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.

On the Detraction which followed upon the writing

certain Treatises.*

A BOOK was writ of late callid Tetrachordon,

And woven close, both matter, form, and style ; The subject new : it walk'd the town awhile,

Numb'ring good intellects ; now seldom por'd 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 is it harder, Sirs, than Gordon,
Colkitto, or Macdonnel, or Galasp?t.
Those rugged names to our like mouths grow

sleek, That would have made Quintillian stare and gasp; Thy age, like ours 0 soul of Sir John Cheek,

Hated not learning worse than toad or asp,
When thou taught'st Cambridge, and king Ed.

ward, Greek.

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.

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.

TO MR. H. LAWES, ON HIS AIRS, 1645.*

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 humour best our tongue. Thou honour'st verse, and verse must lend her wing

This Mr. Henry Lawes was a gentleman of the king's chapel, and ono of his band of music, and an intimate friend of Milton.

To honour thee, the priest of Phæbus' choir,

That tun'st their happiest lines in hymn, or story. I Dante shall give fame leave to set thee higher

Than his Casella, whom he woo'd to sing,
Met in the milder shades of Purgatory.

On the religious memory of Mrs. Catharine Thomson. my Christian Friend, deceased 16th of December, 1646.*

WHEN faith and love, which parted from thee 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 sever. Thy works, and alms, and all thy good endeavour,

Stay'd not behind, nor in the grave were trod :
But, as Faith pointed with her golden rod,

Follow'd thee up to joy and bliss for ever.
Love led them on, and faith who knew them best
Thy hand-maids, clad them o'er with purple

beams
And azure wings, that up they flew so dress'd
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.

TO THE LORD GENERAL FAIRFAX.

FAIRFAX, whose name in arms through Europe rings :

Filling each mouth with envy or with praise, *"Who this Mrs. Thomson was, (says Dr. Newton,) we can. not be certain ; but I find in the accounts of Milton's life, that when he was first made Latin Secretary, he lodged at one Thomson's, next door to the Bull-head tavern at Charing-cross. This Mrs. Thomson, therefore, was, in all probability, one of that family."

$ This sonnet appears, from the manuscript, to have been ad

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.

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 ploughed. And on the neck of crown'd fortune proud

Hast rear'd God's trophies, and his works pursued, While Darwen stream, with blood of Scots im.

brued, And Dunbar field resounds thy praises loud, And Worcester's laureate wreath. Yet much remains

To conquer still ; Peace hath her victories

No less renown'd than War: new foes arise Threat'ning to bind our souls with secular chains :

Help us to save free conscience from the paw

Of hireling wolves, whose gospel is their maw. . dressed to Gen. Fairfax at the seige of Colchester, which was carried on in the summer of 1648.

* In the Author's manuscript is this incription: To the Lord General Cromwell, May 1652. On the proposals of certain ministers at the committee for propagation of the Gospel.

R*

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, repellid

The fierce Epirot, and th' African bold,
Whether to settle peace, or to unfold

The drift of hollow states hard to be spellid :
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.

ON THE LATE MASSACRE IN

PIEDMONT.*

AVENGE, O Lord thy slaughter'd

bones

saints, whose

This persecution of the Protestants in Peidmont broke out in 1655. In May, that year, Cromwell wrote several letters to the Duke of Savoy, and other potentates and states complaining of that persecution. Echard tells us, that he proclaimed a fast, and caused large contributions to be gathered for them in Eng. land; that he sent his agents to the Duke of Savoy, a prince with whom he had no correspondence or commerce, and the next year, . so engaged Cardinal Mazarine, and even terrified the Pope himself, without so much as doing any favour to the English Roman Catholics, that the Duke thought it necessary to restore all that he had taken from them, and renewed all those privileges they had formerly enjoyed. “So great (adds Échard) was the terror of his name; nothing being more usual than his saying, that his ships in the Medditerranean should visit Civita Vecchia, and the sound of his cannon should be heard in Rome."