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reconcile the Presbyterians to the present
administration. Persons were appointed to
assure them of the protection of the govern-
ment, and of the full enjoyment of their eccle-
siastical preferments, according to law. When
this would not do . . . . the famous Mr. Milton
was appointed to write for the government,
who rallied the seditious preachers with his
satirical pen in a most severe manner.
manner."*

The work to which Neale refers, and which Milton mentions in the extract just quoted, was first published in February, 1648-9, and was entitled, "The Tenure of Kings and Magistrates." It is able, elaborate, and like every thing from the pen of its great author, singularly eloquent. His aim was to prove that "it is lawful, and hath been so through all ages, for any who have the power, to call to account a tyrant or wicked king, and after due conviction, to depose and put him to death, if the ordinary magistrate have neglected or denied

* From this statement it would seem that Milton had been hired to defend the government. This was not true. What he wrote was a freewill-offering to the tranquillization of the state. His duties as Latin secretary did not include any such arrangement.

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to do it; and that they who of late so much blame deposing, are the men that did it themselves."

In this same year, Milton's prolific pen produced another pamphlet: "Observations upon the Articles of Peace which the Earl of Ormond has concluded at Kilkenny, January 17th, 1648-9, in the King's name, and by His Authority, with the Popish Irish Rebels." Esteeming the newformed Commonwealth to be threatened by the transactions of Ormond, who headed the disaffected Scotch Presbyterians, and who had entered into a treaty with the Irish partisans of Charles, a movement kept afoot for several months after the king's death, he wrote this tract to avert the menaced danger.

CHAPTER XI.

AT no period in history has Great Britain appeared to grander advantage than under the Commonwealth. Firm, able, yet tolerant in their domestic policy, inflexibly just and judicious in their dealings with foreign powers, the Council of State speedily inspired the utmost respect and awe in the breasts of the surrounding nations. Not Elizabeth herself had exerted a more potent influence in continental politics. In consequence of the proud position it acquired, the Commonwealth was enabled on several occasions to succor the oppressed of other lands, and even to dictate toleration and justice to foreign despots.

The influence of England at this time was owing very largely, without doubt, to the personal character of several of the most prominent members of the Council of State.*

Such

* The following is a complete list of the names of the members of the Council during the first year or two of its establishment: President, John Bradshaw, Esq.; Earls Denbigh, Mulgrave, Pembroke, and Salisbury; Lords Grey, Fairfax, and Lord Grey of

men as the younger Vane* and stout John

Bradshaw

could not fail to infuse their own

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Groby; Esquires, John Lisle, Rolles, and Bulstrode Whitelocke; Lieutenant-general Cromwell; Major-general Skippon; Sirs, Gilbert Pickering, William Massum, James Harrington, Henry Vane, Jr., John Danvers, William Armine, Henry Mildmay, and William Constable; Esquires, Alexander Popham, William Puresay, Isaac Pennington, Rowland Wilson, Edmund Ludlow, William Herringham, Robert Wellop, Henry Martin, Anthony Stapely, John Hutchinson, Valentine Walton, Thomas Scot, Dennis Bond, Luke Robinson, John Jones, and Cornelius Holland.

* Milton wrote the following sonnet on Sir Henry Vane the younger, a little previous to his appointment to the Foreign Secretaryship:

"TO SIR HENRY VANE THE YOUNGER.

"Vane, young in years, but in sage council old,
Than whom a better senator ne'er held

The helm of Rome, when gowns not arms repelled
The fierce Epirot and the Afran bold;

Whether to settle peace, or to unfold

The drift of hollow states, hard to be spelled,

Then to advise how war may, best upheld,

Move by her two main nerves, iron and gold,

In all her equipage: besides, to know

Both spiritual power and civil, what each means,

What severs each, thou 'st learned, which few have done:

The bounds of either sword to thee we owe;

Therefore on thy firm hand religion leans

In peace, and reckons thee her eldest son."

† Milton's opinion of John Bradshaw was evinced at about the same time that witnessed the production of the sonnet addressed to Vane. As what he says of that famous regicide may be of interest to some readers, it is subjoined:

"John Bradshaw-a name which, in every country where her authority is acknowledged, liberty herself has dedicated to immortal renown—was descended, as is generally known, of a noble family. The early part of his life he devoted to the study of the laws of his country; and then becoming a profound lawyer, a most

talents and virtues into the governmental policy.

eloquent advocate, a zealous asserter of freedom and the people's rights, he was employed in the more important affairs of the state, and frequently discharged, with unimpeachable integrity, the duties of a judge.

"When at length solicited by the Parliament to preside at the trial of the king, he did not decline this most dangerous commission; for to the science of the law he had brought a liberal disposition, a lofty spirit, sincere and unoffensive manners; and thus qualified, he supported that great and beyond precedent fearful office, exposed to the threats and to the daggers of innumerable assassins, with so much firmness, so much weight of manner, such presence and dignity of mind, that he seemed to have been formed and appointed immediately by the Deity himself for the performance of that deed, which the divine Providence had of old decreed to be accomplished in this nation; and so far has he exceeded the glory of all tyrannicides as it is more humane, more just, more noble to try and to pass legal sentence on a tyrant, than without trial to put him to death.

"Though in other respects neither gloomy nor severe, but gentle and placid, he yet sustains with unfaltering dignity the character which he has borne, and uniformly consistent with himself, he appears like a consul from whom the fasces are not to depart with the year; so that not on the tribunal only, but throughout his life, you would regard him as sitting in judgment upon kings.

"Unwearied and singly equal to a multitude in his labors for the public, in domestic life, to the utmost stretch of his powers, he is hospitable and splendid; the steadiness and adherency of his friendship are not to be affected by the vicissitudes of fortune; and instant and eager to acknowledge merit wherever it is discovered, he is munificent to reward it. The pious, the learned, the eminent in any walk of genius, the soldier, the brave man, are either relieved by his wealth, if in distress, or if not indigent, are cultivated by his attentions and cherished in his embrace. Delighted to dwell on the praises of others, he studiously suppresses his So great are his placability and readiness to forgive, that they are extended, as the experience of numbers hath ascertained,

own.

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