" It is plain that Milton had talked over
with Williams the theory put forth in his tract on Education, and made a
convert of him. We could wish that the good Baptist had gone a little
more into particulars. But which of us knows among the men he meets whom
time will dignify by curtailing him of the "Mr.," and reducing him to a
bare patronymic, as being a kind by himself? We have a glance or two at
Oliver, who is always interesting. "The late renowned Oliver confest to
me in close discourse about the Protestants aifaires &c that he yet feard
great persecutions to the protestants from the Romanists before the
downfall of the Papacie," writes Williams in 1660. This "close discourse"
must have been six years before, when Williams was in England. Within a
year after, Oliver interfered to some purpose in behalf of the
Protestants of Piedmont, and Mr. Milton wrote his famous sonnet. Of the
war with Spain, Williams reports from his letters out of England in 1656:
"This diversion against the Spaniard hath turnd the face & thoughts of
many English, so that the saying now is, Crowne the Protector with
gould,[138] though the sullen yet cry, Crowne him with thornes."
Again in 1654: "I know the Protector had strong thoughts of Hispaniola &
Cuba.
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