I had them from a friend, who wished my Lord [Cromwell] well, and who told me that his Lordship had seen them, and, I believe, laughed at them, as, to my knowledge, he hath done at papers and pamphlets of more personal and particular import and abuse." It is really a relief to know that Overton, who is still credited with these lines by Godwin, Guizot, and others, was not the author of them, and this not because of their peculiar political import, but because of their utter vulgarity.

How else could we have retained our faith in Milton's character of Overton--"you, Overton, bound to me these many years past in a friendship of more than brotherly closeness and affection, both by the similarity of our tastes, and the sweetness of your manners"?
Still to have copied and kept such lines implied some sympathy with their political meaning; and, Thurloe's investigations having made it credible otherwise that Overton was implicated, more than he would admit, in the design of a general rising against the Protector's Government, there was an end to the promising career of Milton's friend under the Protectorate.

He remained from that time a close prisoner while Oliver lived.

On the 3rd of July, 1656, I find, his wife, "Mrs.Anne Overton," had liberty from the Council "to abide with her husband in the Tower, if she shall so think fit."[1] [Footnote 1: Thurloe, III.

75-77, and 110-112; Council Order Book, July 3, 1656.