“Teach the Erring Soul” 1669–1674Since Milton’s state papers came into his hands, he may have been the amanuensis
who prepared them first for Aylmer and then, when Aylmer was refused permission
to publish them, Milton may have asked Skinner to prepare them, along with De
Doctrina Christiana, to send to Elzevier in Holland.^91 I think it likely that Skinner
began copying De Doctrina Christiana in the several months before Milton’s death,
completing by that time the 194 consecutive pages that are in his hand.^92 Given
Milton’s efforts in these years to arrange for the publication of all his manuscripts
that were or could be soon finished, he surely made similar plans regarding “his best
and most precious possession.” Evidently he could not bring to completion the
Latin Thesaurus which he had been compiling for decades; that manuscript is lost,
but it formed a substantial component of a Latin dictionary published in 1693.^93
In the summer of 1674 Milton was given, probably by some Whiggish or repub-
lican friend, a copy of an official Latin document announcing the election of a new
King of Poland, Jan Sobieski. He translated it and Aylmer published it, most likely
in July.^94 Milton omitted the long lists of names and titles of the Polish electors so as
to highlight issues of great interest to him and to England at that moment: an
elective monarchy, the choice of a superlatively worthy hero replete with all mili-
tary and civic virtues, the conduct of free elections in accordance with the country’s
laws, the happy avoidance thereby of the “chances of an Interreign,” and the new
king’s election “without his own Ambition, or the envy of corrupted Liberty.” Of
major importance is the guarantee of the people’s liberties by the king’s special
oath:
We will anoint and inaugurate him; Yet so as he shall hold fast and observe first of all
the Rights, Immunities both Ecclesiastical and Secular, granted and given to us by his
Ancestor of Blessed memory; as also these Law’s which we our Selves, in the time of
this present and former interriegn, according to the Right of our liberty, and better
preservation of the Commonwealth have established. (CPW VIII, 451, Declaration,
11)While Milton had some continuing interest in Poland as a bastion of Socinianism,
he surely undertook this translation because the prospect of a Roman Catholic
succession to the English throne was prompting some to think seriously about
breaking the hereditary succession.^95 Under cover of this Polish document Milton
resurrects, by implication, something of the theory of Tenure regarding the people’s
right to choose and change their government as they see fit, and also the idea of a
covenant binding the king to respect the people’s liberties. But Milton did not
think it prudent to sign his name to the translation, which might do its work better
if not identified with a notorious republican.
Sometime in 1673 or early 1674, Milton began preparing a new edition of Para-
dise Lost in twelve books, by dividing Books VII and X. He added little new mate-
rial: three lines of transition to the new Book VIII, five lines to the new Book XII,