...  He left the regiment about June 1644, and his troop was given to James Berry ... the captain-lieutenant of Cromwell’s own troop’. (R.H.S.  Trans., vol. xiii, pp. 29, 30).  Berry subsequently became one of Cromwell’s major-generals.  His character is briefly sketched by Baxter, who calls him ‘my old Bosom Friend’, Reliquiae, 1696, p. 57.  For Captain William Evanson, see R.H.S.  Trans., vol. xv, pp. 22-3.

Page 146, l. 12.  A passage from Bacon’s essay ‘Of Faction’ (No. 51) is quoted in the margin in the edition of 1696.  ‘Fraction’ in l. 12 is probably a misprint for ‘Faction’.

Page 148, ll. 7-10.  The concluding sentence of the essay ’Of Simulation and Dissimulation’.  Brackets were often used at this time to mark a quotation.

40.

Reliquiae Baxterianae, 1696, Lib.  I, Part I, p. 48.

Much the same opinion of Fairfax was held by Sir Philip Warwick and Clarendon.  Warwick says he was ’a man of a military genius, undaunted courage and presence of mind in the field both in action and danger, but of a very common understanding in all other affairs, and of a worse elocution; and so a most fit tool for Mr. Cromwel to work with’ (Memoires, p. 246).  Clarendon alludes to him as one ’who had no eyes, and so would be willinge to be ledd’ (p. 138, l. 24).  But Milton saw him in a different light when he addressed to him the sonnet on his capture of Colchester in August 1648: 

Fairfax, whose name in armes through Europe rings Filling each mouth with envy, or with praise,...  Thy firm unshak’n vertue ever brings Victory home,...  O yet a nobler task awaites thy hand; For what can Warr, but endless warr still breed, Till Truth, & Right from Violence be freed, And Public Faith cleard from the shamefull brand Of Public Fraud.  In vain doth Valour bleed While Avarice, & Rapine share the land.

Fairfax’s military capacity is certain, and his private virtues are unquestioned.  Writing in 1648, Milton credited him with the power to settle the affairs of the nation.  But Fairfax was not a politician.  He broke with Cromwell over the execution of the king, and in July 1650 retired into private life.  Baxter, Warwick, and Clarendon all wrote of him at a distance of time that showed his merits and limitations in truer perspective.

Milton addressed him again when singing the praises of Bradshaw and Cromwell and other Parliamentary leaders in his Pro Populo Anglicano Defensio Secunda, 1654.  As a specimen of a contemporary Latin character, and a character by Milton, the passage is now quoted in full: