“I... Steer Right Onward” 1654–1658to put down drunkenness, vagrancy, swearing, cursing, blasphemy, and Sabbath
breaking, to report on scandalous or unfit ministers and magistrates, and to raise
funds for their own maintenance and for the depleted government coffers by col-
lecting a 10 percent levy on royalist property. The laws against royalists were some-
times harshly, sometimes erratically, enforced. And while the major-generals’ charge
mostly involved seeing that the often lax local magistrates and justices of the peace
enforced existing laws, the perception was of a new moral police repressing local
pastimes and habits. Cromwell also put forth a new ordinance (August 18) to sup-
press scandalous books and pamphlets and to regulate printing, and another (Sep-
tember 5) to abolish the few remaining independent newsletters, leaving only two
government organs run by Nedham and Thurloe.^43 Milton probably accepted the
need to keep close watch on plotters and former malignants and to collect new
taxes from royalists. But the orders to regulate morals, censor the press, and settle
the church establishment more firmly go directly against his recommendations to
Cromwell and the paean to personal liberty in the Defensio Secunda. Milton was still
willing to work for Cromwell’s government, recognizing that he would do more
than most to protect religious liberty. But he could not have approved the direction
the Protectorate was taking.
In his recurring periods of leisure or lessened activity, Milton worked on some
ongoing projects: the early biographers mention a Latin Thesaurus, the History of
Britain, a “Body of Divinity” out of the Bible, a Greek Thesaurus, and (perhaps) the
beginnings of Paradise Lost.^44 Edward Phillips states that shortly after More “quitted
the field” Milton turned first to his never-completed Latin Thesaurus and to the
History:
He [then] had leisure again for his own Studies and private Designs; which were his
foresaid History of England, and a New Thesaurus Linguae Latinae, according to the
manner of Stephanus; a work he had been long Collecting from his own Reading, and
still went on with it at times, even very near to his dying day; but the Papers after his
death were so discomposed and deficient, that it could not be made fit for the Press;
However, what there was of it, was made use of for another Dictionary.^45The early biographers also record details of Milton’s daily life during such times of
leisure, emphasizing his delight in all kinds of music, his temperance in diet and
drinking, his affable conversation, and the visits of many friends. He enjoyed com-
pany. Aubrey claims that he was much visited by learned foreigners who “impor-
tuned [him] to goe into Fr[ance] & Italie”; and that many came to England chiefly
“to see O[liver] Protector & Mr. J. Milton” (EL 7). His student Richard Jones, the
son of his friend Lady Ranelagh, came to read to and write for him on some regular
basis. According to Edward Phillips, Lady Ranelagh visited frequently throughout
these years, as did “above all” his former student Cyriack Skinner; both lived nearby.^46
In the spring of 1656 Jones left to study at Oxford with a private tutor, Milton’s