covered a stronger propensity to cruelty than he did in the first moments of power conferred on him by his recent popularity. When his heart ought to have been softened by the unexpected influx of prosperous fortune, he eluded the proposition which was made to him at Breda for a general amnesty, and evidently discovered that his spirit brooded revenge.

"When he was seated on his throne, he accepted those victims which the perfidiousness of party, in expiation of its own offences, was so base as to offer him; and he glutted the nation, so far as he durst, with an effusion of blood not more guilty than that of thousands, perhaps, who were present to behold it; for they who, from their office, were more personally engaged in the trial and execution of the king, were unquestionably not more criminal than were all those who had voted for these violences in Parliament, or, in the army, had first planned, and then imperiously carried them into effect. More however than they who were regarded as the actual regicides were exempted from the benefit of the amnesty. Neither Vane, nor Peters, nor Lambert was immediately im

plicated in the murder of the king; yet the two former were slaughtered, and Vane in violation of the royal promise to the Parliament for his pardon; while the last, the most guilty of the three, was indeed permitted to live, but to live only in a state of miserable exile.

"But not limited to the sufferings of the living, the vengeance of Charles extended itself to mean and atrocious outrages on the dead. It broke the hallowed repose of the tomb, and exhibited that last infirmity of our mortal nature, the corruption through which it is doomed to pass into its kindred earth, to the derision and the disgust of impotent malignity. When we behold the bodies of the illustrious usurper and of the formidable Ireton torn from their graves, and made the subject of idle punishment, we are less disposed to wonder than to smile at the cowardly and pitiful insult; but when we see subjected to similar indignities, the mouldering remains of the nobleminded Blake,* of the mild and amiable Clay

*

Blake, the famous admiral whose name stands first on the pages of the naval history of England, and whose integrity and patriotism need no vouchers.

1

pole, one of whom had strenuously opposed all the crimes of her father's ambition, and the other had carried the thunder and the fame of his country to the extremities of the world, we are shocked by the infamy of the deed, and are tempted in the bitterness of our hearts, to vent a curse upon the savageness of the perpetrators."

Upon his appearance once more in society, Milton was arrested, probably in consequence of the order for his apprehension issued in the preceding June by the House of Commons. The sequel is to be derived from the following Minutes in the journals of the House:

"SATURDAY, 15th Decem., 1660.

Ordered, That Mr. Milton, now in custody of the serjeant attending this House, be forthwith released, paying his fees."

"MONDAY, 17th December.

"A complaint made, that the serjeant-atarms had demanded excessive fees for the imprisonment of Mr. Milton,

"Ordered, That it be referred to a com

Mrs. Claypole, Cromwell's favorite daughter, a lady of singularly upright and humane character.

mittee for privileges, to examine this business, and to call Mr. Milton and the serjeant before them, and to determine what is fit to be given to the serjeant for his fees in this case."

What the conclusion of this committee was we know not; but it is certain that Milton was unconditionally released within a day or two, and that he rented a house, first in Holborn, near Red Lion-square, where he resided but a few months; next, in 1662, removing to Jewen-street; then to a small house in the Artillery-walk, adjoining Bunhill-fields; and in this residence he continued until the close of his life.

It is related by Richardson that, at some intermediate period after he left Jewen-street, he resided with Millington, a celebrated auctioneer of that age, who was accustomed to lead his venerable and illustrious lodger through the streets for air and exercise.*

In or about the year 1662, Milton once more entered into the marriage state, his choice being on this occasion a Miss Elizabeth Minshall, the daughter of a gentleman of

* See Richardson's Life of Milton.

Cheshire, and a distant relative of the poet's good friend and medical adviser Dr. Paget, then a physician of eminence in London, upon whose advice it was that Milton now married.

This lady appears to have made him an excellent and faithful wife, tending him with the utmost solicitude, and carefully protecting him from the imposition of heartless and false friends and relations.* From Mrs. Milton a number of interesting personal incidents touching her husband's mode of life, are to be gleaned. Among other things, she relates that he composed principally in the winter; and on his waking in the morning, he would request her to write at his dictation sometimes twenty, sometimes thirty verses. On being asked whether Milton did not frequently consult Homer and Virgil, she replied that "he stole from nobody but the muse who inspired him ;" and to a lady who inquired who that muse was, she quickly answered, "it was God's grace and the Holy Spirit that visited him nightly."+

It is sad and revolting to be obliged to

* Mrs. Milton survived her husband some fifty-five years, dying at Namptwich, in her native Cheshire, in the year 1729.

† Newton's Life of Milton.