ign was formed of making him adjutant-general in Sir William
Waller's army; but the new modelling the army proved an obstruction to
that advancement. Soon after the march of Fairfax and Cromwell with
the whole army through the city, in order to suppress the insurrection
which Brown and Massey were endeavouring to raise there, against the
army's proceedings, he left his great house in Barbican, for a smaller
in High Holborn, where he prosecuted his studies till after the King's
trial and death, when he published his Tenure of Kings and
Magistrates: His Observations on the Articles of peace between James
Earl of Ormond for King Charles I. on the one hand, and the Irish
Rebels and Papists on the other hand; and a letter sent by Ormond to
colonel Jones governor of Dublin; and a representation of the Scotch
Presbytery at Belfast in Ireland.
He was now admitted into the service of the Commonwealth, and was made
Latin Secretary to the Council of State, who resolved neither to write
nor receive letters but in the Latin tongue, which was common to all
states.
'And it were to be wished,' says Dr. Newton, 'that succeeding Princes
would follow their example, for in the opinion of very wise men, the
universality of the French language will make way for the universality
of the French Monarchy. Milton was perhaps the first instance of a
blind man's possessing the place of a secretary; which no doubt was a
great inconvenience to him in his business, tho' sometimes a political
use might be made of it, as men's natural infirmities are often
pleaded in excuse for their not doing what they have no great
inclination to do. Dr. Newton relates an instance of this. When
Cromwell, as we may collect from Whitlocke, for some reasons delayed
artfully to sign the treaty concluded with Sweden, and the Swedish
ambassador made frequent complaints of it, it was excused to him,
because Milton on account of his blindness, proceeded slower in
business, and had not yet put the articles of treaty into Latin. Upon
which the ambassador was greatly surprized that things of such
consequence should be entrusted to a blind man; for he must
necessarily employ an amanuensis, and that amanuensis might divulge
the articles; and said, it was very wonderful there should be only one
man in England who could write Latin, and he a blind one.'
Thus we have seen Milton raised to the dignity of Latin Secretary. It
is somewhat strange, that in times of general confusion
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