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I was at some pains to remove in the beginning of the work; and so often as possible in other places."

The passage to which he here more particularly refers, is the opening paragraph of the book, which, as exemplifying the dignified feeling with which he entered on this painful service, should be presented in this place. It is as follows:"To descant on the misfortunes of a person fallen from so high a dignity, who hath also paid his final debt both to nature and his faults, is neither of itself a thing commendable, nor the intention of this discourse. Neither was it fond ambition, nor the vanity to get a name, present or with posterity, by writing against a king. I never was so thirsty after fame, nor so destitute of other hopes and means, better and more certain to attain it; for kings have gained glorious titles from their favourers by writing against private men, as Henry VIII. did against Luther; but no man ever gained much honour by writing against a king, as not usually meeting with that force of argument in such courtly antagonists, which to convince might add to his reputation. Kings most commonly, though strong in legions, are but weak at argument; as they who ever have accustomed from their cradle to use their will only as their right hand, their reason always as their left. Whence unexpectedly constrained to that kind of combat, they prove but weak and puny adversaries: nevertheless, for their sakes, who through custom, simplicity, or want of better teaching, have not more seriously considered kings, than in the gaudy name of majesty, and admire them and their doings, as if they breathed not the same breath with other mortal men, I shall make no scruple to take up (for it seems to be the challenge both of him and all his party) to take up this gauntlet, though a king's, in the behalf of liberty and the commonwealth."*

The "Eikonoklastes" was re-edited by Richard Baron, in 1756, who prefaced it with a brief dissertation, written with

* Prose Works, vol. i. p. 307, 308.

great earnestness, and commending the work to the special study of his countrymen. With reference to the mere composition he says:-"The great Milton has a style of his own, one fit to express the astonishing sublimity of his thoughts, the mighty vigour of his spirit, and that copia of invention, that redundancy of imagination, which no writer before or since hath equalled. In some places, it is confessed, that his periods are too long, which renders him intricate, if not altogether unintelligible, to vulgar readers; but these places are not many. In the book before us his style is for the most part free and easy, and it abounds both in eloquence, and wit, and argument. I am of opinion, that the style of this work is the best and most perfect of all his prose writings." On the same subject, Mr. St. John remarks, with his usual discrimination,-"The Eikonoklastes'

abounds in passages of pcculiar sweetness and harmony— in short sentences-abrupt transitions—interrogations— unrounded periods, purposely introduced where the most consummate art would have them placed, to break up the surface of the style, and banish monotony. But why need I dwell on the mere mechanism of his language? Though frequently attentive to this point, he trusted-too much perhaps to other beauties, of a higher kind, inasmuch as what delights the intellect must be superior to what only charms the ear; and instead of periods, turned with unrivalled skill, unfolds before the mental eye a style glowing with imagery, animated, vehement, instinct in all its parts with life."

The structure of this work, consisting as it does of twenty-eight historical chapters, does not admit of a concise analysis, and the notice already bestowed upon it must therefore suffice.

The interest excited by the "Eikon Basilikè," and not less, perhaps, the triumphant power of the "Eikonoklastes," stimulated the exiled Prince Charles still further to attempt the conciliation of the sympathies of his country to the

fortunes of the deposed house. With this view he applied to Claude De Saumaise, better known by his Latinized name of Salmasius, then a professor in the University of Leyden, to undertake the cause of British royalty. The application was accompanied with a present of a hundred jacobuses, which probably had far less influence in determining the decision of the professor than the honour of advocating the cause of the heir apparent to the throne of England. At all events, in an evil hour he acceded to the proposal. Salmasius was a man of extensive and curious learning, but of essential littleness of character, and of egregious and importunate vanity; as the result of both he was insolent and pedantic. Had he never been drawn into this controversy, he would have only survived in the prying interest of the book-worm; as it is, he is immortalized like Icarus, and will be coeval with Milton as a captive chained to the triumphant chariot of his fame.

The work of Salmasius was published in the Latin language, and was entitled " A Royal Defence, addressed to Charles II., on behalf of Charles I." It was deemed necessary by the Council of State that this production should be replied to in the name of the Commonwealth, and Milton was again summoned forth to defend the liberties of his country. His reply, entitled "A Defence of the People of England," is the work by which he was best known to contemporary European states, and which of all his prose writings is still the one most popularly associated with his name. It is one of the noblest efforts of the human mind, displaying the unexampled combination of patriotism without nationality, religious independence without bigotry, crudition without pedantry, and severity without malice. In the conscious and excited power of his genius, he paralyses his victim with the shock of argument, dwindles him to insignificance by dignity of demeanour, holds him up by his wit to the ridicule of the world, lashes him with his satire, and finally slays him with his

eloquence, and buries him beneath a tumulus of learning. This terrible overthrow, combined with the manifest appreciation of it by Queen Christina of Sweden, whose previous favours towards him, passed, as has been suspected, the bounds of modesty, is said to have cost Salmasius his life, and certainly involved a sacrifice to Milton far more deplored by posterity than the death of any court parasite, whether domestic or foreign.

Unfortunately for Salmasius, his seduction by Charles II. involved the sin of political apostasy, and thus placed the previous writings of the hired advocate at the disposal of Milton, as an arsenal of poisoned weapons. Of these he avails himself with unsparing fidelity. It has already been shown how deeply ecclesiastical politics entered into the great question at issue; and as Salmasius had already publicly committed himself, Milton demolishes in his preface all the courtly adulations in which the future monarch is promised a spiritual as well as a political ascendancy, by quoting his own words against him :- "There are most weighty reasons why the church ought to lay aside episcopacy, and return to the apostolical institution of presbyters: that a far greater mischief has been introduced into the church by episcopacy, than the schisms themselves were, which were before apprehended: that the plague which episcopacy introduced, depressed the whole body of the church under a miserable tyranny: nay, had put a yoke even upon the necks of kings and princes: that it would be more beneficial to the church, if the whole hierarchy itself were extirpated, than if the pope only, who is the head of it, were laid aside."*

In subsequently pursuing the same argument, in its more general aspect, he is naturally led to animadvert on the principles of the Presbyterians, which virtually coincided with the despotic dogmas of his chief antagonist. "They now complain," he says, "that the sectaries are not extirpated; * Prose Works, vol. i. p. 13.

which is a most absurd thing to expect the magistrates should be able to do, who never yet were able, do what they could, to extirpate avarice and ambition, those two most pernicious heresies, and more destructive to the church than all the rest, out of the very order and tribe of the ministers themselves. For the sects which they inveigh against, I confess there are such amongst us; but they are obscure, and make no noise in the world: the sects that they are of, are public and notorious, and much more dangerous to the church of God. Simon Magus and Diotrephes were the ringleaders of them. Yet are we so far from persecuting these men, though they are pestilent enough, that though we know them to be ill-affected to the government, and desirous of and endeavouring to work a change, we allow them but too much liberty."

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The necessities of the case drove Salmasius to commit himself, without reservation, to the dogma of the Divine right of kings, an absurdity which we have subsequently been taught, by no mean ecclesiastical authority,† to identify with the Divine right of policemen and parish beadles. The essence of Milton's arguments, pursued throughout this treatise against this doctrine, may be thus concisely stated:-Civil government is indeed a Divine ordination, and as such demands a universal homage; but its claims are regulated by the same fundamental moral principles which bind the duties of subjects, and control individual action; that the powers that be, varying as they do with the vicissitudes of circumstance, are not to be regarded as individuals, but as functions subsisting under the conditions of unalterable law; that both parties in the social compact are bound by the same cardinal obligations, and that their claims and duties are strictly correlative. The violation of all laws, human and Divine, on the part of the first Charles, drove Salmasius for mere shelter to the doctrine of Divine right of kings; and the same melancholy history supplied Milton with the aptest illustration of the * Prose Works, vol. i. p. 27. + Archdeacon Paley.

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