The Life of John Milton: A Critical Biography

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“Our Expiring Libertie” 1658–1660

affected) people, law reform, schools to teach “all arts & sciences” and thereby
make all the land “much more civilized.” Also, the just division of the waste Com-
mons (the chief plank in the Diggers’ platform) will make the nation “much more
industrious, rich & populous” (338). Milton seems to be developing an interest in
power-sharing between the national government and the regions, but he makes
clear that all of this is “of a second consideracion,” to be dealt with only after the
“absolutely necessary” proposals regarding the Grand Council are in place, without
which “wee are like to fall into evills & discord incurable” (339).
During these momentous weeks Milton was also occupied with private mat-
ters.^65 On November 22 his long-time friend John Bradshaw died, leaving him a
testimonial gift of £10. A satiric funeral elegy linked the notorious president of the
regicide council with Milton: “His Justice was as blind as his friend Milton / Who
slandered the Kings Book with an ill tongue.”^66 On November 29 Milton signed in
a sprawling hand the discharge of Richard Powell’s bond of 1627, acknowledging
that the family had now paid in full the £500 loan and interest (LR IV, 282–3). The
next month he received a newsy letter (dated December 2/12) from Henry
Oldenburg in Paris, along with one, now lost, from his erstwhile pupil Richard
Jones. Oldenburg suggests that Milton might write a history of the English revolu-
tion, speculates that the new peace between France and Spain might threaten Eng-
lish Protestants, informs Milton that charges against his adversary More, now a
pastor in Paris, are to be taken up by a synod at Loudun, and passes on the rumor
that Salmasius’s posthumous reply is in press (CPW VII, 513–14). On December
20, a few days after his fifty-first birthday, Milton wrote back to both men. He
reported to Oldenburg that he is “as well as usual,” but he firmly rejects the notion
of writing about the English conflicts: “What we need is not one who can compile
a history of our troubles but one who can happily end them” (515). He agrees that
the union of those “enemies of religion and liberty,” France and Spain, increases
England’s vulnerability “in the midst of civil dissensions, or rather insanities,” but
insists that the chief danger comes from “our crimes” (515). He hopes the forth-
coming synod may expel More and asks to be informed when Salmasius’s posthumus
reply appears. To Jones he writes as teacher and adviser, intimating some concern –
warranted as it turned out – about Jones’s application and his character. He expects
from Jones, he states, not frequent letters but report of “your laudable progress and
praiseworthy achievement in the most valuable studies.” He sees Jones reprising the
story of Hercules’ choice, in that he also must choose between the pleasant and
flowery ways of vice and the “steep and dangerous slope which is virtue’s alone,”
which he must climb by his own effort and with the aid of his trusty guide, Oldenburg
(516).
At length, the officers bowed to necessity and on December 26, 42 MPs marched
back into parliament to try one more time to settle a republican government. Dur-
ing January Milton was probably cautiously hopeful that the Rump would manage
a settlement and that Monk would continue to support it; as David Norbrook

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