More than two years had elapsed since Milton's last letters to Oldenburg and young Ranelagh (ante pp. 366-367). They were then at Sáumur in France, where they remained till March 1658; but since that time they had been travelling about, and from May 1659, if not earlier, they had been boarding in Paris. There are glimpses of them in letters from Oldenburg to Robert Boyle, and also in letters of Hartlib to Boyle, in which he quotes passages from letters he has received both from Oldenburg and from young Ranelagh. Thus, in a letter of Hartlib's to Boyle of April 12, 1659, there is this from Oldenburg's last: "I have had some discourse with an able but somewhat close physician here, that spoke to me of a way, though without particularizing all, to draw a liquor of the beams of the sun; which peradventure some person that is knowing and experienced (as noble Mr. Boyle) may better beat out than we can who want experience in these matters." Young Ranelagh seems to have fully acquired by this time the tastes for physical and experimental science which characterized his tutor; and his uncle Boyle may have read with a smile this from Hartlib of date October 22, 1659:—"This week Mr. Jones hath saluted me with a very kind letter, containing a very singular observation in these words: 'Concerning the generation of pearls I am of opinion that they are engendered in the cockle-fishes (I pray, Sir, give me the Latin word for it in your next) of the same manner as the stone in our body,—which I endeavour fully to show in a discourse of mine about the generation of pearls; which, when I shall have done it, shall wait upon you for my part in revenge of your observations. I heard lately a very remarkable story about margarites from a person of quality and honour in this town, which you will be glad, I believe, to hear. A certain German baron of about twenty-four years old, being in prison here at Paris, in the same chamber with a Frenchman (who told this, as having been eyewitness of it, to him that told it me), they having both need of money, the baron sent his man to a goldsmith to buy seven or eight ordinary pearls, of about twenty pence a piece, which he put a-dissolving in a glass of vinegar; and, being well dissolved, he took the paste and put it together with a powder (which I should be glad to know) into a golden mould, which he had in his pocket, and so put it a-warming for some time upon the fire; after which, opening the mould, they found a very great and lovely oriental pearl in it, which they sold for about two hundred crowns, although it was a great deal more worth. The same baron, throwing a little powder he had with him into a pitcher of water, and letting it stand about four hours, made the best wine that a man can drink.' Thus far the truly hopeful young gentleman, whereby he hath hugely obliged me. I wish he had the forementioned powder, that we might try whether we could make the like pearls and wine." From a subsequent letter of Hartlib's, dated Nov. 29, 1659, it appears that Oldenburg and Jones were both much interested in the optical instruments of a certain Bressieux, then in Paris, who had for two years been chief workman in that line for Descartes. They were anxious to make him a present of some good glass from London, because he was rather secretive about his workmanship, and such a present would go a great way towards mollifying him.¹

Very possibly with this last letter of Oldenburg's to Hartlib there had been enclosed a letter from Oldenburg, and another from young Ranelagh, to Milton. Two such letters, at all events, Milton had received, and undoubtedly through Hartlib, who was still the universal foreign postman for his friends. We can guess the substance of the two letters. Young Ranelagh does not seem to have troubled Milton with his speculations on the generation of pearls, or his story of the German baron and his alchemic powders, but only to have sent his dutiful regards, with excuses for long neglect of correspondence. Oldenburg had also sent his excuses for the same, but with certain pieces of news from abroad, and certain references to the state of affairs at home. Among the pieces of news were two of some personal interest to Milton. One was that the unfinished reply to his Defensio Prima, which Salmasius had left in manuscript at his death six years ago, was about to appear as a posthumous publication. The other was that there was to be a great Synod of the French Protestant Church, at which the case of Morus was to be again discussed. For, though it was more than two years since Morus had received his call to the collegiate pastorship of the Protestant Church of Paris or Charenton, the question of his admissibility to the charge had hung all that while between the Walloon Synods of the United Provinces and the French Protestant Church Courts, the latter on the whole favouring him, the former more and more bent on disgracing him. In April of the present year a Walloon Synod at Tergou had actually passed on him a sentence of suspension from the ministerial office and from the holy communion "until by a sincere repentance of his sins he shall have repaired so many scandals he has brought upon us." In spite of this, a French Provincial Synod, held at Ai in Champagne in the following month, had ordered his admission to be carried into effect, and the Parisian consistory had obeyed this order, though two members of it protested. There had since then been another Walloon Synod, held at Nimeguen in September, in which the former sentence of the Tergou Synod was confirmed, but, for the sake of peace between the Walloon Church and their brethren of the French Protestant Church, it was agreed to waive all farther jurisdiction over Morus in Holland and to "remit the whole cause unto the prudence, discretion, and charity of the National Assembly of the French churches to meet at Loudun." This was the Synod of whose approaching meeting Oldenburg had informed Milton—the Synod of Loudun in Anjou (Nov. 10, 1659—Jan. 10, 1660). It was to be a very important assembly indeed,—no mere Provincial Synod, but a national one, expressly allowed by Louis XIV., and to consist of deputies, clerical and lay, from all the Protestant churches of France, empowered to transact all business relating to those churches under certain royal regulations and restrictions, and in the presence of a royal Commissioner. As there had been no such National Protestant Synod in France for fifteen years, there was an accumulation of business for it, the case of Morus included. They were to examine that case de novo, and to pronounce finally whether Morus was guilty or not guilty, whether he should remain a minister of the French Church or not.¹

Milton's replies to the two letters will now be intelligible. He writes, it will be observed, in a gloomy mood, on the very day on which Whitlocke, for different reasons, was in a gloomy mood too and "wishing himself out of these daily hazards":—

TO HENRY OLDENBURG.

"That forgiveness which you ask for your silence you will give rather to mine; for, if I remember rightly, it was my turn to write to you. By no means has it been any diminution of my regard for you (of this I would have you fully persuaded) that has been the impediment, but only my employments or domestic cares; or perhaps it is mere sluggishness to the act of writing that makes me guilty of the intermitted duty. As you desire to be informed, I am, by God's mercy, as well as usual. Of any such work as compiling the history of our political troubles, which you seem to advise, I have no thought whatever [longe absum]: they are worthier of silence than of commemoration. What is needed is not one to compile a good history of our troubles, but one who can happily end the troubles themselves; for, with you, I fear lest, amid these our civil discords, or rather sheer madnesses, we shall seem to the lately confederated enemies of Liberty and Religion a too fit object of attack, though in truth they have not yet inflicted a severer wound on Religion than we ourselves have been long doing by our crimes. But God, as I hope, on His own account, and for His own glory, now in question, will not allow the counsels and onsets of the enemy to succeed as they themselves wish, whatever convulsions Kings and Cardinals meditate and design. Meanwhile, for the Protestant Synod of Loudun, which you tell me is so soon to meet [Milton does not seem to know that it had been sitting already for six weeks] I pray—what has never happened to any Synod yet—a happy issue, not of the Nazianzenian sort,¹ and am of opinion that the issue of this one will be happy enough if, should they decree nothing else, they should decree the expulsion of Morus. Of my posthumous adversary, as soon as he makes his appearance, be good enough to give me the earliest information. Farewell.

"Westminster: December 20, 1659."

TO THE NOBLE YOUTH, RICHARD JONES.

"For the long break in your correspondence with me your excuses are truly most modest, inasmuch as you might with more justice accuse me of the same fault; and, as the case stands, I am really at a loss to know whether I should have preferred your not having been in fault to your having apologised so finely. On no account let it ever come into your mind that I measure your gratitude, if anything of the kind is due to me from you, by your constancy in letter-writing. My feeling of your gratitude to me will be strongest when the fruits of those services of mine to you of which you speak shall appear not so much in frequent letters as in your perseverance and laudable proficiency in excellent pursuits. You have rightly marked out for yourself the path of virtue in that theatre of the world on which you have entered; but remember that the path is common so far to virtue and vice, and that you have yet to advance to where the path divides itself into two. And you ought now betimes to prepare yourself for leaving this common path, pleasant and flowery, and for being able the more readily, with your own will, though with labour and danger, to climb that arduous and difficult one which is the slope of virtue only. For this you have great advantages over others, believe me, in having secured so faithful and skilful a guide. Farewell.

"Westminster: December 20, 1659."

Two days after the date of these letters the uproar of execration round the Wallingford-House Government had reached such an extreme that Whitlocke made his desperate proposal to Fleetwood that they should extricate themselves from their difficulty by declaring for Charles and opening negotiations with him. Two days more, and Fleetwood's soldiery, under the command of officers of the Rump, were marching down Chancery Lane, cheering Speaker Lenthall and asking his forgiveness. Again two days more, and on the 26th of December, Fleetwood having given up the game and sent the keys of the Parliament House to Lenthall, the Rumpers were back in their old places. We have arrived, therefore, at that Third Stage of the Anarchy which may be called "The Second Restoration of the Rump."

Of Milton in this stage of the Anarchy we hear little or nothing directly; but there are means for tracing the course of his thoughts.

As may be inferred from the melancholy tone of his letter to Oldenburg, he had all but ceased to hope for any deliverance for the Commonwealth by any of the existing parties. Even the Second Restoration of the Rump, though it was what he was bound to approve, and had indeed suggested as possibly the best course, can have brought him but little increase of expectation. If, in its best estate, after its first restoration, the Rump had disappointed him, what could he hope from it now in its attenuated and crippled condition, with Vane expelled from it because of his actings during the Wallingford-House Interruption, with Salway out of it, who had worked so earnestly with Vane on the Church-question, and with others of the ablest also out of it, leaving a House of but about two scores of persons, to be managed by Hasilrig, Scott, Neville, and Henry Marten? Nay, not to be managed even by those undoubted Republicans, but to a great extent also by Ashley Cooper, Fagg, and others, whose Republicanism was of a very dubious character! For Milton cannot have failed to take note of the abatement in this session of the Rump of that Republican fervency which had characterized its former session. What had been his own two proposed tests of genuine Republicanism? Willingness of every one concerned with the Government to take a solemn oath of Abjuration of a Single Person, and willingness also of every such person to swear to the principle of Liberty of Conscience. How was it faring with these two tests in this renewed Session of the Rumpers? An abjuration oath of the kind indicated had been imposed indeed on the new Council of State; but nearly half of those nominated to the Council had remained out of that body rather than take the oath, and Hasilrig's proposal to require the same oath from all members of the House itself had been so strenuously resisted that it had fallen to the ground. Then, on the religious question, what was the deliberate offer of the House to the country in their heads for a public Declaration on the 21st of January 1659-60? "Due liberty to tender consciences" was promised; but that was a mere phrase of custom, implying little or nothing, and it was utterly engulphed, in Milton's estimate, by the accompanying engagement to "uphold a learned and pious ministry of the nation and their maintenance by Tithes." On the Church-disestablishment question the House had actually receded from its former self by announcing that it was not even to prosecute the inquiry as to a possible substitute for Tithes. Altogether, before the twice-restored Rump had sat a month, Milton must have seen that his ideal Commonwealth was just as far off as ever. All he could hope was that the wretched little Parliament would not prove positively treacherous.

With others, however, he must have been thinking more of Monk's proceedings and intentions than of those of the Parliament. Monk's march from Coldstream southwards on the 2nd of January; the vanishing of the residue of Lambert's forces before him; the addresses to him in the English counties all along his route; his answers or supposed answers to these addresses; his wary behaviour to the two Parliamentary Commissioners that had been sent to attach themselves to him and find out his disposition in the matter of the Abjuration Oath; his arrival at St. Alban's on the 28th of January; his message thence to the Parliament to clear all Fleetwood's regiments out of London and Westminster before his own entry; that entry itself on the 3rd of February, when he and his battered columns streamed in through Gray's Inn Lane; finally his first appearance in the House and speech, there:—of all this Milton had exact cognisance through the newspapers of his friend Needham and otherwise. It was very puzzling and by no means reassuring. If he had ever thought of Monk as by possibility such a saviour of the Commonwealth as he had been longing for, the study of the actually approaching physiognomy of Old George all the way from Scotland, and still more Old George's first deliverance of himself in the Parliament, must have undeceived him. The Abjuration Oath, it appeared, was not at all to Monk's mind. He would not take it himself in order to be qualified for the seat voted him in the Council of State, and he plainly intimated his opinion that the day for such oaths and engagements was past. Milton cannot have liked that rejection by the General of one of the tests on which he had himself placed so much reliance. But, further, what meant Monk's very ambiguous utterance respecting the three immediate courses one of which must be chosen? He had distinctly mentioned in the House that the drift of public opinion, as he could ascertain it from the addresses made to him along his march, was towards either an enlargement of the present House by the re-admission of the Secluded Members or a full and free Parliament by a new general election; and, though he had seemed to acquiesce in that third course which was proposed by the House itself, viz. the enlargement of the House by a competent number of new writs issued by itself under a careful scheme of qualification for electing or being eligible, he had left a very vague impression as to his real preference. Now to Milton, as to all other ardent Commonwealth's men, the vital question was which of these three courses was to be taken. To adopt either of the two first was to subvert the Commonwealth. To re-admit the secluded members into the present House was to convert it into a House with an overwhelming Presbyterian majority, and to bring back the days of Presbyterian ascendancy, with the prospect of a restoration of Royalty on merely Presbyterian terms. To summon what was called a new full and free Parliament was, all but certainly, to bring back Royalty by a more hurried process still. Only by the third method, the Rump's own method, did there seem a chance of preserving the Republican constitution; and yet Monk's assent to it had been but hesitating and uncertain. More ominous still had been his few words intimating his wishes in the matter of ecclesiastical policy. He could conceive nothing so good, on the whole, as the Scottish Presbyterianism he had been living amidst for the last few years, and he thought that the 'sober interest' in England, steering between the 'Cavalier party' on the one side and the 'Fanatic party' on the other, would be most secure by keeping to a moderate Presbytery in the State-Church. That Milton's views as to the merits of Scottish Presbytery were not Monk's is an old story, needing no repetition here. What must have concerned him was to see Monk not only at one with the great mass of his countrymen on the subject of a Church-Establishment, but actually retrograde on the question of the desirable nature of such an Establishment, inasmuch as he seemed to signal his countrymen back out of Cromwell's broad Church of mixed Presbyterians, Independents, and Baptists, into a Church more strictly on the Presbyterian model. Then another unpleasant novelty in Monk's case was his fondness for the phrases Fanatics, Fanatic Notions, the Fanatic Party. The phrases were not new; but Monk had sent them out of Scotland before him, and had brought them himself out of Scotland, with a new significance. Very probably they had been supplied to him out of the vocabulary of his Scottish clerical adviser Mr. James Sharp, or of the Scottish Resolutioner clergy generally. At all events, it is from and after the date of Monk's march into England that one finds the name Fanatics a common one for all those Commonwealth's men collectively who opposed a State-Church or the moderate Presbyterian or semi-Presbyterian form of it. Had Monk drawn out a list of his 'Fanatics,' he would have had to put Milton himself at the top of them, with Vane, Harrison, Barebone, and the leading Quakers.

Nevertheless, here was Monk, such as he was, the armed constable of the crisis, the one man who could keep the peace and let the Rumpers proceed in doing their best. That "best" as they had agreed specifically on the 4th of February, the day after Monk's arrival, was to be the recruiting of their own House up to a total of 400 members for England and Wales, such recruiting to be effected by the issue of a certain number of new writs, together with a scheme of qualifications calculated to bring in only sound Republicans, or persons likely to cooperate in farther measures with the present Rumpers. This being what was promised by the conjunction of Monk and the Rump, what could Milton do but acquiesce, be glad it was no worse, and contribute what advice he could? This, accordingly, is what he did. Pamphlets on the crisis, as we know, had been coming out abundantly—pamphlets for the good old cause of the Republic, pamphlets from Rota-men, pamphlets from Prynne and other haters of the Rump, pamphlets from crypto-Royalists, and pamphlets openly Royalist; and many of these had taken, and others were still to take, the form of letters addressed to Monk. It need be no surprise that Milton had his pamphlet in preparation. He had begun it just after Monk's arrival in London and the resolution, of the Rump to recruit itself; he had written it hurriedly and yet with some earnest care; and it seems to have been ready for the press about or not long after the middle of February. Before it could go to press, however, there had been another revolution, obliging him to hold it back. There had been the rebellion of the Londoners because of the resolution of the Rump to perpetuate itself by recruiting, instead of either readmitting the secluded members or calling a new free and full Parliament; there had been Monk's notorious two days in the City, by order of the Rump, quashing the rebellion, and breaking the gates and portcullises (Feb. 9-10); there had been his extraordinary return the third day, with his profession of regret before the Lord Mayor and the Aldermen and Common Council, and his announcement that he had dissolved his connexion with the Rump,—that third day wound up with yells of delight through all the City, the smashing of Barebone's windows, and the universal Roasting of the Rump in street-bonfires (Feb. 11); there had been the ten more days of Monk's continued residence in the City, the Rumpers vainly imploring reconciliation with him, and the Secluded Members and their friends gathering round him and negotiating; and, on Tuesday, Feb. 21, when he did remove from the City to Westminster, it was with the Secluded Members in his train, to be marched under military guard to their seats beside the Rumpers. The writs issued by the Rump for recruiting itself were now useless. It had been recruited in the way it least liked, by the sudden reappearance in it of the excluded Presbyterians and Royalists of the pre-Commonwealth period of the Long Parliament.

Far more than the mere stopping of his pamphlet was involved for Milton in the events of that fortnight. He could construe them no otherwise than as the breaking down of the inner rampart that defended the Commonwealth against Charles Stuart. The Roasting of the Rump in London was but a rough popular metaphor for "Down with the Republic"; and, had the tumult of that night extended from the City to Westminster and the breaking of the windows of "fanatics" become general, Milton's would not have escaped. Then, in the course of the negotiations with Monk through the fatal fortnight, had not the Rump itself quailed? Had they not offered to cancel the solemn Abjuration Oath, alike for the Councillors of State and for future members of Parliament, and to substitute only a general engagement to be faithful to the Commonwealth, without King, Single Person, or House of Lords? Hardly anywhere now did there seem to be that stern, bold, uncompromising opposition to Royalty which would register itself, as Milton wanted, in an oath before God and man, but only that feebler Republicanism which would pledge itself with the understood reservation of "circumstances permitting." But worst of all was the crowning fact that the Secluded Members had been restored. By that one stroke of Monk's all that had happened since the Commonwealth had been set up was put in question, and the power was given back into the hands of the very men who had protested and struggled against the setting up of the Commonwealth eleven years ago. How would these act? It might be hoped perhaps that some of the more prudent among them, having regard to the lapse of time and the change of circumstances, might not think it their duty to be as vehemently Royalist now as they had been in 1648, and also perhaps that the power of Monk, if Monk himself remained true, might restrain the rest. But would Monk remain true, or would his power avail long in restraining a Parliament the majority of which were Presbyterians and Royalists? Not to speak of the varied ability and subtlety of such of the new Parliamentary chiefs as Annesley, Sir William Waller, Denzil Holles, Ashley Cooper, and Harbottle Grimstone, what was to be expected from the remorseless obstinacy, the rhinoceros persistency, of such a Presbyterian as Prynne? How often had Milton jeered at Prynne and the margins of his endless pamphlets! It might be of some consequence to him now to remember that he had done so, and had therefore this virtual Attorney-General of the Secluded for his personal enemy. Altogether, Milton's despondency had never yet been so deep as it must have been at this beginning of the last phase of the long English Revolution, represented in the Parliament of the Secluded Members and in Monk's accompanying Dictatorship.

CHAPTER II.

Third Section.

MILTON THROUGH MONK'S DICTATORSHIP. FEB. 1659-60—MAY 1660.

FIRST EDITION OF MILTON'S READY AND EASY WAY TO ESTABLISH A FREE COMMONWEALTH: ACCOUNT OF THE PAMPHLET, WITH EXTRACTS: VEHEMENT REPUBLICANISM OF THE PAMPHLET, WITH ITS PROPHETIC WARNINGS: PECULIAR CENTRAL IDEA OF THE PAMPHLET, VIZ. THE PROJECT OF A GRAND COUNCIL OR PARLIAMENT TO SIT IN PERPETUITY, WITH A COUNCIL OF STATE FOR ITS EXECUTIVE: PASSAGES EXPOUNDING THIS IDEA: ADDITIONAL SUGGESTION OF LOCAL AND COUNTY COUNCILS OR COMMITTEES: DARING PERORATION OF THE PAMPHLET: MILTON'S RECAPITULATION OF THE SUBSTANCE OF IT IN A SHORT PRIVATE LETTER TO MONK ENTITLED PRESENT MEANS AND BRIEF DELINEATION OF A FREE COMMONWEALTH: WIDE CIRCULATION OF MILTON'S PAMPHLET: THE RESPONSE BY MONK AND THE PARLIAMENT OF THE SECLUDED MEMBERS IN THEIR PROCEEDINGS OF THE NEXT FORTNIGHT: DISSOLUTION OF THE PARLIAMENT AFTER ARRANGEMENTS FOR ITS SUCCESSOR: ROYALIST SQUIB PREDICTING MILTON'S SPEEDY ACQUAINTANCE WITH THE HANGMAN AT TYBURN: ANOTHER SQUIB AGAINST MILTON, CALLED THE CENSURE OF THE ROTA UPON MR. MILTON'S BOOK: SPECIMENS OF THIS BURLESQUE: REPUBLICAN APPEAL TO MONK, CALLED PLAIN ENGLISH: REPLY TO THE SAME, WITH ANOTHER ATTACK ON MILTON: POPULAR TORRENT OF ROYALISM DURING THE FORTY DAYS OF INTERVAL BETWEEN THE PARLIAMENT OF THE SECLUDED MEMBERS AND THE CONVENTION PARLIAMENT (MARCH 16, 1659-60—APRIL 25, 1660): CAUTION OF MONK AND THE COUNCIL OF STATE: DR. MATTHEW GRIFFITH AND HIS ROYALIST SERMON, THE FEAR OF GOD AND THE KING: GRIFFITH IMPRISONED FOR HIS SERMON, BUT FORWARD REPUBLICANS CHECKED OR PUNISHED AT THE SAME TIME: NEEDHAM DISCHARGED FROM HIS EDITORSHIP AND MILTON FROM HIS SECRETARYSHIP: RESOLUTENESS OF MILTON IN HIS REPUBLICANISM: HIS BRIEF NOTES ON DR. GRIFFITH'S SERMON: SECOND EDITION OF HIS READY AND EASY WAY TO ESTABLISH A FREE COMMONWEALTH: REMARKABLE ADDITIONS AND ENLARGEMENTS IN THIS EDITION: SPECIMENS OF THESE: MILTON AND LAMBERT THE LAST REPUBLICANS IN THE FIELD: ROGER L'ESTRANGE'S PAMPHLET AGAINST MILTON, CALLED NO BLIND GUIDES: LARGER ATTACK ON MILTON BY G.S., CALLED HE DIGNITY OF KINGSHIP ASSERTED: QUOTATIONS FROM THAT BOOK: MEETING OF THE CONVENTION PARLIAMENT, APRIL 25, 1660: DELIVERY BY GREENVILLE OF THE SIX ROYAL LETTERS FROM BREDA, APRIL 28—MAY 1, AND VOTES OF BOTH HOUSES FOR THE RECALL OF CHARLES; INCIDENTS OF THE FOLLOWING WEEK: MAD IMPATIENCE OVER THE THREE KINGDOMS FOR THE KING'S RETURN: HE AND HIS COURT AT THE HAGUE, PREPARING FOR THE VOYAGE HOME: PANIC AMONG THE SURVIVING REGICIDES AND OTHER PROMINENT REPUBLICANS: FLIGHT OF NEEDHAM TO HOLLAND AND ABSCONDING OF MILTON FROM HIS HOUSE IN PETTY FRANCE: LAST SIGHT OF MILTON IN THAT HOUSE.

The Parliament of the Secluded Members and Residuary Rumpers had been sitting for a few days, had confirmed Monk in the Dictatorship by formally appointing him Captain-General and Commander-in-chief (Feb. 21), and had also (Feb. 22) intimated their resolution to devolve all really constitutional questions on a new "full and free Parliament," when Milton did send forth the pamphlet he had written. It was a small quarto of eighteen pages with this title-page: "The Readie and Easie Way to Establish a Free Commonwealth, and the Excellence therof compar'd with the inconveniences and dangers of readmitting kingship in this nation. The author J.M., London, Printed by T.N., and are to be sold by Livewell Chapman at the Crown in Popes-Head Alley. 1660." Copies seem to have been procurable before the end of February 1659-60, but Thomason's copy bears date "March 3."¹ That was the day of the order of Parliament for the release of the last remaining Scottish captives of Worcester Battle.

The pamphlet opens thus:—

"Although, since the writing of this treatise, the face of things hath had some change, writs for new elections [by the late Rump] have been recalled, and the members at first chosen [for the original Long Parliament] readmitted from exclusion to sit again in Parliament, yet, not a little rejoicing to hear declared the resolutions of all those who are now in power, jointly tending to the establishment of a Free Commonwealth, and to remove, if it be possible, this unsound humour of returning to old bondage instilled of late by some cunning deceivers, and nourished from bad principles and false apprehensions among too many of the people, I thought best not to suppress what I had written, hoping it may perhaps (the Parliament now sitting more full and frequent) be now much more useful than before: yet submitting what hath reference to the state of things as they then stood to present constitutions, and, so the same end be pursued, not insisting on this or that means to obtain it. The treatise was thus written as follows."

This is an attempt by Milton even yet to disguise his despondency. He had written the pamphlet while the late Rump was still sitting, while the conjunction between them and Monk was unbroken, and when the last news was that they had issued, or were about to issue, writs for the recruiting of their body by a large number of like-minded additional members; but he will assume that the pamphlet may yet answer its purpose, with hardly a change of phraseology. No longer, it is true, does the power lie with the Rump, recruited or unrecruited; it lies now in the unexpected Parliament of the Residuary Rumpers plus Monk's restored representatives of the pre-Commonwealth period of the Long Parliament. But he will suppose the best even after that surprise. There is, at any rate, a more "full and frequent" Parliament than before: and there has been no declaration hitherto of any intention to subvert the Commonwealth. On the contrary, had not Monk, both in his speech to the Secluded Members before readmitting them, and also in his Declaration or Address to the Army published after their re-admission, used the language of a true Commonwealth's-man, and even called God to witness that his only aim was "God's glory and the settlement of these nations upon Commonwealth foundations"? Had not the Secluded Members virtually made a compact with Monk upon these terms? Milton will not, for the present, suppose either Monk or the Parliament false in the main matter. He will only suppose that they have perceived, with himself, the infatuated drift of the popular humour towards a restoration of Royalty, and will themselves listen, and allow the country to listen, to what he had written on that subject two or three weeks ago.

The despondency which he disguises in the preface appears in the pamphlet itself. Or rather it is a despondency dashed with a sanguine remnant of faith that all might yet be well, and that the means of perpetuating a Republic, all contrary appearances notwithstanding, might yet be shown to be "ready and easy." The use of these two words in the title of such a pamphlet at such a time is very characteristic. It was the public theorist, however, that ventured on them, rather than the secret and real man. Throughout the pamphlet there is a sad and fierce undertone, as of one knowing that what he is prophesying as easy will never come to pass.

About half of the pamphlet consists of a declamation in general on the advantages of a Commonwealth Government over a Kingly Government, and on the dishonour, inconveniences, and dangers, to the British Islands in particular, if they should relapse into the one form of Government after having had so much prosperous experience of the other. In the following specimen of the declamation the reader will note the prophecy of actual events as far as to the Revolution of 1688:—

"After our liberty thus successfully fought for, gained, and many years possessed (except in those unhappy interruptions which God hath removed), ... to fall back, or rather to creep back, so poorly as it seems the multitude would, to their once abjured and detested thraldom of kingship, not only argues a strange degenerate corruption suddenly spread among us, fitted and prepared for new slavery, but will render us a scorn and derision to all our neighbours. And what will they say of us but scoffingly as of that foolish builder mentioned by our Saviour, who began to build a tower and was not able to finish it: 'Where is this goodly Tower of a Commonwealth, which the English boasted they would build to overshadow Kings and be another Rome in the West? The foundation indeed they laid gallantly; but fell into a worse confusion, not of tongues but of factions, than those at the Tower of Babel, and have left no memorial of their work behind them remaining but in the common laughter of Europe.' Which must needs redound the more to our shame if we but look on our neighbours THE UNITED PROVINCES, to us inferior in all outward advantages; who, notwithstanding, in the midst of great difficulties, courageously, wisely, constantly, went through with the same work, and are settled in all the happy enjoyments of a potent and flourishing Republic to this day.—Besides this, if we return to kingship, and soon repent (as undoubtedly we shall, when we begin to find the old encroachments coming on by little and little upon our consciences, which must needs proceed from King and Bishop united inseparably in one interest), we may be forced perhaps to fight over again all that we have fought and spend over again all that we have spent, but are never likely to attain, thus far as we are now advanced to the recovery of our freedom, never likely to have it in possession as we now have it,—never to be vouchsafed hereafter the like mercies and signal assistance from Heaven in our cause, if by our ingrateful backsliding we make these fruitless to ourselves, all His gracious condescensions and answers to our once importuning prayers against the tyranny which we then groaned under to become now of no effect, by returning of our own foolish accord, nay running headlong again with full stream wilfully and obstinately, into the same bondage: making vain and viler than dirt the blood of so many thousand faithful and valiant Englishmen, who left us in this liberty bought with their lives; losing by a strange after-game of folly all the battles we have won, all the treasure we have spent (not that corruptible treasure only, but that far more precious one of all our late miraculous deliverances), and most pitifully depriving ourselves the instant fruition of that Free Government which we have so dearly purchased,—a Free Commonwealth: not only held by wisest men in all ages the noblest, the manliest, the equalest, the justest Government, the most agreeable to all due liberty, and proportioned equality both human, civil, and Christian, most cherishing to virtue and true religion, but also, (I may say it with greatest probability) plainly commended or rather enjoined by our Saviour Himself to all Christians, not without remarkable disallowance and the brand of Gentilism upon Kingship [quotation here of Luke XXII. 25, 26]¹ ... And what Government comes nearer to this precept of Christ than a Free Commonwealth? Wherein they who are greatest are perpetual servants and drudges to the public at their own costs and charges,—neglect their own affairs, yet are not elevated above their brethren,—live soberly in their families, walk the streets as other men, may be spoken to freely, familiarly, friendly, without adoration: whereas a King must be adored like a demigod, with a dissolute and haughty Court about him, of vast expense and luxury, masques and revels, to the debauching of our prime gentry both male and female,—nor at his own cost, but on the public revenue,—and all this to do nothing but bestow the eating and drinking of excessive dainties, to set a pompous face upon the superficial actings of State, to pageant himself up and down in progress among the perpetual bowings and cringings of an abject people."

Having thus expressed his belief that "a Free Commonwealth, without Single Person or House of Lords, is by far the best government, if it can be had," Milton glances at the objection that recent experience in England has shown such government to be practically unattainable. He denies this, alleging that all disappointment hitherto "may be ascribed with most reason to the frequent disturbances, interruptions, and dissolutions which the Parliament hath had, partly from the impatient or disaffected people, partly from some ambitious leaders in the Army"; and he declares that the present time is peculiarly favourable for one more vigorous effort. "Now is the opportunity, now the very season, wherein we may obtain a Free Commonwealth, and establish it for ever in the land without difficulty or much delay." He had written this when the Rump was sitting, and when he had in view the new elections that were to recruit that "small remainder of those faithful worthies who at first freed us from tyranny and have continued ever since through all changes constant to their trust"; but he lets it stand now, as not inapplicable to the new condition of things brought in by the sudden mixture of the Secluded with the Rumpers. The "Ready and Easy Way," however, has still to be explained; and to that he proceeds.

The central idea of the pamphlet, and practically its backbone, is One and the same Parliament in Perpetuity or Membership for Life. This may be a surprise, not only to those who, knowing that Milton was a Republican, conceive him therefore to have held necessarily the exact modern theory of Representative Government, but also to those who understand Milton better, and who may remember at this point his somewhat contemptuous estimates on previous occasions of the value of the bodies called Parliaments. If those previous passages of his writings are studied, however, it will be found that he is not now so inconsistent as he looks. He had always thought a broad general council of fit men in the centre of a nation the essential of good government; and his chief recommendation to Cromwell, even when approving of his exceptional Sovereignty, had been that he should keep round him such a general Council. Further, it will be found that permanence of the same men at the centre of affairs had always been his implied ideal, whether permanence of an exceptional Single-Person sovereignty surrounded by a Council, or permanence of a Council without a Single-Person sovereignty. His real objection to so-called Parliaments, it will be found, lay in the association with them of the ideas of shiftingness, interruptedness, successiveness, the turmoil and debauchery of successive general elections. So possessed was he with the notion of permanence of tenure as desirable in the governing agency, whatever it might be, that he had even modified the notion, as we have seen, to suit the anomalous conditions of that stage of the Anarchy which we have called the Wallingford-House Interruption, He had recommended then the experiment of a duality of life-aristocracies, one civil and the other military. And now, the turn of circumstances and of his speculations shutting him up once more to a single Civil Parliament of the ordinary size and kind, he will insist on the quality of permanence or perpetuity as that which alone will make it answer the purpose. But, the very name "Parliament" having been vitiated so as to make a permanent Parliament a difficult conception for most people, he would rather get rid of the name altogether, and call the central governing body simply THE GENERAL OR GRAND COUNCIL OF THE NATION.

All this appears in Milton's own words, as follows:—

"The ground and basis of every just and free Government (since men have smarted so oft for committing all to one person) is a GENERAL COUNCIL OF ABLEST MEN, chosen by the people to consult of public affairs from time to time for the common good. This Grand Council must have the forces by sea and land in their power, must raise and manage the public revenue, make laws as need requires, treat of commerce, peace, or war, with foreign nations; and, for the carrying on some particular affairs of State with more secrecy and expedition, must elect, as they have already, out of their own number and others, a Council of State, And, although it may seem strange at first hearing, by reason that men's minds are prepossessed with the conceit of successive Parliaments, I affirm that the GRAND OR GENERAL COUNCIL, being well chosen, should sit perpetual: for so their business is, and they will become thereby skilfullest, best acquainted with the people, and the people with them. The Ship of the Commonwealth is always under sail: they sit at the stern; and, if they steer well, what need is there to change them, it being rather dangerous? Add to this that the GRAND COUNCIL is both foundation and main pillar of the whole State, and to move pillars and foundations, unless they be faulty, cannot be safe for the building. I see not therefore how we can be advantaged by successive Parliaments, but that they are much likelier continually to unsettle rather than to settle a free Government, to breed commotions, changes, novelties, and uncertainties, and serve only to satisfy the ambition of such men as think themselves injured and cannot stay till they be orderly chosen to have their part in the Government. If the ambition of such be at all to be regarded, the best expedient will be, and with least danger, that every two or three years a hundred or some such number may go out by lot or suffrage of the rest, and the like number be chosen in their places (which hath been already thought on here, and done in other Commonwealths); but in my opinion better nothing moved, unless by death or just accusation.... [Farther argument for the permanence of the Supreme Governing Body, with illustrations from the Sanhedrim of the Jews, the Areopagus of Athens, the Senates of Lacedaemon and Home, the full Venetian Senate, and the States-General of the United Provinces]. I know not therefore what should be peculiar in England to make successive Parliaments thought safest, or convenient here more than in all other nations, unless it be the fickleness which is attributed to us as we are Islanders. But good education and acquisite wisdom ought to correct the fluxible fault, if any such be, of our watery situation. I suppose therefore that the people, well weighing these things, would have no cause to fear or murmur, though the Parliament, abolishing that name, as originally signifying but the parley of our Commons with their Norman King when he pleased to call them, should perpetuate themselves, if their ends be faithful and for a free Commonwealth, under the name of a GRAND OR GENERAL COUNCIL: nay, till this be done, I am in doubt whether our State will be ever certainly and thoroughly settled.... The GRAND COUNCIL being thus firmly constituted to perpetuity, and still upon the death or default of any member supplied and kept in full number, there can be no cause alleged why peace, justice, plentiful trade, and all prosperity, should not thereupon ensue throughout the whole land, with as much assurance as can be of human things that they shall so continue (if God favour us and our wilful sins provoke Him not) even, to the coming of our true and rightful and only to be expected King, only worthy as He is our only Saviour, the Messiah, the Christ, the only heir of his Eternal Father, the only by Him anointed and ordained, since the work of our redemption finished, Universal Lord of all mankind. The way propounded is plain, easy, and open before us, without intricacies, without the mixture of inconveniences, or any considerable objection to be made, as by some frivolously, that it is not practicable. And this facility we shall have above our next neighbouring Commonwealth (if we can keep us from the fond conceit of something like a Duke of Venice, put lately into many men's heads by some one or other subtly driving on, under that pretty notion, his own ambitious ends to a crown),¹ that our liberty shall not be hampered or hovered over by any engagement to such a potent family as the House of Nassau, of whom to stand in perpetual doubt and suspicion, but we shall live the clearest and absolutest free nation, in the world."