Aubrey even
exaggerates this flocking of the curious, so far as to say that some
came over into England only to see Oliver Protector and John Milton.
That Milton had more than he liked of these sightseers, who came to
look at him when he could not see them, we can easily believe. Such
visitors would of course be from protestant countries. Italians,
though admiring his elegant Latin, had "disliked him on account of
his too severe morals." A glimpse, and no more than a glimpse, of
the impression such visitors could carry away, we obtain in a letter
written, in 1651, by a Nueremberg pastor, Christoph Arnold, to a friend
at home:--"The strenuous defender of the new _regime_, Milton, enters
readily into conversation; his speech is pure, his written style very
pregnant. He has committed himself to a harsh, not to say unjust,
criticism of the old English divines, and of their Scripture
commentaries, which are truly learned, be witness the genius of
learning himself!" It must not be supposed from this that Milton had
discoursed with Arnold on the English divines. The allusion is to that
onfall upon the reformers, Cranmer, Latimer, &c.
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