to us from abroad, so must
ripe understanding and many civil virtues be imported into our minds
from foreign writings and examples of best ages; we shall else miscarry
still, and come short in the attempts of any great enterprise. Hence
did their victories prove as fruitless as their losses dangerous, and
left them still, conquering, under the same grievances that men suffer
conquered: which was indeed unlikely to go otherwise, unless men more
than vulgar--bred up, as few of them were, in the knowledge of ancient
and illustrious deeds, invincible against many and vain titles,
impartial to friendships and relations--had conducted their affairs;
but then, from the chapman to the retailer, many whose ignorance was
more audacious than the rest were admitted with all their sordid
rudiments to bear no mean sway among them, both in church and state."

We need not speak of Milton's disapprobation of the Restoration.
Between him and the world of Charles II. the opposition was inevitable
and infinite. Therefore the general fact remains, that except in the
early struggles, when he exaggerated the popular feeling, he remained
solitary in opinion, and had very little sympathy with any of the
prevailing parties of his time.

Milton's own theory of government is to be learned from his works. He
advocated a free commonwealth, without rule of a single person or House
of Lords; but the form of his projected commonwealth was peculiar. He
thought that a certain perpetual council, which should be elected by
the nation once for all, and the number of which should be filled up as
vacancies might occur, was the best possible machine of government. He
did not confine his advocacy to abstract theory, but proposed the
immediate establishment of such a council in this country. We need not
go into an elaborate discussion to show the errors of this conclusion.
Hardly any one, then or since, has probably adopted it. The interest
of the theoretical parts of Milton's political works is entirely
historical. The tenets advocated are not of great value, and the
arguments by which he supports them are perhaps of less; but their
relation to the times in which they were written gives them a very
singular interest. The time of the Commonwealth was the only period in
English history in which the fundamental questions of government have
been thrown open for popular discussion in this country. We read in
French literature, discussions on the advisa