English cópyes are to be kept untill they shall be called for by the lord Commissioner Whitelock.

"1652. May 26. Ordered, that the answere to the Paper, delivered unto the Commissioners of the Councell, appointed on that behalfe, by Monsieur Applebom, Publique Minister of the Queene of Sweden; and also the answere to the Queene of Sweden, now reported to the Councell from the Committee of Forreigne Affaires; be translated into Latine, and humbly represented to Parliament for their approbation.

e

"1652. July 6. Ordered, that the Articles now read, and reported from the Committee of Forreigne Affaires, in answere to the proposalls of the Danish ambassadours; and alsoe the Articles, prepared to be given to the said ambassadours from the Councell; bee approved of, and translated into Latine.

1652. July 13. Ordered, that Mr. Thurloe doe appoint fitt persons to translate the Parliament's declaration into Latine, French, and Dutch.

"1652. July 20. Memorandum, send to Mr. Dugard to speake with Mr. Milton concerning the printing the declaration.

"Mem. send to Mr. Milton the order, made on

They are in the published Litera Senatus &c. of Milton....

Lord's Day last was sevennight, concerning doctor Walker.

f

“1652. July 29. Ordered, that a copie of the Declaration of Parliament, concerning the business of the Dutch, bee sent to each of the ambassadours and publique ministers in towne, and alsoe to the publique ministers of this Commonwealth abroad.

"1652. Aug. 10. Ordered, that the Paper, now

f Before this Declaration had been published, and after hosti→ lities had taken place, one of the captains of the English fleet thus addressed Cromwell : 66 My Lord, I find the most, and indeed those that are best principled and most conscientious of our commanders, doe much desire some information of the justness of our quarrell with the Hollander, which they doe not in the least doubt of; yett I find them somewhat troubled and dejected for theyr ignorance in that poynt, &c. Your Excellencyes most faithful servant, WILL. PENN. From on board the Tryumph in the Downes, 2 June 1652." Orig. State-Letters, &c. preserved by Milton, ut supr. p. 87.

Edward Phillips, the biographer of his uncle Milton, relates a curious circumstance too respecting the Dutch business; in which the situation of his brother John, as a clerk or assistant under his uncle, seems to be intended. "Before the war broke out between the States of England and the Dutch," Phillips says, "the Hollanders sent over three ambassadours in order to an accomodation; but they returning re infectâ, the Dutch sent away a plenipotentiary, to offer peace upon much milder terms, or at least to gain more time. But this plenipotentiary could not make such haste, but that the Parliament had procured a copy of their instructions in Holland, which were delivered by our author to his kinsman that was then with him, to translate for the Council to view, before the said plenipotentiary had taken shipping for England," &c. Life of Milton.

Ꮮ

read, in answer to the Paper of the Spanish ambassadour, bee approved of, translated into Latin, and sent to the lord ambassadour of Spaine by Sir Oliver Fleming.

"1652. Oct. 1. Ordered, that the Answer, now read, to be given to the Danish ambassadours from the Councell, bee approved of; and that it be translated into Latine, and sent to the said ambassadours.

"1652. Oct. 7. Ordered, that the Paper, this day given in to the Councell by the lord ambassadour from the King of Portugall, be translated by Mr. Milton into English, and brought in to the Councell to-morrow afternoone.

"1652. Oct. 21. Ordered, that the Paper, now read, to bee sent to the Portugall ambassadour, bee approved of, translated into Latine, and carried to the said ambassadour by Sir Oliver Fleming, Master of the Ceremonies.

"1652. Oct. 22. Ordered, that the Paper, signed by Mr. Speaker, to bee sent to the Danish ambassadours, bee translated into Latine, and sent unto them by Sir Oliver Fleming.

"1652. Oct. 28. Ordered, that the Paper, now read to the Councell, to be given in to the Portugall ambassadour to-morrow in the afternoone by the Committee of the Councell appointed to that purpose, bee

translated into Latine, and delivered by them to the said ambassadour.

"1652. Nov. 3. Ordered, that the Letter, now read, which is to bee sent to the King of Denmark, bee approved of and translated into Latine, and offered to Mr. Speaker to bee signed by him; and the lord President is desired to offer it to him.

"1652. Nov. 19. Ordered, that the Paper, now read at the Councell, in answer to the Paper delivered in to the Councell from the Portugal ambassadour, bee approved of and translated into Latine, and delivered by the Committee of this Councell to the Portugal ambassadour.

"1652. Dec. 1. Ordered, that Mr. Milton be continued in the employment he had the last yeare, and have the same allowance for it as he had the last yeare."

We have thus brought the great poet to the close of the year 1652, in which his sight was wholly lost to him. For he is inhumanly upbraided with his blindness in Du Moulin's Regii Sanguinis Clamor, published in 1652; and in Thurloe's State-Papers, the fact is coupled with his celebrity, in a letter from the Hague, dated 20 Jun. 1653. "Vous avez en Angleterre un aveugle nommè Milton, qui a le renom d'avoir bien escrit." He himself has told us,

In his Defensio Secunda.

h

that his opponents triumphantly considered his loss of sight as a judgement from heaven upon him for writing against the King; while he solemnly appeals to God, that what he had written he believed to have been right and true; and that he was influenced neither by ambition, nor a thirst of gain, but entirely by duty, and honour, and love of his country. The reproach was long afterwards revived, when milder topicks might have better suited the occasion which elicited it, and have suppressed before a Christian audience the solemn utterance of an uncharitable and rash opinion. The fact is, Milton's eyes had been gradually failing, long before he had written or even thought of writing against the King, owing to the midnight studies of his youth; "the wearisome labours and studious watchings," as he feelingly calls them, "wherein I have spent and tired out almost a whole youth." For soon after this complaint, which his Apology for Smectymnuus records, the dreaded evil was at hand; and from 1644 his sight was on the decline. He had been cautioned by his physicians, while he was writing his Defence of the People, to desist from the task, if he valued the preservation of his sight; but he was undismayed

6

In a Sermon preached in the Cathedral Church of Exeter by Thomas Long, one of the Prebendaries, 1684, p. 14. "For my part," he says, "I shall like it (the Icón Basilikè) better for that which scurrilous Milton said to defame it; viz. that the king's party admired it, and were stricken with such blindness, as, next to the darkness of Egypt, happened not to any people more gross or misleading.' For which saying, perhaps it was, that Milton himself was smitten with blindness long before his death !”