Guides."

But whatever Milton could write, or men of greater activity could
do, the king was now about to be restored with the irresistible
approbation of the people, he was therefore no longer secretary, and
was consequently obliged to quit the house which he held by his
office; the importance of his writings, thought it convenient to
seek some shelter, and hid himself for a time in Bartholomew Close,
by West Smithfield.

I cannot but remark a kind of respect, perhaps unconsciously paid to
this great man by his biographers: every house in which he resided
is historically mentioned, as if it were an injury to neglect naming
any place that he honoured by his presence.

The king, with lenity of which the world has had perhaps no other
example, declined to be the judge or avenger of his own or his
father's wrongs; and promised to admit into the Act of Oblivion all
except those whom the Parliament should except; and the Parliament
doomed none to capital punishment but the wretches who had
immediately co-operated in the murder of the king. Milton was
certainly not one of them; he had only justified what they had done.

This justification was indeed sufficiently offensive; and (June 16)
an order was issued to seize Milton's "Defence," and Goodwin's
"Obstructors of Justice," another book of the same tendency, and
burn them by the common hangman. The attorney-general was ordered
to prosecute the authors; but Milton was not seized, nor perhaps
very diligently pursued.