When straight a barbarous noise environs me As when those hinds, that were transformed to frogs, Which after held the sun and moon in fee. But this is got by casting pearl to hogs, And still revolt when Truth would set them free. XIII. [XIV.] ON THE RELIGIOUS MEMORY OF MRS. CATHARINE DECEASED 16 DECEMBER, 1646.-M. WHEN Faith and Love, which parted from thee never, Of death, called life, which us from life doth sever. Stayed not behind, nor in the grave were trod; 5 10 5 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, XIV. [xx.] TO MR. LAWRENCE. LAWRENCE, of virtuous father virtuous son, Now that the fields are dank, and ways are mire, The lily and rose, that neither sowed nor spun. Of Attic taste, with wine? whence we may rise He who of those delights can judge, and spare 10 5 10 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 And what the Swede intends, and what the French. 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 SONNET XV.-1. grandsire, i.e. Sir Edward Coke. 10 5 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. 'Quid sit futurum cras fuge quærere, et SONNET XVI.-2. Span, i.e. extend, draw out, pronounce. 5. "Secernunt populo." Hor. Carm. i. 1, 32.-R. VOL. I. M With praise enough for envy to look wan; 10 XVII. ON THE NEW FORCERS OF CONSCIENCE UNDER THE LONG PARLIAMENT.-M. (1646 or 1647.) BECAUSE you have thrown off your prelate-lord, From them whose sin ye envied, not abhorred, Dare ye for this adjure the civil sword To force our consciences that Christ set free? 10 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. Must now be named and printed heretics Your plots and packing worse than those of Trent, May, with their wholesome and preventive shears, When they shall read this clearly in your charge, XVIII. [XV.] TO THE LORD GENERAL FAIRFAX. (1648.) FAIRFAX, whose name in arms through Europe rings, And rumours loud, that daunt remotest kings, 15 20 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 |