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repute among good men ,, and that the deeds themselves rendered this freedom of speech honourable to me . Some men , however , gained advantage , others honours , for doing nothing ; but no man ever saw me canvassing for preferment , no man ever saw me in quest of any thing through the medium of friends , fixed with supplicatory look to the doors of the parliament * or thing
to the vestibules of lower assemblies , I kept myself commonly « t honte , and supported myself , however frugally , upon my own fortune , though , in this civil broil , a great part was often detained , and an assessment , commonly iniquitous , imposed upon me . Having dispatched these things , a » d thinking that for the future I should now have abundance of leisure , I undertook a
history of the nation from its remotest origin ; intending to bring it down , if I couid , in one unbroken thread , to our own times . I had already finished four books , when lo ! ( Charles ' s kingdom being reduced to a commonwealth , ) the council of state , as it is called , now first constituted by authority of parliament , invited me to lend them my services in the department more particularly of foreign affairs—an event which had never entered my thoughts I Not long after the book , which was attributed to the king , made its appearance , written certainly with the bitterest malice against the parliament .
Beingordered to prepare an answer to it , I opposed the Iconoclast to the Icon ; not , as is pretended , * in insult to the departed spirit of the king / but in the persuasion , that queen truth ought to be preferred to king Charles ; and as I foresaw that some reviler would be ready with this slander , I endeavoured , in the introduction , and in other places as far as it was proper , to ward off the reproach . Next came forward Salmasius ; and , as More reports , so little time was lost in looking about for some person to answer him , that all , of
their own accord , instantly nominated me , who was then present , m the council . It is chiefly , More , for the sake of those good men who have otherwise no knowledge of me , that , to stop your mouth , and to confound your lies , 1 have so far given an account of myself . I tell you , then , foul priest , < t > if * u Bun , hold your peace , I say : for the more you revile me , the more fully will you compel me to explain my own conduct ; from which you could gain no * thing yourself , but the reproach , already too heavy , of being a liar ; and would lay open for me a still wider field for the commendation of my own integrity . *
We cannot close these extracts from the prose works of Milton without strongly recommending the perusal of them to our readers . They contain the noblest sentiments expressed in the noblest language , and are calculated to inspire-a love of virtue , of truth , and of freedom . To the student of eloquence they will furnish specimens of the most powerful and brilliant oratory ; at one time possessing all the ardent vehemence of Demosthenes , at another all the magnificent amplification of Cicero ; interspersed , too , with
passages of a more imaginative kind than are to be found in either , adorned with ail the glowing colours of poetic fancy—we might almost say of poetic diction . The music of its periods and the splendour of its images often , indeed , elevate the prose of Milton to the dignity of poetry . Though , to use his own words , " sitting in the cool element of prose , " Ke cannot avoid often soaring to " the high region of his fancies , " when bis conceptions are 1 . 1 1 *¦ 1 . » m . % * j » 1 * ' * * not onltrulsublimebut his it of their
y y , language , partaking , as were * nature , and breathing their spirit , assumes a grandeur and loftiness admirably suited to the expression of them . The arrangement of his sentences is sometimes more inverted and artificial than may please modern taste , but what they lose in simplicity of construction they gain in harmony , and we have never read any prose compositions which have so much delighted us
* " A Second Defence of the People of England , " Some where about the middle
Untitled Article
688 Autobiography of John Mtltoiu
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Oct. 2, 1830, page 688, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2589/page/32/
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