The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 998 pages of information about The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660.

The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 998 pages of information about The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660.
his knowledge of war, especially naval war, as proved by his frequent and many brave performances, but also gifted with probity, modesty, ingenuity, and learning, dear to all for the sweetness of his manners, and, what is now the sum of all, eager to serve under the banners of your Majesty, so renowned over the whole world by your warlike prowess.”  A favourable reception is bespoken for Ayscough, who is to bring certain communications to his Majesty, and who, in any matters that may arise out of these, is to be taken as speaking for Richard himself.  It was not till the beginning of the following year that Ayscough did arrive in the Baltic.

These five letters were undoubtedly the most important diplomatic dispatches of the beginning of Richard’s Protectorate.  They refer to the two most momentous foreign interests bequeathed from Oliver:  viz. the French Alliance against Spain, and the entanglement in Northern Europe round the King of Sweden.  Milton, as having written all the previous state-letters on these great subjects, was naturally required to be himself the writer of the five in which Richard announced to France and Sweden his resolution to continue the policy of his father.  Marvell’s pen may have been used, then and afterwards, for minor dispatches.

To the month of October 1658, the month after that of Oliver’s death, belongs also a new edition of Milton’s Defensio Prima.  It was in octavo size, in close and clear type, and bore this title:  “Joannis Miltonii, Angli, Pro Populo Anglicano Defensio contra Claudii Anonymi, alias Salmasii, Defensionem Regiam.  Editio correctior et auctior, ab Autore denuo recognita.  Londini, Typis Newcombianis, Anno Dom. 1658” (John Milton’s Defence, &c. “Corrected and Enlarged Edition, newly revised by the Author” London:  from Newcome’s press, &c.).[1] This edition seems to have escaped the notice to which it is entitled.  As far as my examination has gone, the differences from the original edition through the body of the work can be but slight.  There is, however, a very important postscript of two pages, which I shall here translate:—­

[Footnote 1:  Thomason copy in British Museum, with the date “Octob.” (no day) written on the title-page.]

“Having published this book, some years ago now [April 1651], in the hurried manner then required by the interests of the Commonwealth, but with the notion that, if ever I should have leisure to take it into my hands again, I might, as is customary, afterwards polish up something in it, or perchance cancel or add something, this I fancy I have now accomplished, though with fewer changes than I thought:  a monument, as I see, whosoever has contrived it, not easily to perish.  If there shall be found some one who will defend civil liberty more freely than here, yet certainly it will hardly be in a greater or more illustrious example; and truly, if the belief is that a deed of such arduous and
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The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.