[Footnote 1: Dr. Peter Du Moulin was one of Robert Boyle's friends and correspondents both before and after the Restoration. It was at Boyle's request that Du Moulin translated and published in 1658 a little book called _The Devil of Mascon_, a French story of well-authenticated spirit-rapping; and the book was dedicated by Dumoulin to Boyle, and Boyle contributed an introductory letter to it. Moreover, it was to Boyle that Du Moulin in 1670 dedicated the first part of his _Parerga_ or Collection of Latin Poems, the second part of which contained his reprint of the Iambics against Milton from the _Regii Sanguinis Clamor_.--See Birch's Life of Boyle, p. 60, and four letters of Du Moulin to Boyle in Boyle's Works, Vol. V (pp 594-596). In three of these letters, all written after the Restoration, Du Moulin presents his respectful services to "My Honourable Lady Ranelagh" in terms implying long-established acquaintanceship. But there are other scattered proofs of Du Moulin's long intimacy with the whole Boyle family.] [Footnote 2: The young Earl had married, hastily and against his mother's will, in 1649, shortly after he had been Milton's pupil. See a letter of condolence on the subject from Robert Boyle to his sister, the young Earl's mother (Boyle's Works, V. 240). For the intimacy between the young Earl of Barrimore and young Henry Lawrence see a letter of Hartlib's to Boyle. (Ibid. V. 279).] [Footnote 3: Letters of Hartlib to Boyle in Vol. V. of Boyle's Works.] Marvell, Needham, and Cyriack Skinner are not certainly known to have been among Lady Ranelagh's acquaintances. _Their_ visits to Milton, therefore, have to be imagined apart. Marvell's, if he were still domiciled at Eton, can have been but occasional, but must have been always welcome. Needham's cannot have been, as formerly, on business connected with the _Mercurius Politicus_; for Milton had ceased for some years to have anything to do with the editorship of that journal. The duty of licensing it and its weekly double, _The Public Intelligencer_, also edited by Needham and published by Newcome, was now performed regularly by the omnipotent Thurloe. Both journals would come to Milton's house, to be read to him; and Needham, in his visits, would bring other gossip of the town, and be altogether a very chatty companion. "Above all, Mr. Cyriack Skinner" is, however, Phillips's phrase in his enumeration of those of his uncle's friends who were most frequently with him about this time. The words imply that, since June 1654, when this old pupil of Milton's had again "got near" him (Vol. IV. pp. 621-623), his attention to Milton had been unremitting, so that Milton had come to depend upon it and to expect him almost daily. On that understanding it is that we may read most luminously four private Sonnets of Milton, all of the year 1655, two of them addressed to Cyriack Skinner, and one to young Lawrence. The remaining sonnet, standing