the
Commonwealth an open question, it is quite possible that they were in
no haste to discharge Milton, All in all, the most probable time of
his dismissal is some time after the dissolution of the Parliament of
the Secluded Members on the 16th of March, 1659-60, when Monk and the
Council of State were left in the management. As Milton had been
originally appointed by the Council of State and not by Parliament,
it was in the Council's pleasure to continue him or dismiss him. They
were in a severe mood, virtually anti-Republican already, though not
yet avowedly so, between March 28, when they ordered Livewell
Chapman's arrest, and April 9, when they dismissed Needham; and that
or thereabouts may be the date of Milton's discharge.[1]

[Footnote 1: Phillips's narrative of his uncle's dismissal is a
blotch of confused wording and pointing:--"It was but a little
before the King's Restoration that he wrote and published his book in
defence of a Commonwealth; so undaunted he was in declaring his true
sentiments to the world; and not long before his _Power of the
Civil Magistrate in Ecclesiastical Affairs_ and his _Treatise
against Hirelings,_ just upon the King's coming over; having a
little before been sequestered from his office of Latin Secretary and
the salary thereunto belonging, he was force," &c. This, as it
stands, defies interpretation. The _Treatise of Civil Power in
Ecclesiastical Causes_ appeared in April 1659, or eight months
before the same. There ought, I believe, to have been a full stop
after _Hirelings_, and the rest should have run on thus:--"Just
upon the King's coming over, having a little before been sequestered
from his office of latin Secretary and the salary therunto belonging,
he was force," &c.]

* * * * *

In office or out of office, it was the same to Milton. He had
determined that he would not be suppressed, that he would not be
silent, till they should tie his hands, or gag his mouth. There is no
grander exhibition of dying resistance, of solitary and useless
fighting for a lost cause, than in his conduct through April 1680.
Alone he then stood, we may say, the last of the visible Republicans.
Hasilrig, Scott, Ludlow, Neville, and Vane, had collapsed or were out
of sight, the last under ban already by his former brothers of the
Commonwealth; Needham was extinguished; most of the Cromwellians had
gone over to the enemy, or were hastening to surrender. Blind Milto