His only criticism on the competing models then had been that, till his own notion of Church-disestablishment were carried into effect, "no model whatsoever of a Commonwealth, would prove successful or undisturbed." At that time, accordingly, Milton was so engrossed with his Church-disestablishment notion as to be comparatively careless about the general question of the Form of Government.

But, two months later, as we have seen, in his _Letter on the Ruptures of the Commonwealth_ occasioned by Lambert's assault on the Rump, he had abandoned this indifference, and had proposed a model Constitution of his own, adapted to the immediate exigencies.

From that time, we may now report, though Church-disestablishment was never lost sight of, the question of the Form of Government had fastened itself on Milton's mind as after all the main one.

From that time he never ceased to ruminate it himself, and he attended more to the speculations and theories of others on the same subject.

If, once or twice in the winter months of 1659, Cyriack Skinner, the occasional chairman of the Rota Club, did not persuade Milton to leave his house in Petty France late in the evening, and be piloted through the streets to the Coffee-house in New Palace Yard to hear one of the great debates of the Club, and become acquainted with their method of closing the debate by a ballot, it would really be a wonder .-- --Not in the Rota Club, however, but in the Committee of Safety at Whitehall and in the Wallingford-House Council, was the real and practical debate in progress.