Reliquiæ Baxterianæ, 1696, Lib. I, Part I, p. 48.
Much the same opinion of Fairfax was held by Sir Philip Warwick and Clarendon. Warwick says he was 'a man of a military genius, undaunted courage and presence of mind in the field both in action and danger, but of a very common understanding in all other affairs, and of a worse elocution; and so a most fit tool for Mr. Cromwel to work with' (Mémoires, p. 246). Clarendon alludes to him as one 'who had no eyes, and so would be willinge to be ledd' (p. 138, l. 24). But Milton saw him in a different light when he addressed to him the sonnet on his capture of Colchester in August 1648:
Fairfax, whose name in armes through Europe rings
Filling each mouth with envy, or with praise,…
Thy firm unshak'n vertue ever brings
Victory home,…
O yet a nobler task awaites thy hand;
For what can Warr, but endless warr still breed,
Till Truth, & Right from Violence be freed,
And Public Faith cleard from the shamefull brand
Of Public Fraud. In vain doth Valour bleed
While Avarice, & Rapine share the land.
Fairfax's military capacity is certain, and his private virtues are unquestioned. Writing in 1648, Milton credited him with the power to settle the affairs of the nation. But Fairfax was not a politician. He broke with Cromwell over the execution of the king, and in July 1650 retired into private life. Baxter, Warwick, and Clarendon all wrote of him at a distance of time that showed his merits and limitations in truer perspective.
Milton addressed him again when singing the praises of Bradshaw and Cromwell and other Parliamentary leaders in his Pro Populo Anglicano Defensio Secunda, 1654. As a specimen of a contemporary Latin character, and a character by Milton, the passage is now quoted in full:
'Sed neque te fas est præterire, Fairfaxi, in quo cum summa fortitudine summam modestiam, summam vitæ sanctitatem, & natura & divinus favor conjunxit: Tu harum in partem laudum evocandus tuo jure ac merito es; quanquam in illo nunc tuo secessu, quantus olim Literni Africanus ille Scipio, abdis te quoad potes; nec hostem solum, sed ambitionem, & quæ præstantissimum quemque mortalium vincit, gloriam quoque vicisti; tuisque virtutibus & præclare factis, jucundissimum & gloriosissimum per otium frueris, quod est laborum omnium & humanarum actionum vel maximarum finis; qualique otio cum antiqui Heroes, post bella & decora tuis haud majora, fruerentur, qui eos laudare conati sunt poetæ, desperabant se posse alia ratione id quale esset digne describere, nisi eos fabularentur, coelo receptos, deorum epulis accumbere. Verum te sive valetudo, quod maxime crediderim, sive quid aliud retraxit, persuasissimum hoc habeo, nihil te a rationibus reipublicæ divellere potuisse, nisi vidisses quantum libertatis conservatorem, quam firmum atque fidum Anglicanæ rei columen ac munimentum in successore tuo relinqueres' (ed. 1654, pp. 147-8).
Page 149, l. 9. The Self-denying Ordinance, discharging members of
Parliament from all offices, civil and military, passed both Houses on
April 3, 1645.
l. 18. He succeeded his father as third Lord Fairfax in 1648.
l. 21. See p. 118, ll. 8 ff.
41.