“Milton regarded ‘Old Noll’ as a greater and better ‘Sylla,’ to whom, in the motto to his work against the restoration of kingship, he compares him, and evidently hoped to the last, what was always, perhaps, intended by the Protector, and understood between them, that as soon as the troubles of the times should be properly appeased, he would establish the Republic. In this Milton consented to serve with him, not to serve him; for Cromwell always professed to be the servant of the people. And after all, there was some difference between Cromwell and Charles the Second. With the former the author of Paradise Lost had something in common; they were both great men, they were both enemies to that remnant of feudal barbarism, which, supported by prejudice and ignorance, had for ages exerted so fatal an influence over the destinies of their country. Minds of such an order—in some things, though not in all, resembling—might naturally enough coöperate; for they could respect each other. But with what sense of decorum, or reverence for his own character, remembering the glorious cause for which he had struggled, could Milton have reconciled his conscience to taking office under the returned Stuart, to mingle daily with the crowd of atheists who blasphemed the Almighty, and with swinish vices debased his Image in the polluted chambers of Whitehall. The poet regarded them with contemptuous abhorrence; and, if I am not exceedingly mistaken, described them under the names of devils, in the court of their patron and inspirer below. Besides, even had they possessed the few virtues compatible with servitude, it would have been a matter of constant chagrin, of taunt and reviling on one side, and silent hatred on the other, to have brought together republican and slave in the same bureau, and to have compelled a democratic pen to mould correct phrases for a despicable master. So far, however, was the biographer from comprehending the character of the man whose life he undertook to write, that he seems to have thought it an imputation on him, and a circumstance for which it is necessary to pity his lot, that the dissolute nobles of the age seldom resorted to his humble dwelling! The sentiment is worthy of Salmasius. But was there then living a man who would not have been honored by passing under the shadow of that roof? by listening to the accents of those inspired lips? by being greeted and remembered by him whose slightest commendation was immortality? Elijah, or Elisha, or Moses, or David, or Paul of Tarsus, would have sat down with Milton and found in him a kindred spirit. But the slave of Lady Castlemain, or the traitor Monk, or Rochester, or the husband of Miss Hyde, or that Lord Chesterfield, who saw what Hamilton describes, and dared not with his sword revenge the insult, might forsooth have thought it a piece of condescension to be seen in the Delphic Cavern in England, whence proceeded those sacred verses which in