were not, about this time, a design in agitation of making him adjutant-general in Sir William Waller's army; but the new modelling of the army soon following, proved an obstruction to that design, and, Sir William's commission being laid down, as the common saying is, to turn cat in pan. It was not long after the march of Fairfax and Cromwell through the city of London with the whole army, to quell the insurrections, Brown and Massey, now malcontents also, were endeavoring to raise in the city against the army's proceedings, ere he left his great house in Barbican, and betook himself to a smaller in High Holborn, among those that open backward into Lincoln's-Inn-Fields. Here he lived a private and quiet life, still prosecuting his study and curious search into knowledge-the grand affair perpetually of his life-till such time as the war being now at an end, with complete victory to the parliament's side, as the parliament then stood purged of all its dissenting members, and the king, after some treaties with the army, re infecta, brought to his trial; the form of government being now changed into a free state, he was hereupon obliged to write a treatise, called the Tenure of Kings and Magistrates. After which, his thoughts were bent upon retiring again to his own private studies, and falling upon such subjects as his proper genius prompted him to write of, among which was the history of our own nation from the beginning till the Norman conquest, wherein he had made some progress. When for this his last treatise, reviving the fame of other things he had formerly published, being more and more taken notice of for his excellency of style and depth of judgment, he was courted into the service of this new commonwealth, and at last prevailed with (for he never hunted after preferment, nor affected the tintamar and hurry of public business) to take upon hin the office of Latin secretary to the council of state, for all their letters to foreign princes and states; for they stuck to this noble and generous resolution, not to write to any, or receive answers from them, but in a language most proper to maintain a correspondence among the learned of all nations in this part of the world, scorning to carry on their affairs in the wheedling, lisping jargon of the cringing French, especially having a minister of state able to cope with the ablest any prince or state could employ for the Latin tongue: and so well he acquitted himself in this station, that he gained, from abroad, both reputation to himself and credit to the state that employed him. And it was well the business of his office caine not very fast upon him, for he was scarce well warm in his secretaryship before other work flowed in upon him, which ook him up for some considerable time. In the first place, there

came out a book, said to have been written by the king, and finished little before his death, entitled, Eikov Barilin, that is, The Royal Image-a book highly cried up for its smooth style and pathetical composure: wherefore, to obviate the impression it was like to make among the many, he was obliged to write an answer, which he entitled Elkovokλaσrns, or Image-breaker. And, upon the heels of that, out comes, in public, the great Kill-cow of Christendom, with his Defensio Regis contra Populum Anglicanum-a man so famous and cried up for his Plinian Exercitations, and other pieces of reputed learning, that there could nowhere have been found a champion that durst lift up the pen against so formidable an adversary, had not our little English David had the courage to undertake this great French Goliah, to whom he gave such a hit in the forehead, that he presently staggered, and soon after fell; for, immediately upon the coming out of the answer, entitled, Defensic Populi Anglicani, contra claudium Anonymum, &c., he that till then had been chief minister and superintendent in the court o' the learned Christina, Queen of Sweden, dwindled in esteem to that degree, that he at last vouchsafed to speak to the meanest servant. In short, he was dismissed with so cold and slighting an adieu, that, after a faint dying reply, he was glad to have recourse to death, the remedy of evils and ender of controversies. And now I presume our author had some breathing space: but it was not long; for, though Salmasius was departed, he left some stings behind-new enemies started up, barkers, though no great biters. Who the first assertor of Salmasius's cause was, is not certainly known, but variously conjectured at, some supposing it to be one Janus, a lawyer of Gray's-Inn, some Dr. Bramhal, made by King Charles the Second, after his restoration, Archbishop of Armagh, in Ireland. But, whoever the author was, the book was thought fit to be taken into correction, and our author, not thinking it worth his own undertaking, to the disturbing the progress of whatever more chosen work he had then in hands, committed this task to the youngest of his nephews, but with such exact emendations before it went to the press, that it might very well have passed for his, but that he was willing the person that. took the pains to prepare it for his examination and polishment, should have the name and credit of being the author; so that it came forth under this title, Joannis Philippi Angli Defensio pro Populo Anglicano contra, &c. During the writing and publishing of this book, he lodged at one Thompson's, next door to the BullHead tavern at Charing Cross, opening into the Spring Garden, which seems to have been only a lodging taken till his designed

apartment in Scotland Yard was preparel for him, for hither he soon removed from the foresaid place; and here his third child, a son, was born, which, through the ill-usage, or bad constitution of an ill-chosen nurse, died an infant. From this apartment, whether he thought it not healthy, or otherwise convenient for his use, or whatever else was the reason, he soon after took a pretty gardenhouse in Petty France, in Westminster, next door to the Lord Scudamore's, and opening into St. James's Park. Here he remained no less than eight years, namely, from the year 1652, till within a few weeks of King Charles the Second's restoration. In this house, his first wife dying in childbed, he married a second, who, after a year's time, died in childbed also. This second marriage was about two or three years after his being wholly deprived of sight, which was just going about the time of his answering Salmasius; whereupon his adversaries gladly take occasion of imputing his blindness as a judgment upon him for his answering the king's book, &c., whereas it is most certainly known that his sight, what with his continual study, his being subject to a headache, and his perpetual tampering with physic to preserve it, had been decaying for above a dozen years before, and the sight of one, for a long time, clearly lost. Here he wrote, by his amanuensis, his two answers to Alexander More, who, upon the last answer, quitted the field. So that, being now quiet from state-adversaries and public contests, he had leisure again for his own studies and private designs-which were his foresaid History of England, and a new Thesaurus Linguæ Latinæ, according to the manner of Stephanus, a work he had been long since 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. But the heigh of his noble fancy and invention began now to be seriously and mainly employed in a subject worthy of such a muse, viz.: An heroic poem, entitled, Paradise Lost; the not.est, in the general esteem of learned and judicious persons, of any yet written ly sny either ancient or modern. This subject was first designed a tragedy, and in the fourth book of the poem there are six verses, which, several years before the poem was begun, wero shown to me, and some others, as designed for the very beginning of the said tragedy. The verses are these:

O thou that with surpassing glory crown'd!
Look'st from thy sole dominion, like the God
Of this new world; at whose sight all the stars

Hide their diminish'd heads; to thee I call,
But with no friendly voice; and add thy name,
O Sun! to tell thee how I hate thy beams,
That bring to my remembrance from what state
I fell; how glorious once above thy sphere;

Till pride and worse ambition threw me down,

Warring in Heaven against Heaven's glorious King.

There is another very remarkable passage in the composure of this poem, which I have a particular occasion to remember, for whereas I had the perusal of it from the very beginning-for some years as I went from time to time to visit him-in a parcel of ten, twenty, or thirty verses at a time, which being written by whatever hand came next, might possibly want correction as to the orthography and pointing having, as the summer came on, not been showed any for a considerable while, and desiring the reason thereof, was an swered that his vein never happily flowed but from the autumnal equinoctial to the vernal, and that whatever he attempted was never to his satisfaction, though he courted his fancy never so much; so that in all the years he was about this poem, he may be said to have spent but half his time therein. It was but a little before the king's restoration that he wrote and published his book in defence of a commonwealth-so undaunted he was in declaring his true sentiments to the world; and not long before, his power of the civil magistrate in ecclesiastical affairs; and his treatise against Hirelings, just upon the king's coming over. Having a little before been sequestered from his office of Latin Secretary, and the salary thereunto belonging, he was forced to leave his house also, in Petty France, where all the time of his abode there, which was eight years, as abovementioned, he was frequently visited by persons of quality, particularly my Lady Ranala, whose son for some time he instructed; all learned foreigners of note, who could not part out of this city without giving a visit to a person so eminent; and, lastly, by particular friends that had a high esteem for him, viz., Mr. Andrew Marvel, young Laurence (the son of him that was president of Oliver's counsel), to whom there is a sonnet among the rest in his printed poems; Mr. Marchamont Needham, the writer of Politicus; but, above all, Mr. Syriak Skinner, whom he honored with two sonnets-one long since public among his poems, the other but newly printed. His next removal was by the advice of those that wished him well and had a concern for his preservation, into a place of retirement and abscondence, till such time as the current of affairs for the future should instruct him what farther course to take. It was a friend's house, in Bartholomew Close, where he lived till the act of oblivion came forth, which it pleased God proved as fa

vorable to him as could be hoped or expected, through the intercession of some that stood his friends both in council and parlia ment: particularly in the House of Commons, Mr. Andrew Marvel, a member for Hull, acted vigorously in his behalf, and made a considerable party for him; so that, together with John Goodwin, of Coleman-street, he was only so far excepted as not to bear any office in the commonwealth. Soon after appearing again in public, he took a house in Holborn, near Red Lion Fields, where he stayed not long before his pardon having passed the seal, he removed to Jewin-street; there he lived when he married his third wife, recommended to him by his old friend Dr. Paget, in Coleman-street. But he staid not long after his new marriage ere he removed to a house in the Artillery-walk, leading to Bunhill Fields. And this was his last stage in this world, but it was of many years' continuance, more perhaps than he had had in any other place besides. Here he finished his noble poem, and published it in the year 1666. The first edition was printed in quarto, by one Simons, a printer, in Aldersgate-strect; the other in a large octavo, by Starky, near Temple Bar, amended, enlarged, and differently disposed as to the number of books, by his own hand—that is, by his own appointment; the last set forth many years since his death in a large folio, with cuts, added by Jacob Tonson. Here it was also that he finished and published his history of our nation till the conquest—all complete so far as he went; some passages only excepted, which, being thought too sharp against the clergy, could not pass the hand of the licencer, were in the hands of the late Earl of Anglesey while he lived, where at present is uncertain. It cannot certainly be concluded when he wrote his excellent tragedy entitled Samson Agonistes, but sure enough it is that it came forth after his publication of Paradise Lost, together with his other poem called Paradise Regained, which doubtless was begun and finished and printed after the other was published, and that in a wonderful short space, considering the sublimeness of it. However, it is generally censured to be much inferior to the other, though he could not hear with patience any such thing when related to him: possibly, the subject may not afford such variety of invention; but it is thought by the most judicious to be little or nothing inferior to the other for style and decorum. The said Earl of Anglesey, whom he presented with a copy of the unlicensed papers of his history, came often here tc visit him, as very much coveting his society and converse, as likewise others of the nobility, and many persons of eminent quality: nor were the visits of foreigners ever more frequent than in this place, almost to his dying day. His treatise of true Religion, Her