Milton's former regard for Fleetwood must have suffered considerably by recent events; and he thought of Lambert as the very "Achan" to be dreaded.

But, farther, even had the two aristocracies been of perfectly satisfactory composition, they had abandoned that idea of their own permanence which Milton had made all but essential.

They had agreed that their chief work should consist in shaping out a fit constitution for the Commonwealth, and that the _Committee of Safety_ should continue in power only till that should be done and the new Constitution should come into operation.
Such as it was, the new Government of the Wallingford-House Interruption had no objection to retaining Mr.Milton in the Latin Secretaryship if he cared to keep it.

That he had held the post throughout the whole of the Government of the Restored Rump (though all but in sinecure, as we must conclude from the cessation of the series of his Latin Letters in the preceding May) appears from a very interesting document in the Record Office.

The Council of State of the Rump, it is to be remembered, had not vanished with the Rump itself on Oct.