ead and
cried out, "This is the head of a traitor."

With a fearful consistency the Commons voted soon after to abolish
monarchy and the upper house, and on their new seal inscribed, "On the
first year of freedom by God's blessing restored, 1648." The dispassionate
historian of the present day must condemn both parties; and yet, out of
this fierce travail of the nation, English constitutional liberty was
born.

CROMWELL.--The power which the parliament, under the dictation of the
army, had so furiously wielded, passed into the hands of Cromwell, a
mighty man, warrior, statesman, and fanatic, who mastered the crew, seized
the helm, and guided the ship of State as she drove furiously before the
wind. He became lord protector, a king in everything but the name. We
need not enter into an analysis of these parties: the history is better
known than any other part of the English annals, and almost every reader
becomes a partisan. Cromwell, the greatest man of his age, was still a
creature of the age, and was led by the violence of circumstances to do
many things questionable and even wicked, but with little premeditation:
like Rienzi and Napoleon, his sudden elevation fostered an ambition which
robbed him of the stern purpose and pure motives of his earlier career.

The establishment of the commonwealth seemed at first to assure the
people's liberty; but it was only in seeming, and as the sequel shows,
they liked the rule of the lord protector less than that of the
unfortunate king; for, ten years after the beheading of Charles I., they
restored the monarchy in the person of his son, Charles.

Such, very briefly and in mere outline, was the political situation. And
now to return to Milton: It is claimed that of all the elements of these
troublous times, he was the literary type, and this may be demonstrated--

I. By observing his personal characteristics and political
appointments;

II. By the study of his prose works; and

III. By analyzing his poems.

BIRTH AND EARLY WORKS.--John Milton was born on the 9th of December, 1608,
in London. His grandfather, John Mylton, was a Papist, who disinherited
his son, the poet's father, for becoming a Church-of-England man. His
mother was a gentlewoman. Milton was born just in time to grow up with the
civil troubles. When the outburst came in 1642, he was thirty-four years
old, a solemn, cold, studious, thoughtful, and dogmatic Puritan. In 1624
he entered Christ C