We disapprove, we repeat, of the execution of Charles; not because the constitution exempts the King from responsibility, for we know that all such maxims, however excellent, have their exceptions; nor because we feel any peculiar interest in his character, for we think that his sentence describes him with perfect justice as “a tyrant, a traitor, a murderer, and a public enemy”; but because we are convinced that the measure was most injurious to the cause of freedom.  He whom it removed was a captive and a hostage:  his heir, to whom the allegiance of every Royalist was instantly transferred, was at large.  The Presbyterians could never have been perfectly reconciled to the father, they had no such rooted enmity to the son.  The great body of the people, also, contemplated that proceeding with feelings which, however unreasonable, no government could safely venture to outrage.

But though we think the conduct of the Regicides blameable, that of Milton appears to us in a very different light.  The deed was done.  It could not be undone.  The evil was incurred; and the object was to render it as small as possible.  We censure the chiefs of the army for not yielding to the popular opinion; but we cannot censure Milton for wishing to change that opinion.  The very feeling which would have restrained us from committing the act would have led us, after it had been committed, to defend it against the ravings of servility and superstition.  For the sake of public liberty, we wish that the thing had not been done, while the people disapproved of it.  But, for the sake of public liberty, we should also have wished the people to approve of it when it was done.  If anything more were wanting to the justification of Milton, the book of Salmasius would furnish it.  That miserable performance is now with justice considered only as a beacon to word-catchers, who wish to become statesmen.  The celebrity of the man who refuted it, the “Aeneae magni dextra,” gives it all its fame with the present generation.  In that age the state of things was different.  It was not then fully understood how vast an interval separates the mere classical scholar from the political philosopher.  Nor can it be doubted that a treatise which, bearing the name of so eminent a critic, attacked the fundamental principles of all free governments, must, if suffered to remain unanswered, have produced a most pernicious effect on the public mind.

We wish to add a few words relative to another subject, on which the enemies of Milton delight to dwell, his conduct during the administration of the Protector.  That an enthusiastic votary of liberty should accept office under a military usurper seems, no doubt, at first sight, extraordinary.  But all the circumstances in which the country was then placed were extraordinary.  The ambition of Oliver was of no vulgar kind.  He never seems to have coveted despotic power.  He at first fought sincerely and manfully for the Parliament, and never deserted it, till it had deserted