[Footnote 1:  “O.  Cromwell’s Thankes to the Lord General faithfully presented by Hugh Peters in another Conference, together with an Hue and Cry after Mercurius Politicus:  London, Printed by M.T.” ("1660, May 10” in the Thomason copy).]

Our latest glimpse of Milton is on the 7th of May, the day before the public proclamation of Charles in London.  On that day “John Milton, of the City of Westminster,” transferred to his friend “Cyriack Skinner, of Lincoln’s Inn, Gentleman,” a Bond for L400 given by the Commissioners of the Excise in part security for money which Milton had invested in their hands.  In the deed of conveyance, still extant, under the words at the end, “Witness my hand and seal thus,” there follows the signature “JOHN MILTON,” not in his own hand, but recognisably in the fine and peculiar hand of that amanuensis to whom he had dictated the sonnet in memory of his second wife about two years before.  In yet another hand is the date “7th May, 1660”; but attached, to verify all, is Milton’s family-seal of the double-headed eagle.  Milton, we can see, wanted some money for sudden and urgent occasions, and his friend Cyriack advanced it.  Cyriack and others had, doubtless, been already about him for some days, imploring him to hide himself, and devising the means; and that very night, or the next, as we are to fancy, he is conveyed furtively out of his house in Petty France to some obscure but suitable shelter.  The three children he has parted with, the eldest not yet fourteen years old, the second not twelve, and the third just eight, are left under what tendence there may be, hardly knowing what has happened, but uncertain whether they shall ever again see their strange blind father.  All is dark, and we may drop the curtain.[1]

[Footnote 1:  Sotheby’s Ramblings in Elucidation of Milton’s Autograph, p. 129, and plate after p. 124.  The document mentioned was purchased in Aug. 1858, for L19, by Mr. Monckton Milnes (now Lord Houghton), apparently under the impression that the signature was Milton’s own.]

CORRIGENDA AND ADDENDA IN VOLS.  IV.  AND V.

Vol.  IV. pp. 272-273:—­From Mrs. Everett Green’s Calendar of Domestic State Papers for the Third Year of the Commonwealth I learn that the first meeting of the Council of State for that year was on Feb. 17, 1650-51, and not on Feb. 19.  There had been two meetings before that of the 19th, and at the first of these Bradshaw had been re-appointed President.

Vol.  IV. pp. 416-418 and 423-424:—­To Milton’s Letter to the Oldenburg agent Hermann Mylius, translated and commented on pp. 416-418, and to the story, as told at pp. 423-424, of the Safeguard for the Count of Oldenburg’s subjects obtained from the English Council of State by the joint exertions of Mylius and Milton, an interesting addition has turned up in the form of another Latin letter from