as they had proposed, had again adjourned the subject. On Wednesday the 29th, accordingly, there was a fresh manifesto from Fairfax and his Council of Officers at Windsor. After complaining of the delays over the Remonstrance and of the continued infatuation of the Commons over the farce of the Newport Treaty, they proceeded, " For the present, as the case "stands, we apprehend ourselves obliged, in duty to God, "this kingdom, and good men therein, to improve our utmost abilities, in all honest ways, for the avoiding those great “evils we have remonstrated, and for prosecution of the "good things we have propounded;" and they concluded with this announcement, "For all these ends we are now "drawing up with the Army to London, there to follow Pro"vidence as God shall clear our way." This document, signed by Rushworth, reached the Commons on the 30th. They affected to ignore it, and still refused, by a majority of 125 to 58, to proceed to the consideration of the Army's Remonstrance. Next day, Friday Dec. 1, the tune was somewhat changed. The advanced guards of the Army were then actually at Hyde Park Corner, and the City and the two Houses were in terror. Saturday, Dec. 2, consummated the business. Despite an order bidding him back, Fairfax was then in Whitehall, his head-quarters close to the two Houses, and his regiments of horse and foot distributed round about. London and Westminster were, in fact, once more in the Army's possession. Nevertheless both Houses met that day in due form, and there was a violent debate in the Commons over the Treaty as affected by the new turn of affairs. The debate broke off late in the afternoon, when it was adjourned till Monday by a majority of 132 to 102. The news of the abduction of the King to Hurst Castle had not yet reached London, and Cromwell was still believed to be at Pontefract.1

1 Commons and Lords Journals of Nov. 27 to Dec. 2, 1648; Parl. Hist. III. 1134 -1146; Rushworth, VII. 1349-50.

CHAPTER II.

TROUBLES IN THE BARBICAN HOUSEHOLD: CHRISTOPHER MILTON'S COMPOSITION SUIT: MR. POWELL'S COMPOSITION SUIT: DEATH OF MR. POWELL: HIS WILL: DEATH OF MILTON'S FATHER-SONNET XIV. AND ODE TO JOHN ROUS-ITALIAN REMINISCENCES: LOST LETTERS FROM CARLO DATI OF FLORENCE: MILTON'S REPLY TO THE LAST OF THEM-PEDAGOGY IN THE BARBICAN: LIST OF MILTON'S KNOWN PUPILS: LADY RANELAGH-EDUCATIONAL REFORM STILL A QUESTION: HARTLIB AGAIN: THE INVISIBLE COLLEGE: YOUNG ROBERT BOYLE AND WILLIAM PETTY-REMOVAL FROM BARBICAN TO HIGH HOLBORN-MEDITATIONS AND OCCUPATIONS IN THE HOUSE IN HIGH HOLBORN: MILTON'S SYMPATHIES WITH THE ARMY CHIEFS AND THE EXPECTANT REPUBLICANSSTILL UNDER THE BAN OF THE PRESBYTERIANS: TESTIMONY OF THE LONDON MINISTERS AGAINST HERESIES AND BLASPHEMIES: MILTON IN THE BLACK LIST-ANOTHER LETTER FROM CARLO DATI : TRANSLATION OF NINE PSALMS FROM THE HEBREW-MILTON THROUGH THE SECOND CIVIL WAR: HIS PERSONAL INTEREST IN IT, AND DELIGHT IN THE ARMY'S TRIUMPH : HIS SONNET TO FAIRFAX-BIRTH OF MILTON'S SECOND CHILD: ANOTHER LETTER FROM CARLO DATI.

THE two years and four months of English History traversed in the last chapter were of momentous interest to Milton at the time, were preparing an official career of eleven years for him at the very centre of affairs, and were to furnish him with matter for comment, and indeed with risk and responsibility, to the end of his days. While they were actually passing, however, his life was rather private in its tenor, and we have to seek him not so much in public manifestations as in his household and among his books.

TROUBLES IN THE BARBICAN HOUSEHOLD: CHRISTOPHER MILTON'S COMPOSITION SUIT: MR. POWELL'S COMPOSITION SUIT: DEATH OF MR. POWELL: HIS WILL: DEATH OF MILTON'S FATHER.

We left the household in Barbican a rather overcrowded one, consisting not merely of Milton, his wife, their newlyborn little girl, his father, and his two nephews, but also of his Royalist father-in-law Mr. Powell, with Mrs. Powell, and several of their children, driven to London by the wreck of the family fortunes at Oxford. For some months, we now find, the state of poor Mr. Powell's affairs continued to be a matter of anxiety to all concerned.

On the 6th of August, 1646, or as soon as possible after Mr. Powell's arrival in London, he had applied, as we saw, to the Committee at Goldsmiths' Hall for liberty to compound for that portion of his sequestered Oxfordshire estates which was yet recoverable. Milton's younger brother, Christopher, we saw, was at the same time engaged in a similar troublesome business. He too was suing out pardon for his delinquency on condition of the customary fine on his property; and, according to his own representation to the Goldsmiths' Hall Committee, the sole property he had consisted of a single house in the city of London, worth 401. a year.

The Goldsmiths' Hall Committee being then overburdened with similar applications of Delinquents from all parts of England, the cases of Mr. Powell and Christopher Milton had waited their turn.

The case of Christopher Milton came on first. His delinquency had been very grave. He had actually served as one. of the King's Commissioners for sequestrating the estates of Parliamentarians in three English counties. There seems, therefore, to have been a disposition at head-quarters to be severe with him. On the 24th of September the Committee at Goldsmiths' Hall did fix his fine for his London property at 801. (ie. a tenth of its whole value calculated at twenty years' purchase), receiving the first moiety of 401. down, and

accepting "William Keech, of Fleet Street, London, goldbeater," as Christopher's co-surety for the payment of the second moiety within three months. But they do not seem to have been satisfied that the young barrister had given a correct account of his whole estate; and it was intimated to him that, while the 80%. would restore to him his London property, the House of Commons would look farther into his case, and he might have more to pay on other grounds. In fact, his case was protracted not only through the rest of 1646, but for five years longer, the Goldsmiths' Hall Committee never letting him completely off all that while, but instituting inquiries repeatedly in Berks and Suffolk, with a view to ascertain whether he had not concealed properties in those counties in addition to the small London property for which he had compounded.1

Mr. Powell's case, for different reasons, was more complex. On the 21st of Nov. 1646, or somewhat more than three months after he had petitioned the Goldsmiths' Hall Committee for leave to compound, he sent in the necessary "Particular of Real and Personal Estate" by which his composition was to be rated. He had been living all the while in his son-in-law's house in Barbican; and the delay may have arisen from those circumstances of perplexity, already known to the reader (antè, pp. 473-483), which rendered it difficult for him to estimate. what the amount of his remaining property might really be. In the "Particular" now sent in, though he still designates himself "Richard Powell of Forest-hill," the Forest-hill mansion and lands are totally omitted, as no longer his property in any practical sense, but transferred by legal surrender to his creditor Sir Robert Pye. All that he can put on paper as his

1 It is rather difficult to follow Christopher Milton's case through the Composition Records and other notices respecting it; but here is the substance of the first of them:-Aug. 7, 1646, Delinquent's Application to Compound, with statement of his property, referred to Sub-Committee (Hamilton's Milton Papers, 128, 129); Aug. and Sept. 1646, Various proposals of the Committee as to the amount of his finc-at 807, or "a tenth," at 2007, or "a third".

ending, Sept. 24, in the imposition of a fine of 80. for his London property, with a hint that there might be farther demand (Hamilton, 62 and 129-30, and Todd, I. 162-3); Undated, but seemingly after Dec. 1646, Note of Christopher Milton as a defaulter for the latter moiety of his fine (Hamilton, 62). The case runs on through subsequent years to 1652; nay, as late as Feb. 1657-8 there is a trace of it (Hamilton, 130, Document lxvi.).

own is now (1) his small Wheatley property of 401. a year; (2) his "personal estate in corn and household stuff,” left at Forest-hill before the siege of Oxford, and estimated at 5007. if it could be properly recovered and sold; (3) his much more doubtful stock of "timber and wood," also left at Forest-hill, and worth 4007. on a similar supposition; and (4) debts owing to him to the amount of 1007. Against these calculated assets, of about 1,8007. altogether, he pleads, however, a burden of 400l., with arrears of interest, due to Mr. Ashworth by mortgage of the Wheatley property, and also 1,2001. of debts to various people, and a special debt of 3001. "owing upon a statute" to his son-in-law Mr. John Milton. As a reason for leniency, the fact is moreover stated that he had lost 3,000. by the Civil War. Actually, if his account is correct, he was insolvent; or, if his debt to his son-in-law were regarded as cancelled, he had but about 2007. left in the world. In criticising his account, however, the Committee would be sharp-sighted. They would remember that it was his interest, on the one hand, to rate his debts and losses at the highest figure, and, on the other hand, to represent at the lowest figure all his remaining property, except those items of "corn and household stuff," and "timber and wood," which he held to have been illegally disposed of by Parliamentary officials, and for the recovery of which he might bring forward a claim against Parliament. How the Committee, or the sub-Committee to whom the case was referred Nov. 26, did proceed in their calculations can only be conjectured; but the result was that they charged Mr. Powell on his whole returned property, without any allowance whatever for his debts. This appears from three documents in the State Paper Office, all of date Dec. 1646. On the 4th of that month Mr. Powell went through the two formalities required by law of every Delinquent before composition. He subscribed the National Covenant in the presence of "William Barton, minister of John Zachary" (the same clergyman who had administered the Covenant to Christopher Milton seven months before); and he took the so-called "Negative Oath" in presence of another witness. On the same day, before a