1: Thurloe, VII., at various points from the beginning, but especially pp. 338, 342, and 257. Foreign dates in Thurloe have to be rectified.

(CXXXII.) TO THE KING OF PORTUGAL, August 1658:—A John Buffield, merchant of London, has been wronged by the detention of property of his by a Portuguese mercantile firm, and has been tossed about in Portuguese law-courts. The Protector requests his Portuguese Majesty to look into the matter and see justice done.

So ends the series of Milton's Letters for Oliver. As there had been eighty-eight such in all (XLV.-CXXXII.) during the four years and nine months of the Protectorate, whereas there had been but forty-four (I.-XLIV.) similar letters during the preceding four years and ten months of the Commonwealth proper and Interim Dictatorship, it will be seen that Milton's industry in this particular form of his Secretaryship had been just twice as great for Oliver as for the Governments before the Protectorate.1 That fact in itself is rather remarkable, when we remember that Milton came into the Protector's service totally blind. Of course, whoever had been in the post would have had more to do in the way of letter-writing for the Protector than had been required by the preceding Councils of State in their comparatively thin relations with foreign powers; but that a blind man in the post should have been so satisfactory for the increased requirements says something for the employer as well as for the blind man. Thurloe and others had relieved Milton of much of the secretarial work; there had also been many breaks in Milton's secretaryship even in the letter-writing department, occasioned by ill-health, family-troubles, or occupation with literary tasks which were really public commissions and were credited to him as such; and at such times the dependence had been on Meadows or some one else for the Latin letters necessary. Always, however, when the occasion was very important, as when there had to be the burst of circular letters about the Piedmontese massacre, the blind man had to be sent to, or sent for. And what is worthy of notice now is that this had continued to be the case to the last. At no time in the Secretaryship had there been a series of more important letters from Milton's pen than those just inventoried, written for the Protector in the last five months of his life, and mostly in the months of May and June, 1658. Two or three of them are about ships or other small matters, showing that, even with Marvfell now; at hand for such drudgery, Milton did not wholly escape it; but the rest are on the topics of highest interest to Cromwell and closest to his heart. The poor Piedmontese Protestants are again in danger. Who must again sound the alarm? Milton. Cromwell's son-in-law, the gallant Falconbridge, starts on his embassy to Calais. Who must write the letters that are to introduce him to King Louis and the Cardinal? Milton. The gorgeous return embassy of the Duke de Crequi and M. Mancini has to be acknowledged, and the bells rung for the fall of Dunkirk; and with the congratulations to be conveyed across the Channel on that event there have to be interwoven Cromwell's thanks to the King and the Cardinal for having so punctually kept their faith with him by the delivery of the town to Lockhart. Who shall express the complex message? None but Milton. Finally, Cromwell would stretch his hand eastward across the seas to grasp that of the Swedish Charles Gustavus struggling with his peculiar difficulties, to give him brotherly cheer in the midst of them, brotherly hope also that they two, whoever else in a generation of hucksters, may yet live to lead in a glorious Protestant League for the overthrow of Babylon and the woman blazing in scarlet. Who interprets between hero and hero? Always and only the blind Milton. Positively, in reading Milton's despatches for Cromwell on such subjects as the persecutions of the Vaudois and the scheme of a Protestant European League, one hardly knows which is speaking, the secretary or the ruler. Cromwell melts into Milton, and Milton is Cromwell eloquent and Latinizing.2

1: With one exception, all the State-letters of Milton, from the beginning of his Secretaryship to the death of Cromwell, that have been preserved either in the Printed Collection or in the Skinner Transcript, have now been inventoried, and, as far as possible, dated and elucidated in the text of these volumes. The exception is a brief scrap thrown in at the end of the Letters for Cromwell both in the Printed Collection and in the Skinner Transcript, but omitted by Phillips in his translation as not worthwhile. It was not written for Cromwell or his Council, but only for the Commissioners of the Great Seal—whether for those under the Protectorate, or for their predecessors, does not appear, though perhaps that might be ascertained. The scrap may be numbered at this point, though inserted only as a note:—(CXXXIII.) "We, Commissioners of the Great Seal of England, &c., desire that the Supreme Court of the Parliament of Paris will, on request, take such steps that Miles, William, and Maria Sandys, children of the lately deceased William Sandys and his wife Elizabeth Soame, English by birth and minors, may be able, from Paris, where they are now under protection of the said Court, to return to us forthwith, and will deliver the said children into the charge of the Scotchman James Mowat, a good and honest man, to whom we have delegated this charge, that he may receive them where they are and bring them to us; and we engage that, on opportunity of the same sort offered, there will be a return from this Court of the like justice and equity to any subjects of France."

2: The uniformly Miltonic style of the greater letters for the Protector, the same style as had been used in the more important letters for the Commonwealth, utterly precludes the idea that Milton was only the translator of drafts furnished him. In the smaller letters, about ships wrongfully seized and other private injuries, the case may have been partly so, though even there Milton must have had liberty of phraseology, and would imbed the facts in his own expressions. But there was not a man about the Council that could have furnished the drafts of the greater letters as we now have them. My idea as to the way in which they were composed is that, on each occasion, Milton learnt from Thurloe, or even in a preappointed interview with the Council, or with Cromwell himself, the sort of thing that was wanted, and that then, having himself dictated and sent in an English draft, he received it back, approved or with corrections and suggested additions, to be turned into Latin. Special Cromwellian hints to Milton for the letter to Louis XIV, on the alarm of a new persecution of the Piedmontese (ante pp. 387-9) must have been, I should say, the causal reference to a certain pass as the best military route yet into Italy from France, and the suggestion of an exchange of territories between Louis and the Duke of Savoy so as to make the Vaudois French subjects. The hints may have been given to Milton beforehand, or they may have been [n]otched in by Cromwell in revising Milton's English draft.

The last letters to Louis XIV., Mazarin, and Charles Gustavus of Sweden, bring us to within about two months of Cromwell's death, and the last one of all, that to the King of Portugal, to within less than a single month of the same. We have yet a farther trace of the diplomacies proper to Milton's office round the dying Protector. Here, however, it is not Milton that comes into view, but his colleague or assistant, Andrew Marvell.

The Dutch Lord-Ambassador Nieuport, after having been absent in Holland since November 1657, had been sent back by their High Mightinesses, the States-General, to resume his post. The complication of affairs in northern Europe by the movements of Charles Gustavus, and the menacing attitude of that King not only pretty generally all round the Baltic, but also towards the Dutch themselves, had rendered Nieuport's renewed presence in London very necessary. Newly commissioned and instructed, he made his voyage, and was in the Thames on the night of the 23rd of July, though too late to reach Gravesend that night. The arrival of an ambassador being then an affair of much punctilio, he sent his son up the river in a shallop, to inform Mr. Secretary Thurloe and Sir Oliver Fleming, the master of the ceremonies, and to deliver to Thurloe a letter requesting that the pomp of a public reception might be waived and he might be permitted to take up his quarters quietly in the Dutch Embassy, still furnished and ready, just as he had left it. Young Mynheer Nieuport, coming to London on this errand, found things there in unexpected confusion,—the Lord Protector at Hampton Court, attending the death-bed of his daughter Lady Claypole, and leaving business to itself, and Secretary Thurloe also out of town. Fortunately, Thurloe was not then at Hampton Court, but only at his own country-house two miles off. Thither young Nieuport rode at once. He met Thurloe coming in his coach to Whitehall; whereupon Thurloe, after all proper salutations, informed him that his Highness had already heard of his father's arrival and had given orders for his suitable reception. Meanwhile, would young Mr. Nieuport come into the coach, so that they might drive back to Whitehall together? Arrived at Whitehall, Thurloe immediately gave orders for the preparation of one of his Highness's barges to be sent down to Gravesend, "with a gentleman called Marvell, who is employed in the despatches for the Latin tongue." Apparently this gentleman was on the spot, and was at once introduced by Thurloe to young Nieuport. Then young Nieuport went down the river by himself, rejoining his father at Gravesend, and bringing him a letter from Thurloe, to the effect that his Highness was very anxious that his reception should be in all points such as became the respect due to himself and his office, but that Mr. Marvell would come expressly to discuss and arrange particulars and that whatever Lord Nieuport should finally judge fitting should also be satisfactory to his Highness. That was on the night of Saturday, the 24th. Next day, Sunday the 25th, Marvell was duly down at Gravesend in the barge, actually before morning-sermon, as the Ambassador himself informs us, bidding the Ambassador formally welcome in the Lord Protector's name, and sketching out for him "a public reception, with barges and coaches, and also an entertainment, such as is usually given to the chiefest Ambassadors." Lord Nieuport still preferring less bustle on his own account, and thinking also that a great public reception would be unseemly at a time when "the Lord Protector and the whole Court were in great sadness for the mortal distemper of the Lady Claypole," Marvell remained in waiting on him at Gravesend that day, and in the night brought him up to town in his barge incognito. It was thought that his Highness might possibly be able to come from Hampton Court to Whitehall the next day or the next; but, that chance having passed, it was arranged that the Ambassador should himself go to Hampton Court, and have an audience with the Protector at three o'clock in the afternoon of Thursday the 29th. Accordingly, at eleven o'clock on that day the master of the ceremonies was at the Dutch Embassy, with three six-horse coaches; and, having been driven to Hampton Court, the Ambassador was received by Thurloe "at the second gate of the first court," and taken to his Highness's room. After interchange of compliments, his Highness expressed his regret "that his own indisposition, and other domestic inconveniencies, had hindered him from coming to London"; and then, the general company having been dismissed, and only Lord President Lawrence, Lord Strickland, and Thurloe, remaining in the room, there was some talk on business. Various matters were mentioned, but only generally, Nieuport not thinking it fit to trouble his Highness with "a large discourse," and his Highness indeed intimating that he did not find himself well enough to talk much. But all was very amicable, and at the end of the interview Cromwell, saying he hoped to be in London next week, insisted on conducting the Ambassador to the door of the antechamber, leaving Lawrence, Strickland, and Thurloe, to do the rest by attending him through the galleries back to the coaches. On that same day there had been a Council-meeting at Hampton Court, the last at which Cromwell was present. Possibly Dutch business was discussed there, and also at the next meeting of Council, which was at Whitehall on the 3rd of August, and without Cromwell. On the 5th, at all events, when the Council again met at Hampton Court, Cromwell not present, there was, as we have seen (ante, p. 355), a minute on Dutch business of a very ominous character. Cromwell's heart was now with the magnanimous Swede rather than with the merchandizing Dutch; and, in all probability, had he lived longer, Ambassador Nieuport would have had to send home news that might not have been pleasant to their High Mightinesses. But the next day (August 6) Lady Claypole was dead; and from that day, through the remaining four weeks of Cromwell's life, the concerns of the foreign world grew dimmer and dimmer in his regards. Perhaps to the last moment of his consciousness what did most interest him in that foreign world was the great new commotion round the Baltic in which his Swedish brother was the central figure, and in which both the Dutch and the Brandenburg Elector were playing anti-Swedish parts, the Elector avowedly, the Dutch more warily, "The King of Sweden hath again invaded the Dane, and very probably hath Copenhagen by this time," wrote Thurloe from Whitehall to Henry Cromwell at two o'clock in the morning of August 27. Cromwell, therefore, had learnt that fact before his death, and it must have mingled with his thoughts in his dying hours. In these very hours, we find, not only was Ambassador Nieuport close at hand again, for Dutch negotiations in which the fact would naturally be of high moment, but Herr. Schlezer also, the London agent of the Brandenburg Elector, was at the doors of the Council office, with express letters from the Elector, which he was anxious to deliver to Thurloe himself, in case even at such a time some answer might be elicited. Thurloe choosing to be inaccessible, he had left the letters with Mr. Marvell. Thus, twice in the last weeks of Oliver's Protectorate we have a distinct sight of Marvell in his capacity of substitute for Milton. He barges down the Thames very early on a Sunday morning to salute an Ambassador in the name of the Protector and bring him up to town in a proper manner; and he receives in the Whitehall office a troublesome diplomatic agent, who has come with important despatches.1

1: Thurloe, VII 286 and 298-299 (Letters of Nieuport to the States-General), 362 (Letter of Thurloe to Henry Cromwell), and 373-374 (Latin letter of Schlezer to Thurloe, two days after Cromwell's death).

Thirty-three Latin State-Letters and five Latin Familiar Epistles are the productions of Milton's pen we have hitherto registered as belonging to the Second Protectorate of Oliver. Two or three incidents, appertaining more properly to his Literary Biography, have yet to be noticed before we leave the period.

Here is the title of a little foreign tract of which I have seen a solitary, and perhaps unique, copy:-"Dissertationis ad quoedam loca Miltoni Pars Posterior; quam, adspirante Deo, Præsids Dn. Jacobo Schallero, S.S, Theol. Doct, et Philos. Pract. Prof., ad. h.t. Facult. Phil. Decano, solenniter defendet die[17] mens. Septemb. Christophorus Güntzer, Argentorat. Argentorati, Typis Friderici Spoor, 1657" ("Second Part of a Dissertation, on certain Passages of Milton; which, with God's favour, and tinder the presidency of James Schaller, Doctor of Divinity and Professor of Practical Philosophy, acting as Dean of the Faculty of Philosophy for the occasion, Christopher Güntzer of Strasburg will solemnly defend on the 17th of September. Strasburg, Printed by Frederic Spoor, 1657"). Of the Schaller here mentioned we have heard before in connexion with a publication of his in 1653, also entitled Dissertatio ad loca quædam Miltoni, and appended then to certain Exercitationes concerning the English Regicide by the Leipsic jurist Caspar Ziegler (Vol. IV. pp. 534-535). He seems to have retained an interest in the subject, and to have kept it up among those about him; for here, four years after his own Dissertation, he is to preside at the academic defence of another on the same subject by a Christopher Güntzer, who was probably one of his pupils. Young Güntzer, it seems, had been trying his hand on the subject already; for this is but the "second part" of his performance. The "first part" I have not seen, though it seems to have been published. The "second part" is a thin quarto, paged 45-92, as if to be bound with the first. It is in a juvenile and dry style of quotation and academic reasoning, modelled after Schaller's older Dissertation, and not worth an abstract. More interesting than itself are eleven pieces of congratulatory Latin verse prefixed to it by college friends of the disputant. In more than one of these Milton is mentioned; but the liveliest mention of him is in a set of Phalæcians signed "Christianus Keck." Phalæcians are not to be attempted in English; but, as the semi-absurd relish of the thing would be lost in prose, the first few lines may run into a kind of equivalent doggrel:—