ATE-LETTERS OF MILTON (NOS. CXII.-CXIII.):
ANOTHER LETTER TO MR. HENRY DE BRASS, AND ANOTHER TO PETER HEIMBACH:
COMMENT ON THE LATTER: DEATHS OF MILTON'S SECOND WIFE AND HER CHILD:
HIS TWO NEPHEWS, EDWARD AND JOHN PHILLIPS, AT THIS DATE: MILTON'S
LAST SIXTEEN STATE-LETTERS FOR OLIVER CROMWELL (NOS.
CXVIII.-CXXXIII.), INCLUDING TWO TO CHARLES GUSTAVUS OF SWEDEN. TWO
ON A NEW ALARM OF A PERSECUTION OF THE PIEDMONTESE PROTESTANTS, AND
SEVERAL TO LOUIS XIV. AND CARDINAL MAZARIN: IMPORTANCE OF THIS LAST
GROUP OF THE STATE-LETTERS, AND REVIEW OF THE WHOLE SERIES OF
MILTON'S PERFORMANCES FOR CROMWELL: LAST DIPLOMATIC INCIDENTS OF THE
PROTECTORATE, AND ANDREW MARVELL IN CONNEXION WITH THEM: INCIDENTS
OF MILTON'S LITERARY LIFE IN THIS PERIOD: YOUNG GUNTZER'S
_DISSERTATIO_ AND YOUNG KECK'S PHALAECIANS: MILTON'S EDITION OF
RALEIGH'S _CABINET COUNCIL_: RESUMPTION OF THE OLD DESIGN OF
_PARADISE LOST_ AND ACTUAL COMMENCEMENT OF THE POEM: CHANGE FROM
THE DRAMATIC POEM TO THE EPIC: SONNET IN MEMORY OF HIS DECEASED
WIFE.

Through the Second Protectorate Milton remained in office just as
before. He was not, however, as had been customary before at the
commencement of each new period of his Secretaryship, sworn in
afresh. Thurloe was sworn in, both as General Secretary and as full
Councillor, and Scobell and Jessop were sworn in as Clerks;[1] but we
hear of no such ceremony in the case of Milton. His Latin
Secretaryship, we infer, was now regarded as an excrescence from the
Whitehall establishment, rather than an integral part of it. An oath
may have been administered to him privately, or his old general
engagement may have sufficed.

[Footnote 1: Council Order Books, July 13 and 14, 1657.]

Our first trace of Milton after the new inauguration of Cromwell is
in one of his Latin Familiar Epistles, addressed to some young
foreigner in London, of whom I know nothing more than may be learnt
from the letter itself:--

"To the Very Distinguished MR. HENRY DE BRASS.

"I see, Sir, that you, unlike most of our modern youth in their
surveys of foreign lands, travel rightly and wisely, after the
fashion of the old philosophers, not for ordinary youthful quests,
but with a view to the acquisition of fuller erudition from every
quarter. Yet, as often as I look at what you write, you appear to
me to be one who has come among strangers not so much to receive
knowledge as to impart it to others, to barter good merchandise
rath