“For the Sake of Liberty” 1652–1654him short of funds and offering some useful military information about the Mar-
quis of Argyle’s hidden cannon, which Milton passed on to the proper authori-
ties.^81
On February 13, 1653 Milton’s assistant Georg Weckherlin died. Though age
and ill health had limited his usefulness, someone was needed in his place. In a
letter of February 21 to his friend John Bradshaw, president of the council, Milton
recommended Andrew Marvell, whose career and qualifications he had learned a
good deal about “by report, & [in] the converse I have had with him” (CPW
IV.2, 859). Marvell was fresh from two years at Nunappleton tutoring Mary
Fairfax, daughter of the famous retired general. If his personal acquaintance with
Milton was recent, he knew Milton’s poetry and prose well, having echoed some
of it in his own poems of the early 1650s;^82 probably he also read the sonnet
Milton sent to his patron, Fairfax. Shortly before his February 22 interview with
Bradshaw he evidently called on Milton to display his abilities and ask his sup-
port: besides demonstrating his Latinity did he also read or give Milton some of
his poetry? Milton’s recommendation is wholehearted; clearly he wanted to be
associated with this bright young linguist and poet, though he insists that he can
still perform most of his duties and admits, with genial frankness, to a pang of
jealousy that such an able assistant might show him up, disadvantaged as he now
is:
[T]here will be with you tomorrow upon some occasion of busines a Gentleman
whose name is Mr: Marvile, a man whom both by report, & the converse I have had
with him, of singular desert for the state to make use of; who alsoe offers himselfe, if
there be any imployment for him... he hath spent foure yeares abroad in Holland,
ffrance, Italy, & Spaine, to very good purpose, as I beleeve, & the gaineing of those 4
languages; besides he is a scholler & well read in the latin & Greeke authors.... .If
upon the death of Mr. Wakerley the Councell shall thinke that I shall need any
assistant in the performance of my place (though for my part I find noe encumberances
of that which belongs to me, except it be in point of attendance at Conferences with
Ambassadors, which I much confesse, in my Condition I am not fit for) it would be
hard for them to find a Man soe fit every way for the purpose as this Gentleman....
I write sinceerely without any other end then to performe my dutey to the Publick in
helping them to an able servant; laying aside those Jealosies & that aemulation which
mine owne condition might suggest to me by bringing in such a coadjutor. (CPW
IV.2, 859–60)Despite this warm endorsement the council chose another young and able linguist,
27-year-old Philip Meadows.^83 Perhaps they already saw in him the potential he
later displayed in diplomatic missions to Portugal and Denmark.
Sometime in 1653, most likely, Milton took on as pupil Richard Jones, the son
of his good friend Lady Katherine Jones, Viscountess Ranelagh,^84 whose nephew
Richard Barry had been his student at the Barbican (1645–7?). Jones was then