(1647) victim of religious barbarism. In November he was accommodated
with chambers in Whitehall. But from these he was soon ousted by
claimants more considerable or more importunate, and in 1651 he
removed to "a pretty garden-house" in Petty France, in Westminster,
next door to the Lord Scudamore's, and opening into St. James's Park.
The house was extant till 1877, when it disappeared, the last of
Milton's many London residences. It had long ceased to look into St.
James's Park, more than one row of houses, encroachments upon the
public park, having grown up between. The garden-house had become a
mere ordinary street house in York-street, only distinguished from the
squalid houses on either side of it by a tablet affixed by Bentham,
inscribed "sacred to Milton, prince of poets." Petty France lost its
designation in the French Revolution, in obedience to the childish
petulance which obliterates the name of any one who may displease you
at the moment, and became one of the seventeen York-streets of the
metropolis. Soon after the re-baptism of the street, Milton's house
was occupied by William Hazlitt, who rented it of Bentham. Milton had
lived in it for nine years, from 1651 till a few weeks before the
Restoration. Its nearness to Whitehall where the Council sat, was less
a convenience than a necessity.

For Milton's life now became one of close attention, and busy service.
As Latin secretary, and Weckherlin's successor, indeed, his proper
duties were only those of a clerk or translator. But his aptitude
for business of a literary kind soon drew on him a great variety of
employment. The demand for a Latin translation of a despatch was not
one of frequent occurrence. The Letters of the Parliament, and of
Oliver and Richard, Protectors, which are, intrusively, printed among
Milton's works, are but one hundred and thirty-seven in all. This
number is spread over ten years, being at the rate of about fourteen