Florence of Worster, Huntingdon, Simeon of Durham, Hovedon, Mathew of Westminster, and many others of obscurer note, with all their Monachisms, is a penance to think. Yet these are our only Registers, transcribers one after another for the most part, and sometimes worthy enough for the things they Register. This travail rather than not know at once what may be known of our Ancient Story, sifted from Fables and Impertinences, I voluntarily undergo; and to save others, if they please, the like unpleasing labour; except those who take pleasure to be all thir life time, rakeing in the Foundations of old Abbies and Cathedrals.'

'Sometimes worthy enough for the things they register.' Milton had a conceit expressed in one of the noblest passages of this history, that Providence always finds a great narrator for a great deed-an inverted expression of the fact that a great historian will naturally choose to display his skill in the narration of great events-a Gibbon choosing the Fall of the Roman Empire, a Prescott the History of Ferdinand and Isabella, a Lingard the reign of Elizabeth, a Macaulay the Revolution (stopping for ever, it is said, at that threshold of dulness, the reign of the first George), and a Carlyle the histories of Cromwell and Frederick the Great. For worthy deeds,' says our author, 'we are not often destitute of worthy relators. As by a certain fate, great acts and great eloquence have most commonly gone hand in hand, equalling and honouring each other in the same ages.'

'He,' he continues in the passage to which we have referred

'He whose just and true valour uses the necessity of Warr and Dominion, not to destroy, but to prevent destruction, to bring in Liberty against Tyrants, Law and Civility among barbarous Nations, knowing that when he Conquers all things else, he cannot Conquer Time or Detraction, wisely conscious of this his want as well as of his worth not to be forgott'n or conceal'd, honours and hath recourse to the aid of Eloquence, his freindliest and best supply; by whose immortal Record his Noble Deeds, which else were transitory, becoming fixt and durable against the force of Yeares and Generations, he fails not to continue through all Posterity, over Envy, Death, and Time, also victorious. Therefore when the esteem of Science, and Liberal Study waxes low in the Common-wealth, wee may presume that also there all Civil Vertuc, and worthy Action is grown as low to a decline: and then Eloquence, as it were consorted in the same destiny, with the decrease and fall of Vertue corrupts also and fades; at least resignes her office of relating to illiterat and frivolons Historians; such as the persons themselvs both deserv, and are best pleas'd with; whilst they want either the understanding to choose better, or the innocence to dare invite the examining and searching stile of an intelligent and faithfull Writer to the survay of thir unsound exploits, better befreinded by obsctnrity han Fame.'

There is one characteristic of this history which, but for the dignity of style and matchless eloquence of expression of all the writer's thoughts, would strike a modern reader as amusing. We allude to the constant cropping out of the republican and puritanic sentiments of the author. There is scarcely a paragraph in which you do not detect these shibboleths. In one place, Picts and Scots are compared with the warriors of the author's time; in another, the modern style of dress derives an illustration from the painted bodies of the ancient Britons (what would he say now?); further on, a comparison is drawn between ancient Saxon and modern Presbyterian clergy, by no means to the latter's advantage. Here are two comparative illustrations of manners and customs. 'They' [the ancient Britons], he says—

'Painted with woad in sundrie figures to seem terrible as they thought, but poursu'd by Enemies, not nice of thir painting to run into Bogs, worse than wild Irish, up to the Neck, and there to stay many daies holding a certain morsel in thir mouths no bigger than a bean, to suffice hunger; but that receit, and the temperance it taught, is long since unknown among us.'

A little farther on follows a similar remark :

'Yet gallantrie they had, painting thir own skins with several Portratures of Beast, Bird, or Flower, A Vanitie which hath not yet left us, remov'd only from the skin to the skirt behung now with as many colour'd Ribands and Gewgawes.'

The Arian synod of the fourth century gives occasion for a not less 'odious' comparison in disparagement of the Westminster Assembly of Divines:

'At last Constantius appointed a Synod of more than 400 Bishops to Assemble at Ariminum on the Emperors charges, which the rest all refusing, three only of the British, poverty constreining them, accepted; though the other Bishops among them offer'd to have born thir charges: esteeming it more honourable to live on the Publick, than to be obnoxious to any private Purse. Doubtless an ingenuous mind, and far above the Presbyters of our Age; who like well to sit in Assembly on the Publick stipend, but like not the poverty that caus'd these to do so.'

A remarkable passage of this character was expunged by the public censor from this work, which was not allowed to be printed unless the author would consent to allow the Protestant expurgators of Charles the Second's reign to have their way with his productions. It was therefore left out, and does not appear in the copy from which we have been quoting. In 1681, however, it was separately printed, and was re-admitted in its proper place into the collected edition of Milton's prose works, published by Birch in 1738. The subjects of the author's denunciations in this instance were the Long Parliament and the Westminster Assembly, towards neither of which did Milton, at any time, bear much good feeling. Symmons, one of the most devout admirers and conscientious biographers of the author, terms it one of the most spirited and brilliant 'passages of the book;' and, although a Churchman, indignantly exclaims against the barbarian caprice' of the licensers, which led to its exclusion. If the licensers, however, had been æsthetic instead of political inquisitors, we could understand and justify the manner in which they dealt with the obnoxious paragraphs. Who but Milton, justly indignant though he might have been, would have thought of inserting angry invectives against the political and ecclesiastical bodies of the early part of the seventeenth century into a narrative of the state of the Britons under Honorius, in A.D. 418? We could, more aptly perhaps, quote them in the 'CHRISTIAN SPECTATOR,' in1858, as containing words of a reformer and anti-state-churchman, not without profit to those who may wisely read even two hundred years after they were written. We have extracted them as they are printed in Symmons' Life. First of the Long Parliament and political immorality of those days:

"For a parliament being called, to redress many things, as it was thought, the people, with great courage, and expectation to be eased of what discontented them, chose to their behoof in parliament such as they thought best affected to the public good, and some indeed men of wisdom and integrity; the rest (to be sure the

greater part) whom wealth, or ample possessions, or bold and active ambition (rather than merit) had commended to the same place.

'But when once the superficial zeal and popular fumes that cited their new magistracy were cooled and spent in them, straight every one betook himself (setting the commonwealth behind, his private ends before) to do as his own profit or ambition led him. Then was justice delayed, and soon after denied; spight and favour determined all; hence faction and treachery, both at home and in the field; everywhere wrong and oppression; foul and horrid deeds committed daily, or maintained in secret or in open. Some who had been called from shops and warehouses, without merit, to sit in supreme councils and committees (as their breeding was), fell to huckster the commonwealth. Others did thereafter as men could sooth and humour them best; so he who would give most, or under covert of hypocritical zeal insinuate basest, enjoyed unworthily the rewards of learning and fidelity; or escaped the punishment of his crimes and misdeeds. Their votes and ordinances, which men looked should have contained the repealing of bad laws and the immediate constitution of better, resounded with nothing else but new impositions, taxes, excises, yearly, monthly, weekly; not to reckon the offices, gifts, and preferments bestowed and shared among themselves. They, in the mean while, who were faithfullest to this cause, and freely aided them in person or with their substance, when they durst not compel either, slighted and bereaved after of their just debts by greedy sequestrations, were tossed up and down after miserable attendance from one committee to another with petitions in their hands, yet either missed the obtaining of their suit, or though it were at length granted (mere shame and reason ofttimes extorting from them at least a show of justice), yet by their sequestrators and sub-committees abroad, men for the most part of insatiable hands and noted disloyalty, those orders were commonly disobeyed; which for certain durst not have been without secret compliance, if not compact with some superior able to bear them out. Thus were their friends corporate in their enemies (while they forfeited their debtors to the state, as they called it, but indeed to the ravening seizure of innumerable thieves in office); yet were withal no less burdened in all extraordinary assessments and oppressions, than those whom they took to be disaffected. Nor were we happier creditors to what we called the state, than to them who were sequestered as the state's enemies.

For that faith which ought to have been kept as sacred and inviolable as anything holy, "the Public Faith," after infinite sums received, and all the wealth of the Church not better employed, but swallowed up into a private gulf, was not ere long ashamed to confess bankruptcy. And now besides the sweetness of bribery, and other gain, with their love of rule, their own guiltiness, and the dreaded name of Just Account, which the people had long called for, discovered plainly that there were of their own number who secretly contrived and fomented those troubles and contentions in the land, which openly they sat to remedy; and would continually find such work as should keep them from being ever brought to that terrible Stand of laying down their authority for lack of new business, or not drawing it out to any length of time, though after the ruin of a whole nation.'

Next of the Westminster Assembly, ecclesiastical corruption, and false State Churchism:

And if the State were in this plight, religion was not much better; to reform which a certain number of divines were called, neither chosen by any rule or custom ecclesiastical, nor eminent for either piety or knowledge above others left out, only as each member of Parliament or his prrvate fancy thought fit, so elected one by one. The most part of them were such as had preached and cried down, with great show of zeal, the avarice and pluralities of bishops and prelates; that one cure of souls was a full employment for one spiritual pastor, how able soever, if not a charge rather above human strength. Yet those conscientious men (ere any part of the work done for which they came together, and that on the public salary) wanted not boldness-to the ignominy and scandal of their pastor-like profession, and especially of their boasted reformation-to seize into their hands, or not unwillingly to accept (besides one, sometimes two or more, of the best livings) collegiate masterships in the universities, rich lectures in the city, setting sail to all

winds that might blow again into their covetous bosoms, by which means those great rebukers of non-residence, among so many distant cures were not ashamed to be seen so quickly pluralists and non-residents themselves, to a fearful condemnation doubtless by their own mouths. And yet the main doctrine for which they took such pay, and insisted upon with more vehemence than gospel, was but to tell us in effect that their doctrine was worth nothing, and the spiritual power of their ministry less available than bodily compulsion; persuading the magistrate to use it as a stronger means to subdue and bring in conscience than evangelical persuasion; distrusting the virtue of their own spiritual weapons, which were given them, if they be rightly called, with full warrant of sufficiency to pull down all thoughts and imaginations that exalt themselves against God. But while they taught compulsion without convincement, which long before they complained of as executed unchristianly against themselves, these intents are clear to have been no better than antichristian; setting up a spiritual tyranny by a secular power, to the adorning of their own authority above the magistrate (whom they would have made their executioner to punish church delinquencies), where of the civil laws have no cognizance.

‘And well did their disciples manifest themselves to be no better principled than their teachers, trusted with committeeships and other gainful offices, upon their commendations for zealous and (as they sticked not to term them) godly men, but executing their places, like children of the devil, unfaithfully, unjustly, unmercifully, and (when not corruptly) stupidly. So that between them the teachers, and these the disciples, there hath not been a more ignominious and mortal wound to faith, to piety, to the work of reformation, nor more cause of blaspheming given to the enemies of God and truth, since the first preaching of the Reformation.'

There are other passages that one would scarcely expect to find in a work by such a writer. Repeating, concerning A.D. 975, the familiar story of Athelwold and Elfrida, he takes occasion to justify the murder of Athelwold by Edgar. Edgar, having invited Athelwold to a hunt, shot him dead with an arrow. This is Milton's comment :- Some censure this act as cruel and tyrannical, but considered well, it may be judged more favourably, and that no man of sensible spirit but in his place, without extraordinary perfection, would have done the like.'

There are passages also of marvellous strength of expression and compactness of composition. We extract one on the retribution of Providence in the case of our Saxon rulers-a passage that, like others we have quoted, may apply with some force to the events of our own day:

'But when God hath decreed servitude on a sinful Nation, fitted by thir own Vices for no condition but servile, all Estates of Government are alike unable to avoid it. God had purpos'd to punish our instrumental punishers, though now Christians, by other Heathen, according to his Divine retaliation; Invasion for invasion, spoil for spoil, destruction for destruction. The Saxons were now full as wicked as the Britans were at thir arrival, brok'n with luxury and sloth, either secular or superstitious; for laying aside the exercise of Arms, and the study of all vertuous Knowledge, som betook them to over-worldly or vicious Practice, others to Religious Idleness and Solitude, which brought forth nothing but vain and delusive Visions; easily perceav'd such, by thir commanding of things, either not belonging to the Gospel, or utterly forbidden, Ceremonies, Reliques, Monasteries, Masses, Idols, and to these ostentation of Alms, got oft-times by rapine and oppression, or intermixt with violent and lustful deeds, somtimes prodigally bestow'd as the expiation of cruelty aud bloodshed. What longer suffering could there be, when Religion itself grew so void of sincerity, and the greatest shews of purity were impur'd?'

This leads us to another remark, viz., that Milton never forgets his Christianity, and never fails to bring the highest of Christian principles

to bear upon his subject. Besides the paragraph we have quoted, we have another on the condition of the Britons after the Romans had forsaken the island :

'Wherein we have heard the many Miseries and Desolations, brought by a Divine Hand on a perverse Nation; driv'n, when nothing else would reform them, out of a fair Country, into a Mountanous and Barren Corner, by Strangers and Pagans. So much more tolerable in the Eye of Heav'n is Infidelity profess't, than Christian Faith and Religion dishonoured by unchristian works.'

His skill and aptitude in the delineation of character are not least remarkable. Could there possibly be more fulness with equal brevity than we find in the sketch of King Alfred?-a sketch, as all will see, scarcely true with regard to the subject; for Dr. Pauli and others have recently exhumed some facts that very considerably detract from the goodness of the great king's reputation, but wonderfully steady and clear in the drawing:

'He was of person comlier than all his Brethren, of pleasing tongue and gracefull behaviour, ready wit and memory; yet through the fondness of his Parents towards him, had not bin taught to read till the twelfth year of his Age; but the great desire of learning which was in him, soon appear'd, by his conning of Saxon Poems day and night, which with great attention he heard by others repeated. He was, besides, excellent at Hunting, and the new Art then of Hawking, but more exemplary in devotion, having collected into a Book certain Prayers and Psalms, which he carried ever with him in his bosome to use on all occasions. He thirsted after all liberal knowledge, and oft complain'd that in his Youth he had no Teachers, in his middle age so little vacancy from Wars, and the cares of his Kingdom, yet leasure he found sometimes, not only to learn much himself, but to communicate therof what he could to his People, by translating Books out of Latin into English, Orosius, Boethius, Beda's History and others, permitted none unlern'd to bear Office, either in Court or Common-wealth: at twenty years of Age not yet Reigning, he took to wife Egelswitha, the daughter of Ethelred, a Mercian Earl. The Extremities which befell him in the sixt of his Reign, Neothan Abbott told him, were justly come upon him for neglecting in his younger dayes the complaints of such as injur'd and oppress'd repair'd to him, as then second person in the Kingdome, for redress; which neglect were it such indeed, were yet excusable in a Youth, through jollity of mind unwilling perhaps to be detain'd long with sad and sorrowful Narrations; but from the time of his undertaking Regal Charge, no man more patient in hearing Causes, more inquisitive in Examining, more exact in doing Justice, and providing good Laws, which are yet extant; more severe in punishing unjust Judges or obstinate Offenders. Theeves especially and robbers, to the terrour of whom in cross wayes were hung upon a high Post certain Chains of Gold, as it were daring any one to take them thence; so that Justice seem'd in his dayes not to flourish only, but to triumph: no man than hee more frugal of two precious things in Man's life, his Time and his Revenue; no man wiser in the disposal of both. His Time, the day, and night, he distributed by the burning of certain Tapours into three equall portions: the one was for Devotion, the other for Publick or private Affairs, the third for bodily refreshment: how each hour past, he was put in mind by one who had that Office. His whole Annual Revenue, which his first care was should be justly his own, he divided into two equall parts; the first he imploy'd to Secular Uses, and subdivided those into three, the first to pay his Souldiers, Houshold-Servants and Guard, of which divided into three Bands, one attended monthly by turn; the second was to pay his Architects and Workmen, whom he had got together of several nations; for he was also an Elegant Builder; above the custome and conceit of Englishmen in those days: the third he had in readiness to releive or honour Strangers according to thir worth, who came from all parts to see him, and to live under him. The other equal part of his yearly VOL. VIII.

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