One of the greatest of European scholars, a professor at Leyden, named Salmasius, had written a book attacking the Commonwealth and upholding the late king.  The Council requested Milton to write a fitting answer.  As his eyes were already failing him, he was warned to rest them; but he said that he would willingly sacrifice his eyesight on the altar of liberty.  He accordingly wrote in reply his Pro Populo Anglicano Defensio, a Latin work, which was published in 1651.  This effort cost him his eyesight.  In 1652, at the age of forty-three, he was totally blind.  In his Paradise Lost, he thus alludes to his affliction:—­

      “Thus with the year
  Seasons return; but not to me returns
  Day, or the sweet approach of even or morn,
  Or sight of vernal bloom or summer’s rose,
  Or flocks, or herds, or human face divine;
  But clouds instead and ever-during dark
  Surrounds me, from the cheerful ways of men
  Cut off.”

Life after the Restoration.—­In 1660, when Charles II. was made king, the leaders of the Commonwealth had to flee for their lives.  Some went to America for safety while others were caught and executed.  The body of Cromwell was taken from its grave in Westminster Abbey, suspended from the gallows and left to dangle there.  Milton was concealed by a friend until the worst of the storm had blown over.  Then some influential friends interceded for him, and his blindness probably won him sympathy.

[Illustration:  COMUS TITLE PAGE.]

During his old age his literary work was largely dependent on the kindness of friends, who read to him, and acted as his amanuenses.  His ideas of woman having been formed in the light of the old dispensation, he had not given his three daughters such an education as might have led them to take a sympathetic interest in his work.  They accordingly resented his calling on them for help.

During this period of his life, when he was totally blind, he wrote Paradise Lost, Paradise Regained, and Samson Agonistes.  He died in 1674, and was buried beside his father in the chancel of St. Giles, Cripplegate, London.

Minor Poems.—­In 1629, while Milton was a student at Cambridge, and only twenty-one years old, he wrote a fine lyrical poem, entitled On the Morning of Christ’s Nativity.  These 244 lines of verse show that he did not need to be taught the melody of song any more than a young nightingale.

Four remarkable poems were written during his years of studious leisure at Horton,—­L’Allegro, Il Penseroso, Comus, and Lycidas.  L’Allegro describes the charms of a merry social life, and Il Penseroso voices the quiet but deep enjoyment of the scholar in retirement.  These two poems have been universal favourites.

Comus is a species of dramatic composition known as a Masque, and it is the greatest of its class.  It far surpassess any work of a similar kind by Ben Jonson, that prolific writer of Masques.  Some critics, like Taine and Saintsbury, consider Comus the finest of Milton’s productions.  Its 1023 lines can soon be read; and there are few poems of equal length that will better repay careful reading.