“The So-called Council of State” 1649–1652task of answering Pro Rege to his younger nephew John. According to Edward
Phillips, Milton gave John’s text careful “Examination and Polishment,” supplying
“such exact Emendations before it went to Press, that it might have very well
passed for his” (EL 71). No doubt he did: he would want to be sure that this
defense of him, addressed to Europe, would meet (as it does) rigorous standards of
scholarship and Latinity. If Milton added the occasional paragraph or page – or
more – there is no way to tell. In his preface, John elides any such help, gaining
rhetorical points by representing his opponent as wholly unworthy of the great
Milton’s attention:
Everyone agreed that it was much beneath the dignity and eloquence of that cultured
and polished writer to stoop to digging up dunghills and to rebutting the wild prating
of an unbridled, foolish babbler. But for my own part, swayed not only by devotion
to country but by love of that liberty recently restored to us, and likewise bound by
many ties of duty to that gentleman whom I have always honored and who is now
attacked by this scurrilous fellow – I could not refrain from undertaking, even though
unasked, to blunt the impudence of this utterly impertinent scoundrel.^129The writing was completed by mid-September.^130 Since Milton was out of town
for some weeks before October 15, John probably gave him a draft upon his return.
The treatise was published on December 24, 1651 or shortly before, with the title,
Joannis Philippi Angli Responsio Ad Apologiam Anonymi cujusdam tenebrionis pro Rege &
Populo Anglicano infantissimam.^131 As custom dictated, Phillips followed Rowland’s –
ultimately Salmasius’s – organization, quoting brief snatches of Rowland’s text and
ridiculing his facts, logic, and style, often with witty word-play.
Milton’s absence may have involved a retreat to the nearby countryside – per-
haps Hammersmith if he still had property there; Mylius was told that he was “vier
meilen” from London.^132 He may have been trying some last desperate measures to
stave off blindness, or he may have sought a salubrious place to recover his health,
damaged by previous barbaric cures. A later letter (1654) to the Athenian scholar
Leonard Philaras contains a poignant account of his symptoms and sensations at this
time, “some months before my sight was completely destroyed”:
Everything which I distinguished when I myself was still seemed to swim, now to the
right, now to the left. Certain permanent vapors seem to have settled upon my entire
forehead and temples, which press and oppress my eyes with a sort of sleepy heaviness,
especially from mealtime to evening.... While considerable sight still remained,
when I would first go to bed and lie on one side or the other, abundant light would
dart from my closed eyes; then, as sight daily diminished, colors proportionately darker
would burst forth with violence and a sort of crash from within. (CPW IV.2, 869)Skinner’s biography refers to the “Issues and Seatons” used in an effort to save or
retrieve the sight of Milton’s blinded eye, concluding that the treatment may have