Prose Works of John Milton, Vol. 2 (Classic Reprint)

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Excerpt from Prose Works of John Milton, Vol. 2 Soon after the march of Fairfax and Cromwell, with the whole army, through the city, in April, 1647, to suppress the insurrection of Brown and Massey, Milton removed to Holborn, where he continued until after the King's death, when, the form of the government being changed to a republic, and the Presbyterians, then out of power, declaring their abhorrence of the Stuart's execution, Milton undertook, in the following treatise, to maintain the right of nations to put a tyrant to death. Wood rightly supposes it was written before the execution of Charles I., though it now contains many passages afterwards inserted, but Milton himself assures us it was not published until the transaction had taken place, and even then more with a design to compose the public mind, and reconcile to the existing government such as were disaffected, than to determine anything respecting the late king. From a MS. note found in a printed copy in his possession, Dr. Birch discovered that the work was published in the month of February, 1648-49. It should be remembered that even in his "Defence of the People of England, " when there existed no reasons for suppressing or disguising his sentiments, Milton never exhibited any hatred of just and lawful princes, and here, in advocating tyrannicide, takes the greatest care to distinguish between the king and the tyrant. His opinions, in fact, were those of Buchanan, ("De Jure Regni apud Scotos, ") from whom Dryden absurdly accuses him of stealing the whole "Defence of the People of England, " and upon the Revolution of 1688, Locke maintained, with the approbation of King William III., precisely the same proposition. This the reader should constantly bear in mind, as well as that he wrote in a Commonwealth, at a time when the opinions of most learned men were unfavourable to monarchy. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully, any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.