men out of their free-holds and goods, imprison and beat their Persons, nay murther them. . . . Nothing is now more Common than an accusation without an accuser, a sentence without a Judg, and a condemnation without a hearing. ... The people are now generally of opinion, They may as easily find Charity in Hell, as Justice in any Committee, and that the King hath taken down one Star Chamber, and the Parliament hath set up a hundred.' See also note on 22. I.

Only a few months before, however, Milton had advocated 'well-order'd committees of their faithfulest adherents in every county,' which should 'give this government the resemblance and effect of a perfect democracy' (Letter, Oct. 20, 1659).

27. 4. going on by degrees to perfection. Milton again follows the counsels of Bodin: 'The wise politician in government of the estate is to imitate the works of God in nature who by litle and litle bringeth great things to perfection' (Repub., P. 475).

27. 9. abolishing that name. The term 'Parliament,' which in its original meaning savoured of kingship, might well be abolished in favor of a more democratic word. Also, as Masson suggests, Milton knew that the nation could not be brought to think of a perpetual Parliament, in view of the odium which rested upon the existing body by reason of its long continuance in power.

27. 10. parlie... with thir Norman king. Since the days of the Witenagemot, English kings have always been assisted by a council of some sort. But not until after the Norman Conquest did the French term Parlement begin to be applied in England. William the Conqueror advised with his 'Wise Men' at Gloster in 1085. Shortly after, he 'summoned all the landholders of England... to meet him at Sarum' (Powell, England to 1509, p. 68), and made them swear allegiance. Stephen, the last of the Norman kings, held a similar 'great council' at Winchester in 1141, at which 'the Londoners' were present (ibid., p. 83). In the following century the word 'Parliament' began to come into general use, occurring for the first time in English statutes in the preamble to the Statute of Westminster (1272). In 1295 Edward called the

Great Parliament, at which were duly present the three estates; this became the model for all Parliaments thereafter. 27. 18. these nations. England, Scotland, and Ireland. 27. 18a. little cause to fear. It was a firm conviction of many members of the Long Parliament that they were the chosen of God, called to rule in His name, and favored with a special Presence in all their deliberations (see note on 20. 29). With others, the love of power, or even of plunder (as enemies of the Rump declared), operated with equal effect. Certainly no Parliament ever clung to authority more tenaciously than did the Rump in 1660. Abjuration-oaths, engagements, and rigorous qualifications were its means of self-preservation. And even after Monk's edict for its dissolution had gone forth, there were strenuous efforts-notably in a pamphlet entitled A Perpetual Parliament-in behalf of perpetuation. It was with 'sad pangs & groanes' that it finally dissolved on March 16. It is evident, therefore, that the nation had good cause to 'fear' and 'suspect' them. Walker says that 'about this time, the whole Nation of England began to grow sick of the abhorred fag end of a Parliament, endeavouring to make head against them in Kent, Sussex, Surrey, Hartford, Hereford, Glocester, Bristol, Cheshire' (Hist. Ind. 4. 55).

entreat them. See note on 20. 29.

27. 22. 27. 28. so many faithful and experienc'd hands. See note on 20. 24. Lenthall was speaker, Haslerig leader, and Scot, the regicide, secretary of state.

27. 33. persons untri'd, etc. Charles and his supporters. 28. 3. most easie, most present and only cure. This medical conceit was in high favor about 1660. Sir Henry Vane, being moved with a desire to apply Balsame to the Wound before it become incurable,' gently proffered A Healing Question. Wm. Prynne resorted to more heroic measures in A short, legal, medicinal, useful, safe, easy Prescription, etc. Cf. Brief Notes (Bohn 2. 354): 'He [Dr. Griffith] . . . moves cunningly for a licence to be admitted physician both to church and state; . . . lays before you his drugs and ingredients: "Strong purgatives in the pulpit, contempered of the myrrh of mortification, the aloes of confession and con

trition, the rhubarb of restitution and satisfaction;" a pretty fantastic dose of divinity from a pulpit mountebank... undertaking to "describe the rise and progress of our national malady, and to prescribe the only remedy."

28. 12. even to the coming, etc. Until the Judgment Day. See Matt. 24. 30; Mark 13. 26. The idea is that of indefinite duration. Milton did not share the Fifth-Monarchy men's conviction that their generation would behold the institution of the Messianic reign. From Plato to Harrington and Milton, proposers of ideal constitutions were accustomed to exult in the indestructibility of the governments that they projected.

28. 14. only worthy. Milton did agree with the FifthMonarchy men, however, that Christ was the only rightful king. The present statement contains an implied denial of the right of Charles to rule. Cf. Defense (Bohn 1.54): ““The Messias is a King." We acknowledge him so to be and rejoice that he is so; and pray that his kingdom may come, for he is worthy nor is there any other equal, or next to him.'

28. 20.

28. 16. the only by him anointed. See note on 19. 26. Cf. Ref. (Bohn 1. 46): 'I deny, that there ever were any such kings in the world, that derived their authority from God alone.' obsolete. This is the term in Toland's edition. The Bohn edition has 'absolute.' The former is probably correct, as Milton seems to use antithetically the ideas of newly-coined terms on the one hand, and 'obsolete' terms-such as Harrington's Phylarchs, archons, etc. on the other. 28. 20a. exotic models. Such as the Venetian ballot, agrarian laws, etc., which Harrington proposed to introduce. 28. 22. native liberty. Cf. Tenure (Bohn 2. 8): 'All men naturally were born free, being the image and resemblance of God himself.' The writer goes on to explain that bondage came through Adam's transgression. This is characteristically mediæval.

28. 24. I say again. Despite the critics. Ever since the appearance of the first edition, they had made merry with Milton's title (see Appendix B, p. 175).

28. 26. no perilous . . . circumscription. Harrington's

scheme provided for circumscribing individual ownership of property, and for the confiscation of all in excess of the prescribed amount (see note on 28. 30).

28. 28. temporal and spiritual lords remov'd. See note on 11. 16. Milton is a good way removed from his attitude in 1644. Cf. Ref. (Bohn 2. 409): 'Then shall the nobles possess all the dignities and offices of temporal honour to themselves, sole lords without the improper mixture of scholastic and pusillanimous upstarts; the parliament shall void her upper house of the same annoyances,' etc.

28. 30. Agrarian law. This was one of the three fundamental proposals made by Harrington in his Oceana. But it goes back, of course, to the leges agraria of Rome. The first of these land-laws, proposed by Spurius Cassius in 486 B. C., was as follows: all public land was to be surveyed; one half was to be rented; the other half was to be divided among the poor plebeians (Taylor, Const. Hist. of Rome, p. 69). Other similar laws were passed from time to time. In 133 B. C. Tiberius Gracchus gave up his life in securing an agrarian law whereby the state resumed ownership of land held in excess of 500 jugera, or, in case there were sons, of 1000 jugera. All such reclaimed land was redistributed in allotments of 30 jugera to poor citizens and allies, and made 'heritable, inalienable, and subject to a small rent' (ibid., p. 240). Harrington's agrarian proposal provided that every man who possessed an estate exceeding the revenue of £2000 a year' should leave the same so divided among his children that no son should have above £2000 a year, and no daughter above £1500 a year; that no one should be permitted to acquire an estate exceeding £2000 a year; and that all holdings in land in excess of that amount should be forfeited to the uses of the state.

28. 31. cause... of sedition. Milton has in mind the case of Tiberius Gracchus (see note on 28. 30).

28. 31a. only where it began... with first possession. This was true, of course, in the case of the Flaminian laws of 232 B. C., which provided for the distribution among the poor of lands recently won from the Gauls.

28. 35. as by some friviously. The mildness of the expression indicates that Milton is replying to some goodnatured sport at his expense among republicans-probably in the Rota Club. At all events, the satirical remarks about his Ready and Easy Way were made before the treatise was completed, and evidently by some one in close touch with the writer. Cyriack Skinner may have taken Milton's dictation, and carried a report to the Rota. Or perhaps Marchamount Needham, a somewhat frivolous but intimate friend of Milton's, may have been favored with advance information.

29. 5. somthing like a duke of Venice. The Dutch republic retained a single person at the head of the state. The English commonwealth had also accepted a protector. There was now, in the spring of 1660, much talk of setting up a single person again. During the previous autumn, Lambert had been suspected of such an ambition. The chief officers, Fleetwood and Desborough, 'would have left the Protector Richard a Duke of Venice for his father's sake.' On March 2 Pepys says: 'Great is the talk of a single person, and that it would now be Charles, George, or Richard again.' But in February suspicion rested mostly upon General Monk, who, as Pepys heard, was supposed to be hatching a design 'to get into the saddle.' It was Clarendon's opinion also that Monk's original ambition was to 'see a commonwealth established, in such a model as Holland was, where he had been bred, and that himself might enjoy the authority and place which the Prince of Aurange possessed in that Government' (Hist. Reb. 16. 134).

29. 8. to lurch a crown. Note the strengthening word in the second edition. See Glossary, and cf. note on 29. 5.

29. 9. ingag'ment to . . . house of Nassau. The allusion is to the compact, or union, of Utrecht, proposed by William, Prince of Orange, of the house of Nassau, and agreed to by the Seven Provinces in 1579. Thus was founded the Dutch republic. The engagement provided for a division of power between the States-General, the Provincial States, and the Stadholder (William himself).

29. 22. Councel of State left sitting. Cf. Introduction,