Critical and Historical Essays I. [antikvár]

CRITICAL AND HISTORICAL ESSAYScontributed toTHE EDINBURGH REVIEW.MILTON. (August, 1825.)Joannis Miltoni, Angli, de Doctrina Christiana libri duo posthuini. A Treatise on Christian Doctrine, compiled from the Holy Scriptures alone. By John Milton, translated from the Original by Charles R. Sumner, M. A., &c. &c. 1825.Towards the close of the year 1823, Mr. Lemon, deputy keeper of the state papers, in the course of his researches among the presses of his ofiice, met with a large Latin manuscript. With it were found corrected copies of the foreign despatches written by Milton, while he filled the ofiice of Secretary, and several papers relating to the Popish trials and the Rye-house Plot. The whole was wrapped up in an envelope, superscribed To Mr. Skinner, Merchant. On examination, the large manuscript proved to be the long lost Essay on the Doctrines of Christianity, which, according to Wood and Toland, Milton finished after the Restoration, and deposited with Cyriac Skinner. Skinner, it is well known, held the same political opinions with his illustrious friend. It is therefore probable, as Mr. Lemon conjectures, that he may have fallen under the suspicions of the government during that persecution of the Whigs which followed the dissolution of the Oxford parliament, and that, in consequence Macaulay, Essays. I.1