MILTON'S pen was again employed in the year 1649, in reply to the " Representations of the Presbytery of Belfast in Ireland." These related to the king's death as being the breaking of the covenant and besides, these "Priestlings" as MILTON designates the members of this Presbytery, "were mortal enemies to the declaration

scended from the Bishop of Exeter, Dr. GAUDEN, they made enquiries of him, as to whether he could throw any light upon the subject. This brought the whole matter before the public: it is too long, and too uninteresting to copy the whole account, which may be easily obtained; but the following short extract proves the jesuitry of even a Protestant bishop. Dr. Walker says that Dr. GAUDEN acquainted him with the design, showed him the heads of divers chapters of the book, and of some quite finished; and on his [Dr. Walker's] expressing his dissatisfaction that the world should be so imposed upon, the BISHOP bid him look at the title," The King's Portraiture;" "for," said the Bishop, “no man is supposed to draw his own picture!" Toland exclaims, "A very nice evasion!" I should call it a most infamous deception, which ought not to have been rewarded even with a bishoprick! Dr. Walker says that the Duke of York, afterwards the conscientious, popish James the Second, knew that Dr. Gauden was the real author of the Eikon Basilike, and owned it had been of great service! I can only find room, as my patience is exhausted in reading of such detestable hypocrisy, for,-"4. A letter under Chancellor Hyde's [after Lord CLARENDON, author of the Grand Rebellion!] own writing, dated the 13th of March, 1661, wherein he expresses his uneasiness under the Bishop's importunity, and excuses his inability yet to serve him; but

granted by the Government to all sects of professing Christians! calling their own Presbyterian government "the hedge and bulwark of Religion." In his observations, MILTON is very angry that the Duke of ORMOND should have persuaded the Governor of Dublin to revolt from

towards the conclusion it contains these remarkable words: "The particular you mention has indeed been mentioned to me, as a secret; I am sorry I ever knew it; and when it ceases to be a secret, it will please none but MR. MILTON!" Need we wonder that the men of that generation were the persecutors of the honest and conscientious nonconformists? A secret! So, my LORD CLARENDON, you could keep such a secret as that, could you? I cannot believe your History after this, even had I done so before reading your note to Dr. GAUDEN. Toland has this ill-natured, but not probably unjust remark, "Had not GAUDEN been disappointed of Winchester, he had never pleaded his merit in this affair, nor would his widow have written her narrative." All this was printed in a paper, entitled, " Truth brought to light."

There can be but little doubt, had James succeeded in establishing popery in England, that he would have rewardDr. GAUDEN's superlative merits by some distinguished rank in the Popish hierarchy; if he had not prevailed with his infallible Holiness, the Pope, to have constituted the Bishop of Exeter the Master General of the Jesuits! Was it at all wonderful that CHARLES the Second, who knew all this and connived at it, should have been a laughing, lascivious infidel, or that he should have died a good Papist? Is it at all wonderful that divine retribution should have driven CLARENDON and JAMES the Second out of the kingdom which they had thus suffered to “believe a lie ?”

the Parliament, speaking contemptuously of a general Cromwell. "Who," says MILTON "had done in a few years more eminent and remarkable deeds, whereon to found nobility in his house, though it were wanting, and perpetual honour to posterity, than ORMOND and all his ancestors put together could shew from any Record of their Irish exploits, the evident scene of their glory."

But the chief design of these remarks, so far as they applied to ORMOND, was to expose the "Articles of Peace," which ORMOND had concluded with the Popish Irish Rebels of 1641 in the king's name, and by his authority; pardoning them for the measure and rebellion of English Protestants; and acknowledging them to be "good and loyal subjects;" discharging them from the oath of supremacy, framed principally on account of Papists: and by granting to those inhuman butchers such rights and immunities as were not enjoyed by the English conquerors: impowering too, the Irish Parliament to repel or suspend as they thought fit, what is called PoxNING's act, the only security of their dependance upon England.

"Having," says Todd, "thus distinguished himself as the advocate of republicanism, the Members of the English Council naturally appointed him to vindicate their cause against the

attack of no mean opponent. King Charles the Second being now protected in Holland, had employed Salmasius, a learned Frenchman, professor of polite learning at Leyden, to write a defence of his late father, and of monarchy. "Salmasius," says Dr. Johnson, "was a man of skill in languages, knowledge of antiquity, and sagacity of criticism, almost exceeding all hope of human attainment; and and having by excessive praises been confirmed in great confidence of himself, though he probably had not much considered the principles of society and the rights of government, undertook the employment without the distrust of his own qualifications and as his expedition in writing was wonderful, in 1649 published Defencio Regia.' It is certainly wonderful," adds Dr. J. "that Salmasius, the pensioner to a republic, should write a vindication of monarchy.

MILTON's reply, which was also in Latin, with the title of Defencio Populi, was not published till the beginning of the year 1651. For this performance he was complimented at home by the visits or invitations of all the foreign ministers at London, as well as by the more substantial approbation of his employers, who voted him, it is said, from the public purse, one thousand

* MILTON in his reply, solves this enigma-60 jacobusses.

pounds:* and by encomiastic letters from the most celebrated scholars abroad; and Christina, queen of Sweden, is said to have treated Salmasius the defender of monarchy with coldness, after she had read the defence of the people.

It may be necessary briefly to state the occasion of this work having been written: Charles Stuart, afterwards king Charles the Second, of licentious memory, was living in a state of exile in Holland, and wishing some one to paint the execution of his father Charles the First in the blackest colours, to render the authors of that act most odious, and thereby probably to facilitate his

* The following statement of Milton, in his Second Defence of the People of England, makes this matter doubtful: Nor do I complain of the very small part that hath come to me of reward and advantage for my service to the Commonwealth, and of the very great one of ignominy and reproach; contented that I have been a zealous assertor of what was right for itself alone and gratis; let others look to that, and be it known to you, that those conveniencies, and that wealth you reproach me with, I have never touched; and that an account of which you chiefly accuse me of, I am not made a penny the richer.

"I have thus, from my private study, given my time and labour, sometimes to the Church, sometimes to the Commonwealth, though neither this nor that hath given me any thing in return but security. What I have done hath of itself given me a good conscience within, a good esteem amongst the good, and withall, this just and honest way of speaking."