Hence it was no bond of sympathy between him and other men. We find
him in no intimate relation with any of the contemporary men of
learning, poets, or wits. From such of them as were of the cavalier
party he was estranged by politics. That it was Milton's interposition
which saved Davenant's life in 1651, even were the story better
authenticated than it is, is not an evidence of intimacy. The three
men most eminent for learning (in the usually received sense of the
word) in England at that day were Selden (d. 1654), Gataker (d. 1654),
and Archbishop Usher (d. 1656), all of whom were to be found in
London. With none of the three is there any trace of Milton ever
having had intercourse.
It is probable, but not certain, that it was at Milton's intercession
that the Council proposed to subsidise Brian Walton in his great
enterprise--the Polyglott Bible. This, the noblest monument of the
learning of the Anglican Church, was projected and executed by the
silenced clergy. Fifteen years of spoliation and humiliation thus bore
richer fruit of learning than the two centuries of wealth and honour
which have since elapsed.
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