dy of murdered Caesar, excited the compassion of
multitudes, and raised their indignation against the enemies of that
illustrious Roman; so these Meditations had much the same effect in
England. The Presbyterians loudly exclaimed against the murder of the
King; they asserted, that his person was sacred, and spilling his
blood upon a scaffold was a stain upon the English annals, which the
latest time could not obliterate. These tragical complaints gaining
ground, and the fury which was lately exercised against his Majesty,
subsiding into a tenderness for his memory, heightened by the
consideration of his piety, which these Meditations served to revive,
it was thought proper, in order to appease the minds of the people,
that an answer should be wrote to them.
In this task Milton engaged, and prosecuted it with vigour; but the
most enthusiastic admirer of that poet, upon reading it will not fail
to discover a spirit of bitterness, an air of peevishness and
resentment to run through the whole. Milton has been charged with
interpolating the prayer of Pamela into the King's Meditations, by the
assistance of Bradshaw, who laid his commands upon the printer so to
do, to blast the reputation of the King's book. Dr. Newton is of
opinion that this fact is not well supported, for it is related
chiefly upon the authority of Henry Hills the printer, who had
frequently affirmed it to Dr. Gill, and Dr. Bernard, his physicians,
as they themselves have testified; but tho' Hills was Cromwell's
printer, yet afterwards he turned Papist in the reign of King James
II. in order to be that King's Printer; and it was at that time he
used to relate this story; so that little credit is due to his
testimony. It is almost impossible to believe Milton capable of such
disingenuous meanness, to serve so bad a purpose, and there is as
little reason for fixing it upon him, as he had to traduce the King
for profaning the duty of prayer, with the polluted trash of romances;
for in the best books of devotion, there are not many finer prayers,
and the King might as lawfully borrow and apply it to his own purpose,
as the apostle might make quotations from Heathen poems and plays; and
it became Milton, the least of all men, to bring such an accusation
against the King, as he was himself particularly fond of reading
romances, and has made use of them in some of the best and latest of
his writings.
There have been various conjectures concerning the cause tha
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