Scosso mi il petto, e poi, n'uscendo poco,
Quivi d'attorno o s'agghiaccia o s'ingiela;
Ma quanto a gli occhi giunge a trovar loco
Tutte le notti a me suol far piovose,
Finchè mia alba rivien colma di rose.

VII. [vi.]

GIOVANE piano e semplicetto amante,
Poichè fuggir me stesso in dubbio sono,
Madonna, a voi del mio cuor l'umil dono.
Farò divoto. Io certo a prove tante

L'ebbi fedele, intrepido, costante,

Di pensieri leggiadro, accorto, e buono.

Quando rugge il gran mondo, e scocca il tuono,
S'arma di se, e d'intero diamante;

Tanto del forse, e d'invidia sicuro,

Di timori, e speranze al popol use,

Quanto d'ingegno e d'alto valor vago,

E di cetra sonora, e delle Muse.
Sol troverete in tal parte men duro
Ove Amor mise l'insanabil ago.

10

5

10

"Parte per in parte

9. Parte, etc. This place seems almost unintelligible. può stare."-R. But parte seems to be una parte sc. del vapor, v. 5; quanto, in v. 12, being the remainder.

10. Scosso mi il petto. This, we suppose, answers to the Latin abl. abs. ; but it is so unusual that we could almost suspect that the poet wrote Sotto il mio petto.-n' uscendo poco. "Fatto per ritmo, dovrebbe essere uscendone poco.”—R. 11. o s' agghiaccia, etc. "Non c'è nessuna differenza fra s'agghiaccia e s'ingiela."-R.

14. mia alba. Probably the Donna mia of v. 1. Tasso, of whose Sonnets Milton was evidently a diligent reader, in one of them, Quando l'Alba si leva e si rimira, calls the lady his Aurora. In like manner Chaucer, in Lenvoye to the Cuckoo and the Nightingale, terms his mistress

"Aurore of gladnesse, day of lustinesse."

SONNET VII.-2. Poichè, etc. 66

fuggir me stesso," ecc.-R.

"Questo verso dovrebbe essere, Poichè di

7. il gran mondo. Quære."-P. It is the sky, mundus.

8. sicuro. In the sense of securus, without care, regardless of; a rather unusual sense of the Italian word.

13. Sol, etc. The pronoun il or lo seems wanting here.

14. ago, sting. "E come vespa che ritragge l'ago." Dante, Purg. xxii. v.

VIII.

WHEN THE ASSAULT WAS INTENDED TO THE CITY.

(1642.)

CAPTAIN, or Colonel, or Knight in arms,

Whose chance on these defenceless doors may seize,
If deed of honour did thee ever please,

Guard them, and him within protect from harms.
He can requite thee, for he knows the charms
That call fame on such gentle acts as these;
And he can spread thy name o'er lands and seas,
Whatever clime the sun's bright circle warms.
Lift not thy spear against the Muses' bower.
The great Emathian conqueror bid spare
The house of Pindarus, when temple and tower
Went to the ground; and the repeated air

Of sad Electra's poet had the power

To save the Athenian walls from ruin bare.

5

10

133. But Milton seems to have had here before him Tasso's Sonnet, Rose, che l'arte invidiosa ammira, which concludes thus :

"Amor, ape novella, ah! quanto fora

Soave il mel, che dal fiorito volto

Suggi, e poi sulle labra il formi e stendi!

Ma con troppo acut' ago il guardi, ah! stolto:

Se ferir brami scendi al petto, scendi,

E di sì degno cor tuo strale onora.'

SONNET VIII.-1. "Marshal, ask yonder knight in arms." Rich. II. i. 3.-W. 2. Whose chance, etc., i.e. whose chance it may be, etc.

5. charms, i.e. magic verses, carmina.

6. "Carmina vel cælo possunt deducere lunam." Virg. Buc. viii. 69.— K. 7. And he can, etc. Here Milton, like every great poet, shows his consciousness of the vitality of his verses.

8. Whatever, ie. to or through whatever: see on Lyc. v. 28.

10. The great, etc. This anecdote is related of Alexander the Great by Elian (Var. Hist. xiii. 7) and by Pliny (Nat. Hist. vii. 29).

12. and the repeated, etc. Plutarch (Lys. 15) tells us that when it was under debate in the camp of Lysander whether Athens should be levelled or not, a Phocian minstrel chanced to sing, at a banquet of the chief officers, the chorus from the Electra of Euripides, commencing with—

̓Αγαμέμνονος ὦ κόρα,

ἤλυθον, Ηλέκτρα, ποτὶ σὰν ἀγρότειραν αὐλάν, κ.τ.λ. υ. 167 ;

and the guests were so affected, that they declared it would be an unworthy deed

IX.

TO A VIRTUOUS YOUNG LADY.—M.

(1644 ?)

LADY, that in the prime of earliest youth
Wisely hast shunned the broad way and the green,
And with those few art eminently seen,

That labour up the hill of heavenly truth,
The better part with Mary and with Ruth
Chosen thou hast; and they that overween,
And at thy growing virtues fret their spleen,
No anger find in thee, but pity and ruth.
Thy care is fixed, and zealously attends

To fill thy odorous lamp with deeds of light,
And hope that reaps not shame. Therefore be sure
Thou, when the bridegroom with his feastful friends
Passes to bliss at the mid-hour of night,

Hast gained thy entrance, Virgin wise and pure.

10

to reduce to ruin a place so renowned as the birthplace of illustrious men.—repeated, i.e. recited, sung.

13. Of sad Electra's poet, i.e. of the poet who sung of the sad Electra ; who, whenever she appears in the drama, is always sad and mournful. Collins, in his Ode to Simplicity, uses this phrase, more correctly, of Sophocles.

SONNET IX.-1. Lady, etc. In this first quatrain the poet has united the "broad way that leadeth to destruction" (Mat. vii. 13) of Scripture with the Hill of Virtue of Hesiod, 'Epy', 287.

3. eminently seen, i.e. greatly distinguished.

5. "Mary hath chosen that good part," Luke x. 42. Ruth clave unto her mother-in-law Naomi, when her other daughter-in-law kissed her and left her. (Ruth i. 14).

8. pity and ruth. especially by Chaucer.

These synonymous terms are frequently thus joined,

"But went his way for ruth and for pitè." Clerke's Tale.

"To save the knight for ruth and for pitè." Tale of Doctor of Phisik. "I have on yow so gret pitè and ruth." Schipmann's Tale.

Newton remarks that Ruth and ruth rime together, and refers to F. Q. i. 6, 39 ; vii. 6, 38, for similar instances in proof that "our old poets were not so delicate" in these matters; and Todd adds instances from Tasso. It is, we may observe, a principle in Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, and even French poetry, that words the same in orthography, but differing in sense, may rime together. 9. "O God, my heart is fixed." Ps. cviii. 1.

10. To fill, etc. Alluding to the parable of the Virgins, Mat. xxv. 1.

11. "And hope maketh not ashamed." Rom. v. 5.

13. feastful, i.e. festive. Warton observes that it is used by Spenser.

X.

TO THE LADY MARGARET LEY.

(1644 ?)

DAUGHTER to that good Earl, once President
Of England's Council, and her Treasury,
Who lived in both unstained with gold or fee,
And left them both, more in himself content,
Till the sad breaking of that Parliament
Broke him, as that dishonest victory

At Chæronea, fatal to liberty,

Killed with report that old man eloquent.

Though later born than to have known the days
Wherein your father flourished, 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, honoured Margaret.

5

10

XI.

ON THE DETRACTION WHICH FOLLOWED UPON MY
WRITING CERTAIN TREATISES.-M.

(1645.)

A BOOK was writ of late called Tetrachordon,

And woven close, both matter, form, and style;

SONNET X.-1. that good Earl, i.e. Lord Marlborough.

3. fee, i.e. reward or bribery.

4. more, etc., i.e. having more content and happiness in retirement and freedom from care.

5. Till, etc. The Parliament was dissolved March 10, 1628-9, and Lord Marlborough died four days after, but not of grief, as the poet supposes.

6. as that, etc., i.e. the battle of Charoneia, gained by Philip of Macedonia over the Athenians and Thebans. Isocrates, the celebrated Athenian orator, is said to have died suddenly from the shock given him by the intelligence.

14. Margaret. Tasso, in like manner, ends his sonnet Per la Signora Margherita with the proper name, but with a play on it not possible in English.

"Preziosa e mirabil Margherita."

SONNET XI.-1. Tetrachordon, i.e. his own work so named. See Life of Milton, p. 37.

The subject new: it walked the town awhile,
Numbering good intellects; now seldom pored on.
Cries the stall-reader, 'Bless us! what a word on
A title-page is this!' and some in file

Stand spelling false, while one might walk to Mile-
End Green. Why it is harder, Sirs, than Gordon,
Colkitto, or Macdonnel, or Galasp.'

Those rugged names to our like mouths grow sleek,
That would have made Quintilian stare and gasp.
Thy age, like ours, O soul of Sir John Cheek,
Hated not learning worse than toad or asp,

When thou taughtest Cambridge and King Edward Greek.

XII.

ON THE SAME.-M.

(1645.)

I DID but prompt the age to quit their clogs,
By the known rules of ancient liberty,

4. Numbering, sc. among its readers.

5. stall-readers, i.e. readers at the book-stalls.

8. Why, sc. say they.-Gordon, etc. He selects these names from his dislike of the Scots and their Presbytery; but surely they are not hard either to spell or to pronounce. Colkitto is Sir Alexander M'Donnel, whom his kinsman the Earl of Antrim sent from Ireland with aid to Montrose in the Highlands, by whom he was knighted. He was called by the Irish and the Highlanders, Colla Ciotach, i.e. Colla the Left-Handed, whence Colkitto; while the Irish form of Alexander is Alasdrom. There is a pipe-tune in Ireland called Mairseail Alasdroim, or Alexander's March, to which his men are said to have marched to the place in the county of Cork where he was killed in battle by Lord Inchiquin in 1617.-Galasp is G. Gillespie, a Scottish member of the Assembly of Divines.

10. our like mouths, i.e. mouths like ours.

"He made by love out of his own like mould.”

Spenser, Hymn to Div. Love, v. 116.

12. Thy age, i.e. thy age did not, like ours, hate, etc.-Sir John Cheek or Cheke was the first Professor of Greek in the University of Cambridge, and was one of the tutors of Edward VI. In his efforts to extend the knowledge of Greek, he met with great opposition from Bishop Gardener, the Chancellor of the University, and the other patrons of ignorance.

12. "Divers noble persons hated King Richard worse than a toad or a serpent." Halle.-W.