eries,--an old heretic both in religion and
manners, that by his will would shake off his governors as he doth
his wives, four in a fortnight. The sunbeams of his scandalous
papers against the late King's Book is [sic] the parent that begot
his late _New Commonwealth_; and, because he, like a parasite
as he is, by flattering the then tyrannical power, hath run himself
into the briars, the man will be angry if the rest of the nation
will not bear him company, and suffer themselves to be decoyed into
the same condition. He is so much an enemy to usual practices that
I believe, when he is condemned to travel to Tyburn in a cart, he
will petition for the favour to be the first man that ever was
driven thither in a wheelbarrow. And now, John, _you_ must
stand close and draw in your elbows [the fancy is of Milton
standing on the scaffold pinioned], that Needham, the Commonwealth
didapper, may have room to stand beside you ... He [Needham] was
one of the spokes of Harrington's Rota, till he was turned out for
cracking. As for Harrington, _he's_ but a demi-semi in the
Rump's music, and should be good at the cymbal; for he is all for
wheeling instruments, and, having a good invention, may in time
find out the way to make a concert of grindstones."[1]

[Footnote 1: Pamphlet, of title and date given, in the Thomason
Collection. I have mended the pointing, but nothing else.]

Such was the popular verdict, in March 1660, on Milton and his last
pamphlet, and all his deserts and accomplishments in the world he had
lived in for one-and-fifty years. More of the like may be found on
search; but I will pass to one retort on his _Ready and Easy
Way_, of somewhat higher literary quality than the last, and which
retains a certain celebrity yet.

It appeared on March 30, as a small quarto of sixteen pages, with
this title: "_The Censure of the Rota upon Mr. Milton's Book,
entituled 'The Ready and Easie Way to Establish a Free
Commonwealth_.'" On the title-page is the imprint, "_London,
Printed by Paul Giddy, Printer to the Rota, at the sign of the
Windmill in Turne-againe Lane_. 1660," and also a professed
extract from the minutes of the Rota Club, "_Die Luna 26 Martii_
1660," certified by "_Trundle Wheeler, Clerk to the Rota_,"
authorizing and ordering Mr. Harrington, as Chairman of the Club, to
draw up and publish a narrative of that day's debate of the Club over
Mr. Milton's pamphlet, and to transm