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When straight a barbarous noise environs me
Of owls and cuckoos, asses, apes, and dogs;

As when those hinds, that were transformed to frogs,
Railed at Latona's twin-born progeny,

Which after held the sun and moon in fee.

But this is got by casting pearl to hogs,
That bawl for freedom in their senseless mood,

And still revolt when Truth would set them free.
License 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 loss of blood.

XIII. [XIV.]

ON THE RELIGIOUS MEMORY OF MRS. CATHARINE
THOMSON, MY CHRISTIAN FRIEND,

DECEASED 16 DECEMBER, 1646.-M.

WHEN Faith and Love, which parted from thee never,
Had ripened thy just soul to dwell with God,
Meekly thou didst resign this earthly load

Of death, called life, which us from life doth sever.
Thy works, and alms, and all thy good endeavour

Stayed not behind, nor in the grave were trod;
But, as Faith pointed with her golden rod,
Followed thee up to joy and bliss for ever.

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SONNET XII.-3. noise, i.e. band or chorus: see on At Sol. Mus. v. 18. He means the Presbyterian clergy.

5. As when, etc. See Ov. Met. vi. 337. It was at the goddess herself, not at her unborn progeny, that they railed.

"Of her fair twins was there delivered

That afterwards did rule the night and day." F. Q. ii. 12, 13.-K.

7. in fee, i.e. in fee simple, in full possession.

13. But from, etc. The allusion is to archery. There was a kind of arrows named rovers.

14. For, i.e. notwithstanding: see on On Nat. v. 73.

SONNET XIII.-3. Meekly, etc. He seems to have had here in his mind Rom. vii. 24, and other passages in St. Paul's Epistles, in which the present is viewed as a kind of death in comparison with the future state of existence.

5. "Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord. . . that they may rest from their labours; and their works do follow them," Rev. xiv. 13. "Thy prayers and thine alms are come up for a memorial before God," Acts x. 4.—K.

Love led them on, and Faith who knew them best,
Thy handmaids, clad them o'er with purple beams
And azure wings, that up they flew so drest,
And spake the truth of thee on glorious themes
Before the Judge, who thenceforth bid thee rest,
And drink thy fill of pure immortal streams.

XIV. [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
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 sowed 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 touched, 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.

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10. Thy handmaids, i.e. as thy handmaids.-so drest, i.e. dressed in that

manner.

14. "Thou shalt make them drink of the river of thy pleasures, for with thee is the well of life." Ps. xxxvi. 8.-W.

SONNET XIV.-2. Now that, etc,. i.e. now that the fields are wet and damp, and the roads are full of mire and mud; in other words, now that it is winter. Perhaps the sonnet was written in the wet month of February.

3. sometimes, i.e. from time to time, occasionally.

4. Help waste, i.e. help each other to get through.—what may, etc., i.e. extracting all the enjoyment possible from this season.

5. Time will run, sc. to us, when thus employed.

7. The frozen earth. This does not well accord with v. 2; but poets do not usually mind little inconsistencies of this nature.—attire, i.e. flower or bloom : see on On Time, v. 21.

8. The lily, etc. See Mat. vi. 26.

13. spare, sc. time.--interpose, i.e. place them in the intervals of his serious occupations.

xv. [xxI.]

TO CYRIAC SKINNER.

CYRIAC, whose grandsire on the royal bench
Of British Themis, with no mean applause,
Pronounced, and in his volumes taught, our laws,
Which others at their bar so often wrench,
Today 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.

XVI. [XIII.]

TO MR. H. LAWES, ON HIS AIRS.-M.

(1646.)

HARRY, whose tuneful and well-measured 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,

SONNET XV.-1. grandsire, i.e. Sir Edward Coke.

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7. Let Euclid, etc. Because Skinner was devoted to mathematical studies. 8. And what, etc. The King of Sweden was at that time at war with Poland, and the French with Spain.

11. "To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven." Eccles. iii. 1.-K.

12. "Take therefore no thought for the morrow. . . . Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof." Mat. vi. 34.-K.

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'Quid sit futurum cras fuge quærere, et
Quem sors dierum cumque dabit, lucro
Appone." Hor. Carm. i. 9, 13.—N.

SONNET XVI.-2. Span, i.e. extend, draw out, pronounce.
4. committing, i.e. confounding. A Latinism.

5. "Secernunt populo." Hor. Carm. i. 1, 32.-R.

VOL. I.

M

With praise enough for envy to look wan;
To after-age thou shalt be writ the man,
That with smooth air could humour best our tongue.
Thou honourest verse, and verse must lend her wing
To honour thee, the priest of Phoebus' quire,
That tunest their happiest lines in hymn or story.
Dante shall give Fame leave to set thee higher
Than his Casella, whom he wooed to sing,
Met in the milder shades of Purgatory.

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XVII.

ON THE NEW FORCERS OF CONSCIENCE UNDER THE LONG PARLIAMENT.-M.

(1646 or 1647.)

BECAUSE you have thrown off your prelate-lord,
And with stiff vows renounced his Liturgy,
To seize the widowed whore Plurality,

From them whose sin ye envied, not abhorred,

Dare ye for this adjure the civil sword

To force our consciences that Christ set free?
And ride us with a classic hierarchy,
Taught ye by mere A. S. and Rotherford?
Men, whose life, learning, faith, and pure intent
Would have been held in high esteem with Paul,

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7. "Scriberis Vario fortis, et hostium," etc. Hor. Carm. i. 6, 1.—N. 11. story. "The story of Ariadne set by him to music."-Marginal note to this Sonnet as it stands prefixed to Choice Psalms put into Music by H. and W. Lawes, Lond. 1648.-W.

12. Dante, etc. See Il Purg. ii. terz. 35. By 'milder shades' he means shades less dense and dark than those of Hell, which he had just quitted. But Milton seems not to have recollected that Dante's Purgatory is on the surface of the earth, and that it was early in the morning that Dante met Casella.

SONNET XVII.-To seize, etc. He terms Plurality, which he personifies, a 'whore,' partly from her nature as not content with one, partly in allusion to the Church of Rome; and 'widowed,' as Episcopacy had been suppressed. 7. classic. On account of the classes in the Presbyterian discipline. 8. Taught, etc. 'A. S.' is Adam Steuart, a Scotch divine, who in general put only his initials to his numerous tracts and pamphlets. Rotherford was another of the Scotch divines who sat in the Assembly at Westminster.— W.

10. with Paul, i.e. by Paul, apud Paulum. But by and with had originally, and in some cases have still, the same sense.

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Must now be named and printed heretics
By shallow Edwards and Scotch What-d'ye-call.
But we do hope to find out all your tricks,

Your plots and packing worse than those of Trent,
That so the Parliament

May, with their wholesome and preventive shears,
Clip your phylacteries, though bauk your ears,
And succour our just fears,

When they shall read this clearly in your charge,
New presbyter is but old priest writ large.

XVIII. [XV.]

TO THE LORD GENERAL FAIRFAX.

(1648.)

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,

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12. By shallow Edwards, i.e. Thomas Edwards, author of the celebrated Gangræna' and other works, a bitter foe to the Independents.-What-d'ye-call. Perhaps Gillespie: see on Sonnet XI.

13. packing, sc. of the Assembly, excluding as far as they could all those who did not support their views.

16. preventive, i.e. anticipating: see on Ode on Nat. v. 24.

17. Clip, etc. He first wrote, " Crop you as close as marginal P―'s ears," alluding to the well-known Prynne, whose ears had been cut off at the instigation of Laud, and who was noted for filling the "margins" of his books with quotations and references.-W. In his Means to Remove Hirelings, etc., Milton says of him, "A late hot querist for tithes, whom you may know, by his wits lying ever beside him in the margins, to be ever beside his wits in the text.”—T. -phylacteries. These were slips of parchment with passages of the Law written on them, worn on their foreheads by the Jewish Pharisees, with whom he identifies the Presbyterian divines.-bauk, i.e. balk, omit, pass over. Possibly it is to be taken in its common sense, disappoint, i.e. deprive them, as it were, of the glory of martyrdom.

19. charge, i.e. the Directory which they compiled. We say, a bishop's charge to his clergy.

20. at large, i.e. at full length, priest being a mere corruption of presbyter. Both, he means, were equally intolerant and worldly-minded.

SONNET XVIII.-2. with envy, i.e. with the language of envy; an unusual mode of expression.

4. And rumours, i.c. filling Europe with rumours: certainly very awkwardly

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