:--

"To the Very Distinguished MR. HENRY DE BRASS.

"I see, Sir, that you, unlike most of our modern youth in their
surveys of foreign lands, travel rightly and wisely, after the
fashion of the old philosophers, not for ordinary youthful quests,
but with a view to the acquisition of fuller erudition from every
quarter. Yet, as often as I look at what you write, you appear to
me to be one who has come among strangers not so much to receive
knowledge as to impart it to others, to barter good merchandise
rather than to buy it. I wish indeed it were as easy for me to
assist and promote in every way those excellent studies of yours as
it is pleasant and gratifying to have such help asked by a person
of your uncommon talents.

"As for the resolution you say you have taken to write to me and
request my answers towards solving those difficulties about which
for many ages writers of Histories seem to have been in the dark,
I have never assumed anything of the kind as within my powers, nor
should I dare now to do so. In the matter of Sallust, which you
refer to me, I will say freely, since you wish me to tell plainly
what I do think, that I prefer Sallust to any other Latin
historian; which also was the almost uniform opinion of the
Ancients. Your favourite Tacitus has his merits; but the greatest
of them, in my judgment, is that he imitated Sallust with all his
might. As far as I can gather from what you write, it appears that
the result of my discourse with you personally on this subject has
been that you are now nearly of the same mind with me respecting
that most admirable writer; and hence it is that you ask me, with
reference to what he has said, in the introduction to his
_Catilinarian War_--as to the extreme difficulty of writing
History, from the obligation that the expressions should be
proportional to the deeds--by what method I think a writer of
History might attain that perfection. This, then, is my view: that
he who would write of worthy deeds worthily must write with mental
endowments and experience of affairs not less than were in the doer
of the same, so as to be able with equal mind to comprehend and
measure even the greatest of them, and, when he has comprehended
them, to relate them distinctly and gravely in pure and chaste
speech. That he should do so in ornate style, I do not much care
about; for I want a Historian, not an Orator. Nor yet would I have
frequent maxims, or criticisms on the transactions, prolixly thrown
in, lest, by interrupting the thread of events, the Historian
should invade the office of the Political Writer: for, if the
Historian, in explicating counsels and narrating facts, follows
truth most of all, and not his own fancy or conjecture, he fulfils
his proper duty. I would add also that characteristic of Sallust,
in respect of which he himself chiefly praised Cato,--to be able to
throw off a great deal in few words: a thing which I think no one
can do without the sharpest judgment and a certain temperance at
the same time. There are many in whom you will not miss either
elegance of style or abundance of information; but for conjunction
of brevity with abundance, i.e. for the despatch of much in few
words, the chief of the Latins, in my judgment, is Sallust. Such
are the qualities that I think should be in the Historian that
would hope to make his expressions proportional to the facts he
records.

"But why all this to you, who are sufficient, with the talent you
have, to make it all out, and who, if you persevere in the road you
have entered, will soon be able to consult no one more learned than
yourself. That you do persevere, though you require no one's advice
for that, yet, that I may not seem to have altogether failed in
replying correspondingly with the value you are pleased to put upon
my authority with you, is my earnest exhortation and suggestion.
Farewell; and all success to your real worth, and your zeal for
acquiring wisdom.

"Westminster: July 15, 1657."

Henry Oldenburg, and his pupil Richard Jones, _alias_ young Ranelagh, had left Oxford in April or May 1657, after about a year's stay there, and had gone abroad on a tour which was to extend over more than four years. It was an arrangement for the farther education of young Ranelagh in the way most satisfactory to his mother, Lady Ranelagh, and perhaps also to his uncle, Robert Boyle, neither of whom seems to have cared much for the ordinary University routine; and particulars had been settled by correspondence between Oldenburg at Oxford and Lady Ranelagh in Ireland.[1] Young Ranelagh, I find, took with him as his servant a David Whitelaw, who had been servant to Durie in his foreign travels: "my man, David Whitelaw," as Durie calls him.[2] The ever-convenient Hartlib was to manage the conveyance of letters to the travellers, wherever they might be.[3]

[Footnote 1: Letter of Oldenburg to Boyle, dated April! 5, 1657, given in Boyle's Works (V. 299).]

[Footnote 2: Letters of Durie in _Vaughan's Protectorate_ (II. 174 and 195).]

[Footnote 3: Letter of Oldenburg in Boyle's Works (V. 301).]

They went, pretty directly, to Saumur in the west of France, a pleasant little town, with a college, a library, &c., which they had selected for their first place of residence, rather than Paris. An Italian master was procured to teach young Jones "something of practical geometry and fortification"; and, for the rest, Oldenburg himself continued to superintend his studies, directing them a good deal in that line of physical and economical observation which might be supposed congenial to a nephew of Boyle, and which had become interesting to himself. "As for us here," wrote Oldenburg to Boyle from Saumur, Sept. 8, 1657, "we are, through the goodness of God, in perfect health; and, your nephew having spent these two or three months we have been here very well and in more than ordinary diligence, I cannot but give him some relaxation in taking a view of this province of Anjou during this time of vintage; which, though it be a very tempting one to a young appetite, yet shall, I hope, by a careful watchfulness, prove unprejudicial to his health."[1] A good while before Oldenburg wrote this letter to Boyle both he and his pupil had written to Milton, and Milton's replies had already been received. They are dated on the same day, but we shall put that to young Ranelagh first. It will be seen that Oldenburg must have had a sight of it from his pupil before he wrote the above to Boyle:--

[Footnote 1: Boyle's Works, V. 299.]

"To the noble youth, RICHARD JONES.

"That you made out so long a journey without inconvenience, and
that, spurning the allurements of Paris, you have so quickly
reached your present place of residence, where you can enjoy
literary leisure and the society of learned persons, I am both
heartily glad, and set down to the credit of your disposition.
There, so far as you keep yourself in bounds, you will be in
harbour; elsewhere you would have to beware the Syrtes, the Rocks,
and the songs of the Sirens. All the same I would not have you
thirst too much after the Saumur vintage, with which you think to
delight yourself, unless it be also your intention to dilute that
juice of Bacchus, more than a fifth part, with the freer cup of the
Muses. But to such a course, even if I were silent, you have a
first-rate adviser; by listening to whom you will indeed consult
best for your own good, and cause great joy to your most excellent
mother, and a daily growth of her love for you. Which that you may
accomplish you ought every day to petition Almighty God, Farewell;
and see that you return to us as good as possible, and as cultured
as possible in good arts. That will be to me, beyond others, a most
delightful result.

"Westminster: Aug. 1, 1657."

The letter to Oldenburg contains matter of more interest:--

"To HENRY OLDENBURG.

"I am glad you have arrived safe at Saumur, the goal of your
travel, as I believe. You are not mistaken in thinking the news
would be very agreeable to me in particular, who both love you for
your own merit, and know the cause of your undertaking the journey
to be so honourable and praiseworthy.

"As to the news you have heard, that so infamous a priest has been
called to instruct so illustrious a church, I had rather any one
else had heard it in Charon's boat than you in that of Charenton;
for it is mightily to be feared that whoever thinks to get to
heaven under the auspices of so foul a guide will be a whole world
awry in his calculations. Woe to that church (only God avert the
omen!) where such ministers please, mainly by tickling the
ears,--ministers whom the Church, if she would truly be called
_Reformed_, would more fitly cast out than desire to bring
in.

"In not having given copies of my writings to any one that does not
ask for them, you have done well and discreetly, not in my opinion
alone, but also in that of Horace:--

"Err not by zeal for us, nor on our books
Draw hatred by too vehement care.

"A learned man, a friend of mine, spent last summer at Saumur. He
wrote to me that the book was in demand in those parts; I sent only
one copy; he wrote back that some of the learned to whom he had
lent it had been pleased with it hugely. Had I not thought I should
be doing a thing agreeable to them, I should have spared you
trouble and myself expense. But,

"If chance my load of paper galls your back,
Off with, it now, rather than in the end
Dash down the panniers cursing.

"To our Lawrence, as you bade me, I have given greetings in your
name. For the rest, there is nothing I should wish you to do or
care for more than see that yourself and your pupil get on in good
health, and that you return to us as soon as possible with all your
wishes fulfilled.

"Westminster: Aug. 1, 1657."

The books mentioned in the third paragraph as having been sent by Milton to Saumur in Oldenburg's charge must have been copies of the _Defensio Secunda_ and of the _Pro Se Defensio_. The person mentioned with such loathing in the second paragraph was the hero of those performances, Morus. The paragraph requires explanation. For Morus, uncomfortable at Amsterdam, and every day under some fresh discredit there, a splendid escape had at length presented itself. He had received an invitation to be one of the ministers of the Protestant church of Charenton, close to Paris. This church of Charenton was indeed the main Protestant church of Paris itself and the most flourishing representative of French Protestantism generally. For the French law then obliged Protestants to have their places of worship at some distance from the cities and towns in which they resided, and the village of Charenton was the ecclesiastical rendezvous of the chief Protestant nobility and professional men of the capital, some of whom, in the capacity of lay-elders, were associated in the consistory of the church with the ministers or pastors. Of these, in the beginning of 1657, there had been five, all men of celebrity in the French Protestant world--viz. Mestrezat, Faucheur, Drelincourt, Daillé, and Gaches; but the deaths of the two first in April and May of that year had occasioned vacancies, and it was to fill up one of these vacancies that Morus had been invited from Amsterdam. Oldenburg, as we understand, had heard this piece of news, when passing through Paris on his way to Saumur, probably in June. He had heard it, seemingly, on board the Charenton boat--i.e. as we guess, on board the boat plying on the Marne between Paris and Charenton. Hence the punning phraseology of Milton's reply. He would rather that such a piece of news had been heard by anybody on board _Charon's/_ boat than by Oldenburg on board the _Charenton_ wherry. Altogether the idea that Morus should be admitted as one of the pastors of the most important Protestant church in France was, we can see, horrible to him; and he hoped the calamity might yet be averted.--For the time it seemed likely that it would be. There had been ample enough knowledge in Paris of the coil of scandals about the character of Morus; and copies of Milton's two Anti-Morus pamphlets had been in circulation there long before Oldenburg took with him into France his new bundle of them for distribution. Accordingly, though there was a strong party for Morus, disbelieving the scandals, and anxious to have him for the Charenton church on account of his celebrity as a preacher, there were dissentients among the congregation and even in the consistory itself. One hears of Sieur Papillon and Sieur Beauchamp, Parisian advocates, and elders in the church, as heading the opposition to the call. The business of the translation of Morus from Amsterdam was, therefore, no easy one. In any case it would have brought those Protestant church courts of France that had to sanction the admission of Morus at Charenton into communication about him with those courts of the Walloon Church in Holland from whose jurisdiction he was to be removed; and one can imagine the peculiar complications that would arise in a case so extraordinary and involving so much inquiry and discussion. In fact, for more than two years, the business of the translation of Morus from Amsterdam to Paris was to hang notoriously between the Dutch Walloon Synods, who in the main wanted to disgrace and depose him before they had done with him, and the French Provincial Synods, now roused in his behalf, and willing in the main to receive him back into his native country as a man not without his faults, but more sinned against than sinning.[1]--And so for the present (Aug. 1657) Morus was still in his Amsterdam professorship, longing to be in France, but uncertain whether his call thither would hold. How the case ended we shall see in time. Meanwhile it is quite apparent that Milton was not only willing, but anxious, that _his_ influence should be imported into the affair, to turn the scale, if possible, against the man he detested. As he had not heard of the call of Morus to Charenton till the receipt of Oldenburg's letter, his motives originally for despatching a bundle of his Anti-Morus pamphlets into France with Oldenburg can have been only general; but one gathers from his reply to Oldenburg that he thought the pamphlets might now be of use specifically in the business of the proposed translation. Indeed, one can discern a tone of disappointment in Milton's letter with Oldenburg's report of what he had been able to do with the pamphlets hitherto. He might have spared himself the expense, he says, and Oldenburg the trouble. Oldenburg, as we know (Vol. IV. pp. 626-627), had never been very enthusiastic over Milton's onslaughts on Morus, The distribution of the Anti-Morus publications, therefore, may not have been to his taste. Milton seems to hint as much.

[Footnote 1: Bayle, Art. Morus; Brace's Life of Morus, 204 et seq.--It was deemed of great importance by the English Royalists that they should be able to report of Charles II., when Paris was his residence, that he attended the church at Charenton. There is a letter to him of April 17, 1653, saying his non-attendance there was "much to his prejudice." (Macray's Cal. of Clarendon Papers, II. 193).]

In August 1657 Milton, after three months of total rest, so far as the records show, from the business of writing foreign Letters for the Protector, resumed that business. We have attributed his release from it for so long to the fact that his old assistant MEADOWS was again in town, and available in the Whitehall office, in the interval between his return from Portugal and his departure on his new mission to Denmark; and the coincidence of Milton's resumption of this kind of duty with the precise time of Meadows's preparations for his new absence is at least curious. Though it had been intended that he should set out for Denmark immediately after his appointment to the mission in February, he had been detained for various reasons; and now in August, the great war between Denmark and Sweden having just begun, he was to set out in company with another envoy: viz. MAJOR-GENERAL WILLIAM JEPHSON, whom Cromwell had selected as a suitable person for a contemporary mission, to the King of Sweden (ante p. 312). It will be observed that eight of the following ten Letters of Milton, all written in August or September 1657, and forming his first contribution of letters for the Second Protectorate, relate to the missions of Jephson and Meadows:--

(CI.) To CHARLES X., KING OF SWEDEN, _August_ 1657:--His
Highness has heard with no ordinary concern that war has broken out
between Sweden and Denmark. [He had received the news August 13:
see ante p. 313.] He anticipates great evils to the Protestant
cause in consequence. He sends, therefore, the most Honourable
WILLIAM JEPHSON, General, and member of his Parliament, as
Envoy-extraordinary to his Majesty for negotiation in this and in
other matters. He begs a favourable reception for Jephson.

(CII.) TO THE COUNT OF OLDENBURG, _August_ 1657:--On his way
to the King of Sweden, then in camp near Lubeck, JEPHSON would
have to pass through several of the German states, and first of all
through the territories of this old and assured friend of the
English Commonwealth and of the Protector (see Vol. IV. pp. 424,
480-1, 527, 635-6). Cromwell, therefore, introduces JEPHSON, and
requests all furtherance for him.

(CIII.) TO THE CONSULS AND SENATE OF BREMEN, _August_
1657:--Also to introduce and recommend JEPHSON; who, on his route
from Oldenburg eastwards, would pass through Bremen.

(CIV.) TO THE CONSULS AND SENATE OF HAMBURG, _August_
1657:--Still requesting attention to JEPHSON on his transit.

(CV.) TO THE CONSULS AND SENATE OF LUBECK, _August_
1657:--Still recommending JEPHSON; who, at Lubeck, would be near
his destination, the camp of Charles Gustavus.

(CVI.) TO FREDERICK-WILLIAM, MARQUIS OF BRANDENBURG, _August_
1657:--At first this Prince, better known now as "The Great
Elector, Friedrich-Wilhelm of Prussia," had been on the side of
Sweden against Poland; and, in conjunction with Charles Gustavus,
he had fought that great Battle of Warsaw (July 1656) which had
nearly ruined the Polish King, John Casimir. Having been detached
from his alliance with Sweden, however, in a manner already
explained (ante p. 313), he had now a very difficult part to play
in the Swedish-Polish-German-Danish entanglement.--As Jephson had
instructions to treat with this important German Prince, as well as
with the King of Sweden, Cromwell begs leave to introduce him
formally. "The singular worth of your Highness both in peace and in
war, and the greatness and constancy of your spirit, being already
so famed over the whole world that almost all neighbouring Princes
are eager for your friendship, and no one could desire for himself
a more faithful and constant friend and ally, in order that you may
understand that we also are in the number of those that have the
highest and strongest opinion of your remarkable services to the
Christian Commonweal, we have sent to you the most Honourable
WILLIAM Jephson," &c.: so the note opens; and the rest is a mere
request that the Elector will hear what Jephson has to say.--The
relations between the Elector and the Protector had hitherto been
rather indefinite, if not cool; and hence perhaps the highly
complimentary strain of this letter.

(CVII.) TO THE CONSULS AND SENATE OF HAMBURG, _August_
1657:--All the foregoing, for Jephson, must have been written
between August 13, when the news of the proclamation of war between
Sweden and Denmark reached London, and August 29, when Jephson set
out on his mission. MEADOWS left London, on his distinct mission,
two days afterwards.[1] His route was not to be quite the same as
Jephson's; but he also was to pass through Hamburg. He is therefore
recommended separately, by this note, to the authorities of that
city. His letters of credence to the King of Denmark had,
doubtless, already been made out,--possibly by himself. They are
not among Milton's State-letters.

[Footnote 1: Whitlocke, under Aug. 1657.]

(CVIII.) To M. DE BORDEAUX, AMBASSADOR EXTRAORDINARY FOR THE
FRENCH KING, _August_ 1657:--There has been presented to the
Lord Protector a petition from Samuel Dawson, John Campsie, and
John Niven, merchants of Londonderry, stating that, shortly after
the Treaty with France in 1655, a ship of theirs called _The
Speedwell_ ("name of better omen than the event proved"), the
master of which was John Ker, had been seized, on her return voyage
from Bordeaux to Derry, by two armed vessels of Brest, taken into
Brest harbour, and sold there with her cargo. The damages
altogether are valued at £2,500. The petitioners have not been able
to obtain redress in France. The matter has been referred by the
Protector to his Council. They find that the petitioners have a
just right either to the restitution of their ship and cargo or to
compensation in money. "I therefore request of your Excellency, and
even request it in the name of the most Serene Lord Protector, that
you will endeavour your utmost, and join also the authority of your
office to your endeavours, that as soon as possible one or other be
done." The wording shows that the letter was not signed by the
Protector himself, but only by Lawrence as President of the
Council. It was probably not in rule for the Protector personally
to write to an Ambassador in such a case.

(CIX.) TO THE GRAND-DUKE OF TUSCANY, _Sept._ 1657:--A letter
of rather peculiar tenor. A William Ellis, master of a ship called
_The Little Lewis_, had been hired at Alexandria by the Pasha
of Memphis, to carry rice, sugar, and coffee, either to
Constantinople or Smyrna, for the use of the Sultan himself;
instead of which the rascal, giving the Turkish fleet the slip, had
gone into Leghorn, where he was living on his booty. "The act is
one of very dangerous example, inasmuch as it throws discredit on
the Christian name and exposes to the risk of robbery the fortunes
of merchants living under the Turk." The Grand-Duke is therefore
requested to be so good as to arrest Ellis, keep him in custody,
and see to the safety of the ship and cargo till they are restored
to the Sultan.

(CX.) TO THE DUKE OF SAVOY (undated)[1]:--This letter to the prince
on whom the Piedmontese massacre has conferred such dark celebrity
is on very innocent and ordinary business. The owners of a London
ship, called The Welcome, Henry Martin master, have Informed his
Highness that, on her way to Genoa and Leghorn, she was seized by a
French vessel of forty-six guns having letters of marque from the
Duke, and carried into his port of Villafranca. The cargo is
estimated at £25,000. Will the Duke see that ship and cargo are
restored to the owners, with damages? He may expect like justice in
any similar case in which he may have to apply to his Highness.

[Footnote 1: Not in Printed Collection nor in Phillips; but in the Skinner Transcript as No. 120 with the title _Duci Subaudiæ_, and printed thence by Mr. Hamilton in his _Milton Papers_ (pp. 11-12). No date is given in the Skinner Transcript; and the insertion of the letter here is a mere guess. The place where it occurs in the Skinner Transcript suggests that it came rather late in the Protectorate, perhaps even after the present point. The years 1656 and 1657 seem the likeliest.]

(CXI.) TO THE MARQUIS OF BRANDENBURG, _Sept._ 1657:--This is
an important letter. "By our last letter to your Highness," it
begins, "either already delivered or soon to be delivered by our
agent WILLIAM JEPHSON, we have made you aware of the legation
intrusted to him; and we could not but there make some mention of
your high qualities and signification of our goodwill towards you.
Lest, however, we should seem only cursorily to have touched on
your superlative services in the Protestant cause, celebrated so
highly in universal discourse, we have thought it fit to resume
that subject, and to offer you our respects, not indeed more
willingly or with greater devotion, but yet somewhat more at large.
And justly so, when news is brought to our ears every day that your
faith and constancy, though tempted by all kinds of intrigues,
solicited by all contrivances, yet cannot by any means be shaken,
or diverted from the friendship of the brave King your ally,--and
that too when the affairs of the Swedes are in such a posture that,
in preserving their alliance, it is manifest your Highness is led
rather by regard to the common cause of the Reformed Religion than
by your own interests; when we know too that, though surrounded on
all sides, and all but besieged, either by hidden or nearly
imminent enemies, you yet, with your valiant but far from large
forces, stand out with such firmness and strength of mind, such
counsel and prowess of generalship, that the sum and weight of the
whole business seems to rest, and the issue of this war to depend,
mainly on your will." The Protector goes on to say that, in such
circumstances, he would consider it unworthy of himself not to
testify in a special manner his sympathy with the Elector and
regard for him. He apologizes for delay hitherto in treating with
the Elector's agent in London, JOHN FREDERICK SCHLEZER, on the
matters about which he had been sent; and he closes with fervent
good wishes.--Evidently, the recognition of the importance of the
Elector, and anxiety as to the part he might take in the war now
involving Sweden, Denmark, Poland, and part of Germany, had been
growing stronger in Cromwell's mind within the last few weeks. From
the language of the letter one would infer either that Cromwell did
not yet fully know of that treaty of Nov. 1656 by which the Polish
King had bought off the Elector from the Swedish alliance by ceding
to him the full sovereignty of East Prussia, or else that since
then the Elector had been oscillating back to the
alliance.--SCHLEZER had been in London since 1655, and had lodged
at Hartlib's house in the end of that year.[1]

[Footnote 1: Letter of Hartlib's in Worthington's Diary and Correspondence, edited by Crossley (I, 66).]

Ten Latin State-letters nearly all at once, implying as they do consultations with Thurloe, if not also interviews with the Protector and the Council, argue a pretty considerable demand upon Milton at this date for help again in the Foreign Secretaryship.

It would seem, however, that it had occurred to the Protector and the Council that they were again troubling Mr. Milton too much or left too dependent on him, and that, with the increase of foreign business now in prospect in consequence of the Swedo-Danish war and its complications, it would be well to have an assistant to him, such as Meadows had been. Accordingly, at a meeting of the Council on Tuesday Sept. 8, 1657, Cromwell himself present, with Lawrence, Fleetwood, Lord Lisle, Strickland, Pickering, Sydenham, Wolseley, and Thurloe, there was this minute: "Ordered by his Highness the Lord Protector, by and with the advice of the Council, that MR. STERRY do, in the absence of Mr. Philip Meadows, officiate in the employment of Mr. Meadows under Mr. Secretary [Thurloe], and that a salary of 200 merks _per annum_ be allowed him for the same."[1] Whether this Mr. Sterry was the preacher Mr. Peter Sterry, already employed and salaried as one of the Chaplains to the Council, or only a relative of his, I have not ascertained; but it is of the less consequence because the appointment did not take effect. The person actually appointed was MR. ANDREW MARVELL at last. We say "at last," for had he not been recommended for the precise post by Milton four years and a half before under the Rump Government? Milton may have helped now to bring him in, or it may have been done by Oliver himself in recognition of Marvell's merits in his tutorship of young Dutton and of his Latin and English Oliverian verses. There seems to be no record of Marvell's appointment in the Order Books; but he tells us himself it was in the year 1657. "As to myself," he wrote in 1672, "I never had any, not the remotest, relation to public matters, nor correspondence with the persons then predominant, until the year 1657, when indeed I entered into an employment for which I was not altogether improper." When Marvell wrote this, he was oblivious of some particulars; for, though it is true that he was in no public employment under the Protectorate till 1657, it can hardly be said that he had not "the remotest relation" till then to public matters, nor any "correspondence with the persons then predominant." Enough for us that, from the year he specifies, and precisely from September in that year, he was Milton's colleague in the Foreign or Latin Secretaryship. "_Colleague_" we may call him, for his salary was to be £200 a year (not 200 merks, as had been proposed for Sterry), the same as Milton's was, and the same as Meadows's had been; and yet not _quite_ "colleague," inasmuch as Milton's £200 a year was a life-pension, and also inasmuch as, in stepping into Meadows's place, Marvell became one of Thurloe's subordinates in the office, while something of the original honorary independence of the Foreign Secretaryship still encircled Milton.--Just as Marvell had for some time been wistful after a place in the Council Office, suitable for a scholar and Latinist, so there was another person now in the same condition of outside waiting and occasional looking-in. "Received then of the Right honble. Mr. Secretary Thurloe the sume of fifty pounds: £50: _by mee_, JOHN DRIDEN" is a receipt, of date "19 October 1657," among Thurloe's papers in the Record Office--the words "_by mee_, JOHN DRIDEN" in a neat slant hand, different from the body of the receipt. The poet Dryden, it may be remembered, was the cousin and client of Sir Gilbert Pickering, one of the most important men in the Council and one of the most strongly Oliverian. The poet left Cambridge, his biographers tell us, without his M.A. degree, "about the middle of 1657," and it was a taunt against him afterwards that he had begun his London life as "clerk" to Sir Gilbert. As he cannot have got the £50 from Thurloe for nothing, the probability is that he had been employed, through Sir Gilbert, to do some clerkly or literary work for the Council. No harm, at all events, in remembering the ages at this date of the three men of letters thus linked to the Protectorate at its centre. Milton was in his forty-ninth year, Marvell in his thirty-eighth, Dryden in his twenty-seventh.[2]

[Footnote 1: Council Order Books of date.]

[Footnote 2: Marvell's _Rehearsal Transprosed_ (in Mr. Grosart's edition of Marvell's Prose Works), I. 322; Receipt in Record Office as quoted; Christie's Memoir of Dryden prefixed to Globe edition of Dryden's Poetical Works.--That Marvell was appointed Milton's colleague or assistant precisely in September 1657 is proved by the fact that his first quarter's salary appears in certain accounts as due in the following December (see Thurloe, VII. 487).]

On the day on which Dryden received his fifty pounds from Thurloe there was this entry in the birth-registers of the parish of St. Margaret's, Westminster: "October 19, 1657, _Katherin Milton, d. to John, Esq., by Katherin_." The entry may be still read in the book, with these words appended in an old hand some time afterwards: "_This is Milton, Oliver's Secretary_." It is the record of the birth of a daughter to Milton by his second wife, Katharine Woodcock, in the twelfth month of their marriage. The little incident reminds us at this point of the domestic life in Petty France; but it need not delay us. We proceed with the Secretaryship.

Whatever share of the regular work of the Foreign Department may have been now allotted to Marvell, an occasional letter was still required from Milton. The following Latin dispatches were written by him between September 1657 and Jan. 1657-8, when the Protector's Second Parliament reassembled for its second session, as a Parliament of two Houses:--

(CXII.) TO M. DE BORDEAUX, THE FRENCH AMBASSADOR, _Oct._
1657:--This is not in the Protector's name, but in that of the
President of the Council. It is about the case of a Luke Lucy
(_Lucas Lucius_) a London merchant. A ship of his, called
_The Mary_, bound from Ireland to Bayonne, had been driven by
tempest into the port of St. Jean de Luz, seized there at the suit
of one Martin de Lazon, and only discharged on security given to
abide a trial at law of this person's claim. Now, his claim was
preposterous. It was founded on an alleged loss of money as far
back as 1642 by the seizure by the English Parliament of goods on
board a ship called _The Santa Clara_. He was not the owner of
the goods, but only agent, with a partner of his, called Antonio
Fernandez, for the real owners; there had been a quarrel between
the partners; and the Parliament had stopped the goods till it
should be decided by law who ought to have them. Fernandez was
willing to try the action in the English Courts; but De Lauzon had
made no appearance there. And now De Lauzon had hit on the
extraordinary expedient of seizing Lucy's ship and dragging the
totally innocent Lucy into an action in the French Courts. All
which having been represented to the Protector by Lucy's petition,
it is begged that De Lauzon may be told he must go another way to
work.

(CXIII.) TO THE DOGE AND SENATE OF VENICE, _Oct._ 1657:--A
rather long letter, and not uninteresting. First the Protector
congratulates the Venetians on their many victories over the Turks,
not only because of the advantage thence to the Venetian State, but
also because of the tendency of such successes to "the liberation
of all Christians under Turkish servitude." But, under cover of
this congratulation, he calls to their attention again the case of
a certain brave ship-captain, Thomas Galilei (_Thomam
Galileum_). He had, some five years ago, done gallant service
for the Venetians in his ship called _The Relief_, fighting
alone with a whole fleet of Turkish galleys and making great havoc
among them, till, his own ship having caught fire, he had been
taken and carried away as a slave. For five years he had been in
most miserable captivity, unable to ransom himself because he had
no property in the world besides what might be owing to him for his
ship and services by the Venetian Government. He had an old father
still alive, "full of grief and tears which have moved Us
exceedingly"; and this old man begs, and His Highness begs, that
the Doge and Senate will arrange for the immediate release of the
captive. They must have taken many Turkish prisoners in their late
victories, and it is understood that those who detain the captive
are willing to exchange him for any Turk of equal value. Also his
Highness hopes the Doge and Senate will pay at once to the old man
whatever may be due to his captive son. This, his Highness
believes, had been arranged for after his former application on the
subject; but probably, in the multiplicity of business, the matter
had been overlooked. May the Republic of Venice long flourish, and
God grant them victories over the Turks to the very end!

(CXIV.) TO THE HIGH AND MIGHTY LORDS, THE STATES GENERAL OF THE
UNITED PROVINCES, _Nov._ 1657:--This is a letter of
commendation of the Dutch Ambassador William Nieuport on his
temporary return home on private affairs (see ante p. 312). Through
the "several years" of His Highness's acquaintance with him, he had
found him of "such fidelity, vigilance, prudence, and justice, in
the discharge of his office" that he could not desire a better
Ambassador, or believe their High Mightinesses could find a better
one. He cannot take leave of him, though but for a short time,
without saying as much. Throughout his embassy, his aim had been,
"without deceit or dissimulation," to preserve the peace and
friendship that had been established; and, so long as he should be
Dutch Ambassador in London, his Highness did not see "what occasion
of offence or scruple could rankle or sprout up" between the two
States. At the present juncture he should regret his departure the
more if he were not assured that no man would better represent to
their High Mightinesses the Protector's goodwill to them and the
condition of things generally. "May God, for His own glory and the
defence of the Orthodox Church, grant prosperity to your affairs
and perpetuity to our friendship!"--In writing this letter, Milton
must have remembered Nieuport's interference in behalf of Morus,
for the suppression at the last moment, if possible, of the
_Defensio Secunda_. He had not quite relished that
interference, or the manner of it. See Vol. IV, pp. 631-633, and
ante p. 202-203.

(CXV.) TO THEIR HIGH MIGHTINESSES THE STATES GENERAL OF THE UNITED
PROVINCES, _Dec._ 1657:--A fit sequel to the foregoing, for it
is the Letter Credential to GEORGE DOWNING, just selected to be his
Highness's Resident at the Hague, and so the counterpart of
Nieuport (ante p. 312). "GEORGE DOWNING," it begins, "a gentleman
of rank, has been for a long time now, by experience of him in many
and various transactions, recognised and known by Us as of the
highest fidelity, probity, and ability." He is, accordingly,
recommended in the usual manner; and there is intimation, though
not in language so strong as that of Lockhart's credentials to
France, that "communications" with him will be the same as with his
Highness personally. "Communications" only this case, Downing not
being a plenipotentiary like Lockhart.[1]

[Footnote 1: Downing's father was Emanuel Downing, a settler in Massachusetts, and his mother was a sister of the celebrated Governor John Winthrop. Though born in this country (in or near Dublin in 1623), their son had grown up in New England, much under the charge of Hugh Peters, who was related to him. He graduated at Harvard University in 1642. Thence he had come to England, and, from being a preacher in Okey's regiment of dragoons in the New Model (1645), had passed gradually into other employments. He had been Scoutmaster-General to the Army in Scotland (1653), but had been attached since 1655 to Thurloe's office, and employed, as we have seen, in diplomatic missions. His appointment to be Cromwell's minister at the Hague was a great promotion. His salary in the post was to be £1100 a year, worth nearly £4000 a year now. (Sibley's _Biographical Sketches of Graduates of Harvard University_. I. 28-53, with corrections at p. 583.)]

(CXVI.) TO THE PROVINCIAL STATES OF HOLLAND, _Dec._
1657:--While recommending DOWNING to the States General, his
Highness cannot refrain from recommending him also specially to the
States of Holland, self-governed as they are internally, and "so
important a part of the United Provinces" besides.

(CXVII.) TO FERDINAND, GRAND DUKE OF TUSCANY, _Dec._
1657:--The Protector's last letter to the Grand Duke (ante 372) had
produced immediate effect. The rascally Englishman Ellis, who, to
the discredit of English and Christian good faith, had run off
with the cargo of rice, sugar, and coffee, belonging to the Sultan
of Turkey, had been arrested in Leghorn. So the Grand Duke had
informed Cromwell in a letter dated Nov. 10. The present is a reply
to that letter, and is very characteristic. "We give you thanks for
this good office; and now we make this farther request,--that, as
soon as the merchants have undertaken that satisfaction shall be
made to the, Turks, the said Master be liberated from custody, and
the ship and her lading be forthwith let off, lest perchance we
should seem to have made more account of the Turks than of our own
citizens. Meanwhile we relish so agreeably your Highness's
singular, conspicuous, and most acceptable good-will towards us
that we should not refuse the brand of ingratitude if we did not
eagerly desire a speedy opportunity of gratifying you in return by
the like promptitude, by means of which we might prove to you in
very deed our readiness also in returning good offices. Your
Highness's most affectionate OLIVER."

To the same month as the last three of these Latin State-Letters belong two more of Milton's Latin Familiar Epistles. The persons to whom they are addressed are already known to us:

"To the very distinguished MR. HENRY DE BRASS.

"Having been hindered these days past by some occupations,
illustrious Sir, I reply later than I meant. For I meant to do so
all the more speedily because I saw that your present letter, full
of learning as it is, did not so much leave me room for suggesting
anything to you (a thing which you ask of me, I believe, out of
compliment to me, not for your own need) as for simple
congratulation. I congratulate myself especially on my good fortune
in having, as it appears, so suitably explained Sallust's meaning,
and you on your so careful perusal of that most wise author with so
much benefit from the same. Respecting him I would venture to make
the same assertion to you as Quintilian made respecting
Cicero,--that a man may know himself no mean proficient in the
business of History who enjoys his Sallust. As for that precept of
Aristotle's in the Third Book of his Rhetoric [Chap. XVII] which
you would like explained--'Use is to be made of maxims both in the
narrative of a case and in the pleading, for it has a moral
effect'--I see not what it has in it that much needs explanation:
only that the _narration_ and the _pleading_ (which last
is usually also called the _proof_) are here understood to be
such as the Orator uses, not the Historian; for the parts of the
Orator and the Historian are different whether they narrate or
prove, just as the Arts themselves are different. What is suitable
for the Historian you will have learnt more correctly from the
ancient authors, Polybius, the Halicarnassian, Diodorus, Cicero,
Lucian, and many others, who have handed down certain stray
precepts concerning that subject. For me, I wish you heartily all
happiness in your studies and travels, and success worthy of the
spirit and diligence which I see you employ on everything of high
excellence. Farewell.

"Westminster: December 16, 1657."

"To the highly accomplished PETER HEIMBACH.

"I have received your letter dated the Hague. Dec. 18 [foreign
reckoning: the English would be Dec. 8], which, as I see it
concerns your interests, I have thought I ought to answer on the
very day it has reached me. After thanking me for I know not what
favours of mine,--which, as one who desires everything good for
you, I would were really of any consideration at all,--you ask me
to recommend you, through Lord Lawrence, to our Minister appointed
for Holland [DOWNING, whose credential letters Milton had drawn up
only a day or two before]. I really regret that this is not in my
power, both because of my very few intimacies with the men of
influence, almost shut up at home as I am, and as I prefer to be
(_propter paucissimas familiaritates meas cum gratiosis, qui domi
fere, idque libenter, me contineo_), and also because I believe
the gentleman is now embarking and on his way, and has with him in
his company the person he wishes to be his Secretary--the very
office about him you seek. But the post is this instant going,
Farewell.

"Westminster: December 18, 1657."

Too much is not to be made of certain phrases in this note. Milton was declining, in as civil terms as possible, a request which might perhaps have been troublesome even if the Secretaryship to Mr. Downing had been vacant; and, though it would have been enough, as far as Heimbach's present application was concerned, to tell him that Mr. Downing was already provided, the other reason may have been thrown in by way of discouragement of such applications in future. We have had proof that Milton liked Heimbach; but we do not know what estimate he had formed of Heimbach's abilities. Still, any words used by Milton about himself are always to be taken as in correspondence with fact; and hence we are to suppose that, at the time he wrote, he did keep himself as much aloof as possible from the magnates of the Council, performing the pieces of work required of him in his own house, rather than making them occasions for visits and colloquies. His old and intimate friend Fleetwood, and his friend Lord President Lawrence, with Desborough, Pickering, Strickland, Montague, and Sydenham, all of whom had been mentioned by him with more or less of personal regard in the _Defensio Secunda_ in 1654, were still Councillors, and formed indeed more than half the Council; but his intercourse with some of these individually may have been less since his blindness. Then, of the rest, Thurloe was the real man of influence, the real _gratiosus_ who could carry or set aside a request like Heimbach's; and, though Milton's communications with Thurloe must necessarily have been more frequent than with any other person of the Council, one has an indefinable impression that Thurloe had never taken cordially to Milton or Milton to Thurloe. At the date of Milton's note to Heimbach, too, _gratiosi_ were becoming plentiful all round the Council. Cromwell's sixty-three writs for the new Upper House had gone out, or were going out, and in a week or two many more "lords" were to be seen walking in couples in any street in Westminster. Milton, in _his_ quiet retreat there, may have had something of all this in his mind when he wrote to young Mr. Heimbach.

The short second session of the Parliament, with its difficult experiment of the two Houses once more, and the angry dispute of the Commons whether the name of "Lords" _should_ be allowed to the Other House, had come and gone (Jan. 20--Feb. 4, 1657-8), and of Milton or his thoughts and doings through that crisis we have no trace whatever. Our next glimpse of him is just after the moment of the abrupt dissolution of the Parliament, when Cromwell was addressing himself again, single-handed, to the task of grappling with the double danger of anarchy within and a threatened invasion from without. The glimpse is a very sad one.

"_Feb._ 10, 1657-8, _Mrs. Katherin Milton_," and again "_March_, 20, 1657-8, _Mrs. Katherin Milton_," are two entries, within six weeks of each other, in the burial registers of St, Margaret's, Westminster. They are the records of the deaths of Milton's second wife and the little girl she had borne him only in October last. Which entry designates the mother and which, the child we should not know from the entries themselves; but a sentence in Phillips's memoir of his uncle settles the point. "By his second wife; Katharine, the daughter of Captain Woodcock of Hackney," says Phillips, "he had only one daughter, of which the mother, the first year after her marriage, died in childbed, and the child also within a month after." The first entry, therefore, is for the mother, and the second for the child. The mother died exactly at the time of the dissolution of the Parliament, and not in child-birth itself, but nearly four months after child-birth; and the little orphan, outliving the mother a short while, died at the age of five months. And so Milton was again left a widower, with his three daughters by the first marriage, the eldest in her twelfth year. His private life, for eighteen years now, had certainly not been a happy one; but this death of his second wife seems to have been remembered by him ever afterwards with deep and peculiar sorrow. She had been to him during the short fifteen months of their union, all that he had thought saintlike and womanly, very sympathetic with himself, and maintaining such peace and order in his household as had not been there till she entered it. And now once more it was a dark void, in which he must grope on, and in which things must happen as they would.