“Yes, very like,” said Dr. Harford; “but he intrigues with men of all persuasions, promises everything, and holds faith with none. His shifty dishonesty will prove his ruin. Truly, I believe that one main cause of his failure to understand the people is that he lacks all national feeling, and ’tis scarce to be wondered at. Himself half Scotch, half Danish, and with a grandmother bred in France by a French mother, why, there is absolutely nothing national about him! The sturdy old English love of honest dealing will, however, in the end baffle his intrigues, I think. Colonel Hutchinson has many fellow countrymen who, rather than betray a trust, would refuse the King’s bribe of £10,000 and a peerage. But this is overserious talk for a sick man. I will tell you rather how, by good fortune, I came across an old friend of my youth, Mr. John Milton. He hath returned some three years from his tour in Italy, and as I perforce stood still in Cheapside, where the people were burning a pile of popish trinkets and pictures, I found myself pushed against him by the crowd.” “I remember him,” said old Madam Harford, “in the days before your marriage, when he was a boy at St. Paul’s School, and truly the most beautiful boy ever seen, I take it.” “He keeps his comely face and long light hair yet,” said Dr. Harford, “but hath grown sad and stern through the conduct of his wife; she quitted him when they had but been wedded a few weeks, and doth refuse to return.” “Is it true, as the gossips say, that he wrote that ill-advised pamphlet on divorce, published anonymously, which hath so scandalised all people?” “Ay, he wrote it in the first flush of his anger at his bride’s desertion, and himself told me that he hath now a second edition in the press, which will bear his name on the cover. I have some compassion for the foolish young wife, however, for John Milton doth not understand women. Maybe they will yet make up their quarrel, for ’tis but a matter of lack of understanding--there hath been no great offence on either side.” “Had you much talk with him?” “Yes, for he would have me go to his house in Aldersgale Street, I having asked him if he yet had the Latin poem he wrote on the death of Bishop Andrews. He hath also let me bring for your perusal two manuscript poems, which seem to me so full of beauty that they should, be published instead of lying unseen in his desk. Here is one, Gabriel, that will delight you, for it hath the very breath of the country about it, and will make you fancy yourself in Herefordshire once more.” “What of the Archbishop, sir?” asked Gabriel. Dr. Harford told him what had passed. “I fear,” he added, “from what Mr. Milton tells me, that the discovery of Brooke’s Plot will make people the more determined to proceed with the Archbishop’s impeachment. The plot, will, however, tell favourably for the cause of freedom in this fashion, that it will assuredly alienate many of those who have hitherto supported the King.”