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Restoration, the place of Latin secretary to Charles the Second. Few men heartily believe in the existence of virtue above their own reach. He knew what he would have done under similar circumstances; he knew that, had he lived during the riod of the Commonwealth, a similar offer from the Regicides" would have met with no "sturdy refusal" from him; he knew it was in his eyes no sin to accept of a pension from one whom he considered an usurper: how, then, could he believe, what must have humiliated him in his own esteem, that the old blind republican, bending beneath the weight of years and indigence, still cherished heroic virtue in his soul, and spurned the offer of a tyrant! Oh, but he had filled the same office under Oliver Cromwell! Milton regarded 66 Old

Noll" as a greater and better Sylla to whom, in the motto to his work against the restoration of kingship, he compares him, and evidently hoped to the last, what was always, perhaps, intended by the Protector, and understood between them, that, as soon as the troubles of the times should be properly appeased, he would establish the republic. In this hope Milton consented to serve with him, not to serve him; for Cromwell always professed to be the servant of the people. And, after all, there was some difference between Cromwell and Charles II. With the former the author of Paradise Lost had something in common; they were both great men, they were both enemies to that remnant of feudal barbarism, which, supported by prejudice and ignorance,

had for

ages exerted so fatal an influence over the destinies of their country.

71. Minds of such an order,-in some things, though not in all, resembling,-might naturally enough co-operate: for they could respect each other. But with what sense of decorum, or reverence for his own character, remembering the glorious cause for which he had struggled, could Milton have reconciled to his conscience, taking office under the returned Stuart, to mingle daily with the crowd of atheists who blasphemed the Almighty, and with swinish vices debased his image in the polluted chambers of Whitehall? The poet regarded them with contemptuous abhorrence; and, if I am not exceedingly mistaken, described them, under the names of devils, in the court of their patron and inspirer below. Besides, even had they possessed the few virtues compatible with servitude, it would have been matter of constant chagrin, of taunt and reviling on one side, and silent hatred on the other, to have brought republican and slave together in the same bureau, and to have compelled a democratic pen to mould court phrases for a despicable master.

72. So far, however, was the biographer from comprehending the character of the man whose life he undertook to write, that he seems to have thought it an imputation on him, and a circumstance for which it is necessary to pity his lot, that the dissolute nobles of the age seldom resorted to his humble dwelling! The sentiment is worthy of Salma

sius. But was there then living a man who would not have been honoured by passing under the shadow of that roof?-by listening to the accents of those inspired lips ?-by being greeted and remembered by him, whose slightest commendation was immortality? Elijah or Elisha, or Moses, or David, or Paul of Tarsus, would have sat down with Milton, and found in him a kindred spirit. But the slave of Lady Castlemaine, or the traitor Monk, o Rochester, or the husband of Miss Hyde, or that Lord Chesterfield who saw what Hamilton decribes, and dared not revenge the insult with his sword, might, forsooth, have thought it a piece of condescension to be seen in the Delphic cavern of England, whence proceeded those sacred verses which, in literature have raised her above all other nations, to the level of Greece itself!

or

73. In every point of view, however, Johnson was unhappy in his attempts at appreciating Milton. But he knew what would tell with the vulgar; and, therefore, not caring for what inference might be drawn by the more judicious, boldly advanced what he desired to be believed, without giving himself the trouble to inquire whether it were true or not. To lessen the authority of a man's political opinions, it is impossible to conceive a surer way to succeed with the unreflecting than by creating the belief that he was a closet-philosopher, or statesman, who amused himself with making governments on paper, and regulating, like another Jupiter, from his throne of clouds, the affairs of a world existing only in his imagination. This service is

what Johnson undertakes to perform for Milton, who, in his eyes, was a poor recluse scholar, with little experience or knowledge of business. He might, indeed, for this were difficult to deny,— construct an epic poem; but immediately plunged beyond his depth when he sought to fathom the mysteries of state, which are only to be comprehended by persons, who, like himself and Boswell, had mingled with the great world, and discovered by what secret springs the machine of the commonwealth is kept moving.

74. When drawing up this part of his brief, Johnson must doubtless have lost sight, for a moment, of the circumstances of Milton's life. He must have overlooked that, after acquiring such knowledge as is attainable at an university, and by the most diligent private study, he had, at a ripe age, travelled through several foreign kingdoms, mixing freely with persons of all ranks, carefully noting whatever seemed worthy of remark, having rendered himself so far master of their languages as to be able, in most European countries, to express himself with the fluency of a native; that with the habits and manners of youth, his "trade” of teaching had made him acquainted; that his studies, as his adversaries found to their cost, had rendered him familiar with the transactions of past times; and that, if he really, after all, was ignorant in the science of politics, notwithstanding that he had, during fourteen or fifteen years, been deeply and actively engaged in public business, living among the ablest statesmen of the age, conversing

daily with Cromwell-whom Dr. Johnson, perhaps, will allow to have been something of a politician— if after all this, I say, he was still a novice in state matters, his stupidity must have achieved a marvellous triumph over opportunity.

75. To such a conclusion, however, Dr. Johnson, expert as he is in sophistry, will, perhaps, find it difficult to bring us; and it remains to be comprehended by what logic he could himself have arrived at it there appear to be but the two ways following: first, it may be supposed that the scales of prejudice lay so thick upon his eyes that he was incapable of discerning the truth; or, secondly, that discerning it well, he disingenuously wrote contrary to his convictions. Now, which way soever the question be decided, little lustre will thereby be added to the doctor's reputation.

76. On another subject, of a very different nature, the biographer appears to have been desirous of shaking the pillars of Milton's fame; but I hope I may, in this have misunderstood him, though his language seems but too clear. It regards the moral character of the bard, and that too on a point upon which he had been often attacked by his enemies, and was peculiarly sensitive. After relating the circumstances of his first marriage, and the strange visit his wife, scared by "spare diet and hard study," made, in the course of one month, to her relations, Dr. Johnson adds: " Milton was too busy to much miss his wife; he pursued his studies, and now and then visited the Lady Margaret Leigh, whom he has mentioned in one of his sonnets."

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