sincere. Milton was one of the innumerable proofs that a man may be very
much of a Republican without being anything of a Liberal. He was as firm
a believer in right divine as any Cavalier, save that in his view such
right was vested in the worthiest; that is, practically, the strongest.
An admirable doctrine for 1653,--how unfit for 1660 remained to be
discovered by him. Under its influence he had successively swallowed
Pride's Purge, the execution of Charles I. by a self-constituted
tribunal, and Cromwell's expulsion of the scanty remnant of what had
once seemed the more than Roman senate of 1641. There is great reason
to believe with Professor Masson that a tract vindicating this violence
was actually taken down from his lips. It is impossible to say that he
was wrong. Cromwell really was standing between England and anarchy. But
Milton might have been expected to manifest some compunction at the
disappointment of his own brilliant hopes, and some alarm at the
condition of the vessel of the State reduced to her last plank.
Authority actually had come into the hands of the kingliest man in
England, valiant and prudent, magnanimous and merciful. But Cromwell's
life was precarious, and what after Cromwell? Was the ancient
constitution, with its halo of antiquity, its settled methods, and its
substantial safeguards, wisely exchanged for one life, already the mark
for a thousand bullets? Milton did not reflect, or he kept his
reflections to himself. The one point on which he does seem nervous is
lest his hero should call himself what he is. The name of Protector even
is a stumbling-block, though one _can_ get over it. "You have, by
assuming a title likest that of Father of your Country, allowed yourself
to be, one cannot say elevated, but rather brought down so many stages
from your real sublimity, and as it were forced into rank for the public
convenience." But there must be no question of a higher title:--

"You have, in your far higher majesty, scorned the title of King.
And surely with justice: for if in your present greatness you were
to be taken with that name which you were able when a private man
to reduce and bring to nothing, it would be almost as if, when by
the help of the true God you had subdued some idolatrous nation,
you were to worship the gods you had yourself overcome."

This warning, occurring in the midst of a magnificent panegyric,
sufficiently vindicates Milton a