and unedifying.”  Both apparently belong to his school-keeping days:  the little tract, “Of True Religion, Heresy, Schism, Toleration,” (1673) is, on the other hand, contemporary with a period of great public excitement, when Parliament (March, 1673) compelled the king to revoke his edict of toleration autocratically promulgated in the preceding year, and to assent to a severe Test Act against Roman Catholics.  The good sense and good nature which inclined Charles to toleration were unfortunately alloyed with less creditable motives.  Protestants justly suspected him of insidiously aiming at the re-establishment of Roman Catholicism, and even the persecuted Nonconformists patriotically joined with High Churchmen to adjourn their own deliverance until the country should be safe from the common enemy.  The wisdom and necessity of this course were abundantly evinced under the next reign, and while we must regret that Milton contributed his superfluous aid to restrictions only defensible on the ground of expediency, we must admit that he could not well avoid making Roman Catholics an exception to the broad tolerance he claims for all denominations of Protestants.  And, after all, has not the Roman Catholic Church’s notion of tolerance always been that which Macaulay imputes to Southey, that everybody should tolerate her, and that she should tolerate nobody?

A more important work, though scarcely worthy of Milton’s industry, was his “History of Britain” (1670).  This was a comparatively early labour, four of the six books having been written before he entered upon the Latin Secretaryship, and two under the Commonwealth.  From its own point of view, this is a meritorious performance, making no pretensions to the character of a philosophical history, but a clear, easy narrative, sometimes interrupted by sententious disquisition, of transactions down to the Conquest.  Like Grote, though not precisely for the same reason, Milton hands down picturesque legendary matter as he finds it, and it is to those who would see English history in its romantic aspect that, in these days of exact research, his work is chiefly to be recommended.  It is also memorable for what he never saw himself, the engraved portrait, after Faithorne’s crayon sketch.

“No one,” says Professor Masson, “can desire a more impressive and authentic portrait of Milton in his later life.  The face is such as has been given to no other human being; it was and is uniquely Milton’s.  Underneath the broad forehead and arched temples there are the great rings of eye-socket, with the blind, unblemished eyes in them, drawn straight upon you by your voice, and speculating who and what you are; there is a severe composure in the beautiful oval of the whole countenance, disturbed only by the singular pouting of the rich mouth; and the entire expression is that of English intrepidity mixed with unutterable sorrow.”

Milton’s care to set his house in order extended