“You have, in your far higher majesty, scorned the title of King.  And surely with justice:  for if in your present greatness you were to be taken with that name which you were able when a private man to reduce and bring to nothing, it would be almost as if, when by the help of the true God you had subdued some idolatrous nation, you were to worship the gods you had yourself overcome.”

This warning, occurring in the midst of a magnificent panegyric, sufficiently vindicates Milton against the charge of servile flattery.  The frank advice which he gives Cromwell on questions of policy is less conclusive evidence:  for, except on the point of disestablishment, it was such as Cromwell had already given himself.  Professor Masson’s excellent summary of it may be further condensed thus—­1.  Reliance on a council of well-selected associates. 2.  Absolute voluntaryism in religion. 3.  Legislation not to be meddlesome or over-puritanical. 4.  University and scholastic endowments to be made the rewards of approved merit. 5.  Entire liberty of publication at the risk of the publisher. 6.  Constant inclination towards the generous view of things.  The advice of an enthusiastic idealist, Puritan by the accident of his times, but whose true affinities were with Mill and Shelley and Rousseau.

An interesting question arises in connection with Milton’s official duties:  had he any real influence on the counsels of Government? or was he a mere secretary?  It would be pleasing to conceive of him as Vizier to the only Englishman of the day whose greatness can be compared with his; to imagine him playing Aristotle to Cromwell’s Alexander.  We have seen him freely tendering Cromwell what might have been unpalatable advice, and learn from Du Moulin’s lampoon that he was accused of having behaved to the Protector with something of dictatorial rudeness.  But it seems impossible to point to any direct influence of his mind in the administration; and his own department of Foreign Affairs was neither one which he was peculiarly qualified to direct, nor one in which he was likely to differ from the ruling powers.  “A spirited foreign policy” was then the motto of all the leading men of England.  Before Milton’s loss of sight his duties included attendance upon foreign envoys on State occasions, of which he must afterwards have been to a considerable extent relieved.  The collection of his official correspondence published in 1676 is less remarkable for the quantity of work than the quality.  The letters are not very numerous, but are mostly written on occasions requiring a choice dignity of expression.  “The uniformly Miltonic style of the greater letters,” says Professor Masson, “utterly precludes the idea that Milton was only the translator of drafts furnished him.”  We seem to see him sitting down to dictate, weighing out the fine gold of his Latin sentences to the stately accompaniment, it may be, of his chamber-organ.  War is declared against the Dutch; the Spanish ambassador