The writings of John Greenleaf Whittier, Volume 6.
John Greenleaf Whittier, Ed.

[43] conveniently could, and from thenceforward went every day in the afternoon, except on the first day of the week, and, sitting by him in his dining-room, read to him such books in the Latin tongue as he pleased to have me read.

He perceiving with what earnest desire I had pursued learning, gave me not only all the encouragement, but all the help he could. For, having a curious ear, he understood by my tone when I understood what I read and when I did not, and accordingly would stop me, examine me, and open the most difficult passages to me.

Thanks, worthy Thomas, for this glimpse into John Milton's dining-room!

He had been with ‘Master Milton,’ as he calls him, only a few weeks, when, being one ‘first day morning,’ at the Bull and Mouth meeting, Aldersgate, the train-bands of the city, ‘with great noise and clamor,’ headed by Major Rosewell, fell upon him and his friends. The immediate cause of this onslaught upon quiet worshippers was the famous plot of the Fifth Monarchy men, grim old fanatics, who (like the Millerites of the present day) had been waiting long for the personal reign of Christ and the saints upon earth, and in their zeal to hasten such a consummation had sallied into London streets with drawn swords and loaded matchlocks. The government took strong measures for suppressing dissenters' meetings or ‘conventicles;’ and the poor Quakers, although not at all implicated in the disturbance, suffered more severely than any others. Let us look at the ‘freedom of conscience and worship’ in England under that