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X.

TO THE LADY MARGARET LEY.

DAUGHTER to that good earl, once president
Of England's council and her treasury,
Who liv'd in both, unstain'd with gold or fee,
And left them both, more in himself content,
Till sad the breaking of that parliament
Broke him, as that dishonest victory
At Chæronea, fatal to liberty,

Kill'd with report that old man eloquent.
Though later born than to have known the days,
Wherein your father flourish'd, yet by you,
Madam, methinks, I see him living yet;
So well your words his noble virtues praise,
That all both judge you to relate them true,
And to possess them, honour'd Margaret.

XI.

ON THE DETRACTION WHICH FOLLOWED UPON
MY WRITING CERTAIN TREATISES.

A BOOK was writ of late called Tetrachordon,

And woven close, both matter, form, and style;
The subject new it walk'd the town awhile,
Numbering good intellects; now seldom por'd

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XII.

ON THE SAME.

I DID but prompt the age to quit their clogs
By the known rules of ancient liberty,
When straight a barbarous noise environs me
Of owls and cuckoos, asses, apes, and dogs:
As when those hinds that were transform'd to
frogs

Rail'd at Latona's twin-born progeny,

Which after held the Sun and Moon in fee.
That bawl for freedom in their senseless mood,
But this is got by casting pearl to hogs;
And still revolt when truth would set them
free.

Licence they mean when they cry Liberty;
For who loves that, must first be wise and good;
But from that mark how far they rove we see,
For all this waste of wealth, and loos of blood.

XIII.

TO MR. H. LAWES ON THE PUBLISHING HIS
AIRS.

HARRY, whose tuneful and well measur'd song
First taught our English music how to span
Words with just note and accent, not to scan
With Midas ears, committing short and long;
Thy worth and skill exempts thee from the
throng,

With praise enough for Envy to look wan;
To after age thou shalt be writ the man,
That with smooth air could'st humour best our

tongue.
[wing
Thou honour'st verse, and verse must lend her
To honour thee, the priest of Phoebus' quire,
That tun'st their happiest lines in hymn or

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XIV.

ON THE RELIGIOUS MEMORY OF MRS. CATHERINE THOMSON, my Christian friend, deceased 16 Decemb. 1646.

never,

Had ripen'd thy just soul to dwell with God,
Meekly thou didst resign this earthly load
Of death, call'd life; which us from life doth

Ver. 1. Daughter to that good earl,] She was the daughter of sir James Ley, whose singular learning and abilities raised him through all the great posts of the law, till he came to be made earl of Malborough, and lord high treasurer, and lord president of the council to king James WHEN Faith and Love, which parted from thee I. He died in an advanced age; and Milton attributes his death to the breaking of the parliament; and it is true that the parliament was dissolved the 10th of March 1628-9, and he died on the 14th of the same month. He left several sons and daughters; and the lady Margaret was married to captain Hobson of the Isle of Wight. It appears from the accounts of Milton's life, that in 1643 he used frequently to visit this lady and her husband; about which time we may suppose this sonnet to have been composed,

Ver. 1. A book was writ of late call'd Tetrachordon,] This elaborate discussion, unworthy in many respects of Milton, and in which much acuteness of argument, and comprehension of reading, were idly thrown away, was received with contempt, or rather ridicule, as we learn from Howel's Letters. A better proof that it was treated with neglect, is, that it was attacked by two nameless and obscure writers only; one

sever.

of whom Milton calls,a Serving-man turned Sollicitor! Our author's divorce was on Platonic principles. He held, that disagreement of mind was a better cause of separation than adultery or frigidity. Here was a fair opening for the laughers. This and the following Sonnet were written soon after 1645. For this doctrine Milton was summoned before the Lords. But they not approving his accusers, the presbyterian clergy, or thinking the business too speculative, he was quickly dismissed. On this occasion Milton commenced hostilities against the Presbyterians.

'Mrs. Catherine Thomson,] I find in the accounts of Milton's life, that, when he was first

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TO THE LORD GENERAL FAIRFAX.

FAIRFAX, whose name in arms through Europe rings,

Filling each mouth with envy or with praise, And all her jealous monarchs with amaze And rumours loud, that daunt remotest kings; Thy firm unshaken virtue ever brings

Victory home, though new rebellions raise Their Hydra heads, and the false North displays

Her broken league to imp their serpent-wings. O yet a nobler task awaits thy hand,

(For what can war, but endless war still breed?) Till truth and right from violence be freed, And public faith clear'd from the shameful brand Of public fraud. In vain doth valour bleed, While avarice and rapine share the land.

XVI.

TO THE LORD GENERAL CROMWELL.

CROMWELL, Our chief of men, who through a

cloud

Not of war only, but detractions rude,
Guided by faith and matchless fortitude,
To peace and truth thy glorious way hast
plough'd,

And on the neck of crowned fortune proud
Hast rear'd God's trophies, and his work pur-
sued,
[imbrued,

While Darwen stream, with blood of Scots And Dunbar field resounds thy praises loud, And Worcester's laureat wreath. Yet much remains

To conquer still; peace hath her victories No less renown'd than war: new foes arise Threatening to bind our souls with secular chains: Help us to save free conscience from the paw Of hireling wolves, whose gospel is their maw.

XVII.

TO SIR HENRY VANE, THE YOUNGER. VANE, young in years, but in sage counsel old, Than whom a better senator ne'er held The helm of Rome, when gowns, not arms, reThe fierce Epirot and the African bold; [pell'd

made Latin secretary, he lodged at one Thomson's next door to the Bull-head tavern at Charing-Cross. This Mrs. Thomson was in all probability one of that family. NEWTON.

Whether to settle peace, or to unfold

The drift of hollow states hard to be spell'd; Then to advise how war may, best upheld, Move by her two main nerves, iron and gold, In all her equipage: besides to know

Both spiritual power and civil, what each

means,

What severs each, thou hast learn'd, which few have done:

The bounds of either sword to thee we owe:
Therefore on thy firm hand religion leans
In peace, and reckons thee her eldest son.

XVIII.

ON THE LATE MASSACRE IN PIEMONT.

AVENGE, O Lord, thy slaughter'd saints, whose

bones

Lie scatter'd on the Alpine mountains co'd; Even them who kept thy truth so pure of old, When all our fathers worshipt stocks and stones,

Forget not in thy book record their groans

Who were thy sheep, and in their ancient fold Slain by the bloody Piemontese that roll'd Mother with infant down the rocks. The

moans

The vales redoubled to the hills, and they
To Heaven. Their martyr'd blood and ashes

SOW

O'er all the Italian fields, where still doth sway The triple tyrant; that from these may grow A hundred fold, who, having learn'd thy way, Early may fly the Babylonian woe.

XIX.

ON HIS BLINDNESS.

WHEN I consider how my light is spent

Ere half my days, in this dark world and wide, And that one talent which is death to hide, Lodg'd with me useless, though my soul more bent

To serve therewith my Maker, and present My true account, lest he, returning, chide; "Doth God exact day-labour, light denied?" 1 fondly ask: but Patience, to prevent That murmur, soon replies, "God doth not need "Either man's work, or his own gifts; who

best

Bear his mild yoke, they serve him best: his

state

Is kingly; thousands at his bidding speed, And post o'er land and ocean without rest; They also serve who only stand and wait."

XX.

TO MR. LAWRENCE.

LAWRENCE, of virtuous father virtuous son,
Now that the fields are dank, and ways are

mire,

Where shall we sometimes meet, and by the fire Help waste a sullen day, what may be won

Ver. 1. Lawrence, of virtuous father virtuous son, &c.] The virtuous father Henry Lawrence, was member for Herefordshire in the Little Par

From the hard season gaining? Time will run
On smoother, till Favonius re-inspire
The frozen Earth, and clothe in fresh attire
The lily and rose, that neither sow'd nor spun.
What neat repast shall feast us, light and choice,
Of Attic taste, with wine, whence we may
rise

To hear the lute well touch'd, or artful voice Warble immortal notes and Tuscan air?

He who of those delights can judge, and spare To interpose them oft, is not unwise.

XXI.

TO CYRIACK SKINNER'.

CYRIACK, whose grandsire, on the royal bench
Of British Themis, with no mean applause
Pronounc'd, and in his volumes taught, our
laws,

Which others at their bar so often wrench;
To day deep thoughts resolve with me to drench
In mirth that, after, no repenting draws;
Let Euclid rest, and Archimedes pause,
And what the Swede intends, and what the
French.

To measure life learn thou betimes, and know Toward solid good what leads the nearest way;

For other things mild Heaven a time ordains, And disapproves that care, though wise in show, That with superfluous burden loads the day, And, when God sends a cheerful hour, refrains.

XXII.

TO THE SAME.

Right onward. What supports me, dost thou ask? The conscience, friend, to have lost them overplied

In liberty's defence, my noble task, Of which all Europe rings from side to side. This thought might lead me through the world's vain mask

Content though blind, had I no better guide. XXIII.

ON HIS DECEASED WIFE.

METHOUGHT I saw my late espoused saint Brought to me, like Alcestis, from the grave, Whom Jove's great son to her glad husband [faint. Rescu'd from death by force, though pale and Mine, as whom wash'd from spot of child-bed

gave,

taint

Purification in the old Law did save,

And such, as yet once more I trust to have Full sight of her in Heaven without restraint, Came vested all in white, pure as her mind:

Her face was veil'd; yet to my fancied sight Love, sweetness, goodness, in her person shin'd So clear, as in no face with more delight.

But O, as to embrace me she inclin'd, I wak'd; she fled; and day brought back my night.

ORIGINAL VARIOUS READINGS OF THE SONNETS,

FROM THE CAMBRIDGE MS.

SONN. viii.

Title. "On his dore when the Citty expected an

CYRIACK, this three years day these eyes, though assault." Then, as at present; with an addition

clear

To outward view, of blemish or of spot, Bereft of light, their seeing have forgot; Nor to their idle orbs doth sight appear Of Sun, or Moon, or star, throughout the year, Or man, or woman. Yet I argue not Against Heaven's hand or will, nor bate a jot Of heart or hope; but still bear up and steer

liament which began in 1653, and was active in settling the protectorate of Cromwell. In consequence of his services, he was made president of Cromwell's council; where he appears to have signed many severe and arbitrary decrees, not only against the royalists, but the Brownists, fifth-monarchy men, and other sectarists. He continued high in favour with Richard Cromwell. Henry Lawrence, the virtuous son, is the author of a work entitled Of our Communion and Warre with Angels, &c. Printed Anno Dom. 1646. 4°, 189 pages. The dedication is "To my Most deare and Most honoured Mother, the lady Lawrence." He is perhaps the same Henry Lawrence, who printed A Vindication of the Scriptures and Christian Ordinances, 1649. Lond. 4°.

'Son of William Skinner, esq. and grandson of sir Vincent Skinner; and his mother was Bridget, one of the daughters of the famous sir Edward Coke, lord chief justice of the King's Bench.

of the date 1642, afterwards expunged.

Ver. 3. If ever deed of honour did thee please. As in the edit. 1645. The present reading occurs first in the edit. 1673.

This sonnet is written in a female hand. Only the title, now prefix'd to it, is written by Milton.

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Then rough-hewn, and lastly rugged. All in Milton's own hand.

SONN. xii.

Ver. 4. Of owls and buzzards.

From ver. 1. to ver. 8, as now printed. Ver. 9. And twenty battles more.

So it was at first written, afterwards corrected to the present reading, Worcester's laureat wreath. Ver. 11, & 12, as now printed. This sonnet

Ver. 10. And hate the truth whereby they should is in a female hand, unlike that in which the 8th

be free.

All in Milton's own hand.

sonnet is written.

SONN. xvii.

SONN. xiii.

Title. "To my friend Mr. Hen. Lawes, feb. 9. 1645. On the publishing of his aires."

Ver. 1. As now printed.

Ver. 2. And to advise how war may, best up

held,

Move on her two main nerves.

Ver. 3. Words with just notes, which till then So at first written, afterwards corrected to then

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Title. "To the lord general Cromwell, May 1652. On the Proposalls of certaine ministers at

and by.

Ver. 10. What power the church and what the civill means,

- Thou teachest best, which few have ever done.

Afterwards thus,

Both spiritual power and civill, what

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the committee for propagation of the gospell." Af-Dr. Birch, in his LIFE OF MILTON, has printed a sonnet, said to be written by Milton in 1665, when terwards blotted out.

6

he retired to Chalfont in Buckinghamshire on account of the plague; and to have been seen inscribed on the glass of a window in that place. I have seen a copy of it written, apparently in a coeval hand, at the end of Tonson's edition of Milton's Smaller Poems in 1713, where it is also said to be Milton's. It is re-printed from Dr. Birch's Life of the poet, in Fawkes and Woty's Poetical Calendar, 1763, vol. viii. p. 67. But, in this sonnet, there is a scriptural muistake; which, as Mr. Warton has observed, Milton was not likely to commit. For the Sonnet improperly represents David as punished by pestilence for his adultery with Bathsheba. Mr. Warton, however, adds, that Dr. Birch had been informed by Vertue the engraver, that he had seen a satirical medal, struck upon Charles the Second, abroad, without any legend, having a correspondent device.This sonnet, I should add, varies from the construction of the legitimate sonnet, in consisting of only ten lines, instead of fourteen.

Fair mirrour of foul times! whose fragile sheen,
Shall, as it blazeth, break; while Providence,
Aye watching o'er his saints with eye unseen,
Spreads the red rod of angry pestilence,
To sweep the wicked and their counsels hence;
Yea, all to break the pride of lustful kings,
Who Heaven's lore reject for brutish sense;
As erst he scourg'd Jessides' sin of yore,
For the fair Hittite, when, on seraph's wings,
He sent him war, or plague, or famine sore.

II.

Is the concluding note on the seventh Sonnet,

it has been observed that other Italian sonnets and compositions of Milton, said to be remaining in manuscript at Florence, had been sought for in vain by Mr. Hollis. I think it may not be improper here to observe, that there is a tradition of Milton having fallen in love with a young lady, when he was at Florence; and, as she understood no English, of having written some verses to her in Italian, of which the poem, subjoined to this remark, is said to be the sense. It has often been printed; as in the Gentleman's Magazine for 1760, p. 148; in Fawkes and Woty's Poetical Calendar, 1763, vol. viii. p. 68; in the Annual Register for 1772, p. 219; and in the third volume of Milton's poems in the Edition of the Poets, 1779. But to the original no reference is given, and even of the translator no mention is made, in any of those volumes. The poem is entitled, A fragment of Milton, from

the Italian.

When, in your language, I unskill'd address

The short-pac'd efforts of a traminell'd Muse; Soft Italy's fair critics round me press,

And my mistaking passion thus accuse.

"Why, to our tongue's disgrace, does thy dumb love

Strive, in rough sound, soft meaning to impart? He must select his words who speaks to move, And point his purpose at the hearer's heart."

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CHRIST'S NATIVITY 1.

THIS is the month, and this the happy morn,
Wherein the Son of Heaven's Eternal King,
Of wedded maid and virgin mother born,
Our great redemption from above did bring;
For so the holy sages once did sing,

That he our deadly forfeit should release, And with his Father work us a perpetual peace.

That glorious form, that light unsufferable,
And that far-beaming blaze of majesty, [table
Wherewith he wont at Heaven's high council-
To sit the midst of Trinal Unity,

He laid aside; and, here with us to be,

Forsook the courts of everlasting day, And chose with us a darksome house of mortal clay.

Say, heavenly Muse, shall not thy sacred vein
Afford a present to the Infant-God?
Hast thou no verse, no hymn, or solemn strain,
To welcome him to this his new abode,
Now while the Heaven, by the Sun's team untrod,
Hath took no print of the approaching light,
And all the spangled host keep watch in squa*
drons bright?

See, how from far, upon the eastern road,
The star-led wisards haste with odours sweet:
O run, prevent them with thy humble ode,
Aud lay it lowly at his blessed feet;
Have thou the honour first thy Lord to greet,
And join thy voice unto the angel-quire,
From out his secret altar touch'd with hallow'd
fire.

THE HYMN.

Ir was the winter wild,

While the Heaven-born child

All meanly wrapt in the rude manger lies;
Nature in awe to him,
Had doff'd her gaudy trim,

With her great Master so to sympathize:

'This ode, in which the many learned allusions are highly peetical, was probably composed as a college-exercise at Cambridge, our author being now only twenty-one years old. In the edition of 1645, in its title it is said to have been written in 1029.

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