courteous admirers and friends. From Florence he went to Rome for two months more. Naples, where he became the guest of Manso, the old Marquis of Villa. There is an allusion on page 17 of the essay to the beautiful Latin poem he wrote out of gratitude to the marquis. And then he was just going to Sicily and to Greece when the news from England came which, one may say, ended this early joyous chapter in his life, and cost English literature the poet of the "Comus," if it gave her the poet of "Paradise Lost," and "Samson Agonistes." He turned back to his distracted native land to enter the great civil conflict already beginning there. On his way back to England he passed a few weeks again in Rome, and again two months in Florence. Then he went to Geneva by way of Venice, Verona, and Milan, staying a few days with his friends the Diodati family in Switzerland. In August, 1639, he was at home again, living at first by himself as a quiet student. But he never wrote after this with the sweet tone of the matchless verses of his youth. "His piping took a troubled sound" in the uproar of conflict which was arising in England over the issues between king and parliament. 12. It is going to be necessary, if we are intelligently to follow Macaulay's discussion of Milton's conduct, which occupies the whole latter half of this essay, to muster up all our information about the English history of the seventeenth century, which our author treats as a matter of common knowledge. The best book, perhaps, for such a purpose would be Macaulay's own "History of England," reading at least the first two chapters. Macaulay's essay on Hallam's "Constitutional History" is as good. The great work upon this period, too large to read hastily, is to be seen in the stately volumes of Gardiner's "History of the Civil War." If that is inaccessible, one may read Gardiner's contribution to the Epoch Series, "The Puritan Revolution." The two beautiful chapters of John Richard Green's "Short History," called "Puritan England," and "The Revolution," will help one exceedingly who has not much time to give to searching in larger books, and desires the most modern and impartial view. For Macaulay, whatever he may be, is not impartial in judging of seventeenth-century history. Macaulay treats the whole question of Milton's conduct in this period of his life somewhat peculiarly. He does not discuss its details; he takes up instead the "naked constitutional question," whether that party which resisted and finally executed the king was legally and morally right. This question he does not decide on its merits, but by an appeal to the action of the Englishmen of the next generation, who expelled from the throne James II. If this revolution of 1688 was justified (and no Englishman of modern days will deny that it was justified), then, to justify the party which drove Charles I. from the throne, Macaulay has but to show that Charles I. did the same things in 1649 that James II. did in 1688. We may here consider for a moment the well-known story of the Great Rebellion in order to follow intelligently, as we have said, Macaulay's argument upon this topic. 13. Charles I. entered upon his reign in 1625, inheriting a fatal legacy from his father, James I. The first two Stuarts held the doctrine of the "divine right of kings" in a peculiarly extravagant form. They believed, as Macaulay says in his history, that God "regarded hereditary monarchy, as opposed to other forms of government, with peculiar favour, that the rule of succession through eldest sons was a divine institution, that no human power could deprive the legitimate prince of his rights; that the laws by which the prerogative was limited were merely concessions which the sovereign had freely made and might at his pleasure resume; that any treaty into which a king might enter with his people was merely a declaration of his present intentions and not a contract of which performance could be demanded." This theory, says Macaulay, was never one of the "fundamental laws of England." On the contrary, it contradicted many facts of English history. But it found many advocates among those who were at that time about the king, and, in particular, made rapid progress among the clergy of the Established Church. On the other hand, it enraged and disgusted most Englishmen, who, under the influence of the Protestant religions of that century, were coming to have more and more respect for the new divine right of the people, and the right of private judgment. It was the baleful influence of this theory, that a king was a person so above the law that he could not make a binding contract with his people, which stained Charles's name with the reproach of tyranny and faithlessness. He was, though in other relations in life a high-minded gentleman, in the exercise of his office as monarch, as his people soon found, perfidious on principle. When the parties divided over that question in the reign of Charles, the party of the Parliament stood up at first only for the privileges of the subject established by law; while the party of the king supported only the royal "prerogative," that is, the general powers which a monarch possesses, not to be stated or defined by law. Both sides had something of right. The English king certainly had always had such general powers. He could, for example, convoke and dissolve Parliaments at such dates as he thought fit; he commanded the armies of England; he treated alone with foreign powers. Such irresponsible powers are always needed under any form of government and were known in England as the "prerogatives" of the sovereign. But the Parliament rightly maintained that there were limitations to the "prerogative" of very ancient date in England. First, they said, no English king ought to legislate without the consent of Parliament; secondly, the king could impose no taxes without the consent of Parliament; thirdly, he was, after all, with all his prerogatives, bound to conduct his administration in accordance with the laws of the land, and if he broke these laws, his advisers and agents were responsible. These were the opinions of the young Milton, and of nearly all the Puritan side. But the king held opposite views; and the difference soon appeared in practical politics. At his first entry into power Charles had quarrelled with his people over a question of foreign policy; and the Parliament, to bring him down, refused supplies. Charles then attempted to raise money for the expenses of his government, without any taxes from Parliament, by forced loans, and by other devices, and tried to put down opposition by arbitrary imprisonments. In 1628 Parliament retorted by sending him the "Petition of Right." This document begged (1) prohibition of all forms of taxation, forced loans, "benevolences," and so on, without consent of Parliament; (2) that soldiers should not be billeted in private houses; (3) that there should be no martial law in time of peace; (4) that no one should be imprisoned except on a specified charge. Charles assented to these proposals, and received as a reward five subsidies from Parliament. But he very soon prorogued Parliament, and went on levying royal taxes without the people's consent. Parliament angrily met again to resist the king. The speaker, acting under the king's orders, attempted to choke off debate, but the great Eliot offered his famous resolutions, which were passed while the speaker was held down in the chair. The king instantly dissolved the Parliament. For the eleven following years, from 1629 to 1640, while Milton was at college, reading in the country, and in Italy, Charles was governing without Parliament at all. By the exercise of his prerogative the king was raising money, 66 making peace and war, introducing distasteful changes in religious discipline, and imprisoning and fining and putting in the pillory men who resisted anything he did. His advisers and helpers were leading him onward in this mistaken course. In particular, Lord Strafford and Archbishop Laud are still remembered for these errors with sorrow and even abhorrence. By a thorough" policy of repression and enforcement of conformity to the king's will, this party hoped to make the English monarchy just what the Stuart theory of divine right declared it should be, an unlimited despotism. Laud desired to bring the influence of an obedient church, "the handmaid of arbitrary authority," to the support of the Stuart throne. Strafford, going over to Ireland as lord deputy, tried to provide, by a ruthless military régime, troops and money to be used in coercing England. To check the rising tide of wrath among his subjects, the advisers of the king developed tribunals, in the name of the "prerogative,” to fine, imprison, and pillory such people as they considered dangerous to their policy. The best remembered of these at this day are the "High Commission," a royal commission first created by Elizabeth to help her order ecclesiastical matters, and the "Star Chamber," originally a committee of Council called by the Tudor Kings (and even earlier) to treat of cases not determinable by common law. Then came the invention of "ship-money," and John Hampden's unsuccessful resistance at law. These were dark days for English liberty. 14. Milton came home from Italy just as the Scotch Presbyterian uprising was forcing Strafford and Charles to abandon their policy of "thorough" repression and call Parliament together again. After a year or two of anxious watching, under the excitement of the acts of the Long Parliament, Milton entered public life (as we should say) by publishing, in 1641, several pamphlets on the questions of |