Thus
restricted in his official communications, Milton gave vent to his
personal feelings on the occasion in the well-known sonnet (xviii.)
"Avenge, O Lord, thy slaughtered saints, whose bones Lie scattered on
the Alpine mountains cold."
It has been already said that there remains no trace of any personal
intercourse between Milton and Cromwell. He seems to have remained
equally unknown to, or unregarded by, the other leading men in the
Government or the Council. It is vain to conjecture the cause of this
general neglect. Some have found it in the coldness with which Milton
regarded, parts at least of, the policy of the Protectorate. Others
refer it to the haughty nature of the man, who will neither ask a
favour, nor make the first advances towards intimacy. This last
supposition is nearer the truth than the former. An expression he uses
in a private letter may be cited in its support. Writing to Peter
Heimbach in 1657, to excuse himself from giving him a recommendation
to the English ambassador in Holland, he says: "I am sorry that I am
not able to do this; I have very little acquaintance with those in
power, inasmuch as I keep very much to my own house, and prefer to do
so.
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