Horatius ex Pyrrhæ illecebris tanquam è naufragio enataverat, cujus amore irretitos, affirmat effe mi feros. Q UIS multa gracilis te puer in rofa Cui flavam religas comam Simplex munditiis? heu quoties fidem Emirabitur infolens! Qui nunc te fruitur credulus aurea, Qui femper vacuam femper amabilem P 2 And with ftiff vows renounc'd his Liturgy, To feife the widow'd whore Plurality From them whofe fin ye envied, not abhorr'd, Dare ye for this adjure the civil fword 5 Το nal, claffical, provincial, and national affemblies. See what the author fays in his Obfervations on This copy of verfes alfo was firft added in the fecond edition of the author's poems in 1673, and I fuppofe was made, when the Di- the Irish peace, p. 356. Vol. I. rectory was eftablish'd, and difputes ran high between the Presbyterians and Independents in the year 1645, the latter pleading for a toleration, and the former against it. And in the Manufcript it is not in Milton's own hand, but in another, the fame that wrote fome of the Sonnets. Edit. 1738. "Their next impeach"ment is, that we oppose the Pres"byterial government, the hedge and "bulwark of religion. Which all "the land knows to be a moft im"pudent falhood, having efta"blifh'd it with all freedom, "wherever it hath been defir'd. "Nevertheless, as we perceive it 66 afpiring to be a compulfive power upon all without excep"tion in parochial, claffical, and 66 provincial hierarchies, or to re 3. the widow'd whore] In " the Manufcript it was at first 66 quire the fleshly arm of magi "ftracy in the execution of a ipi"ritual difciplin, to punish and amerce by any corporal inflic 66 To force our confciences that Chrift fet free, Taught ye by mere A. S. and Rotherford? 1 intent 9 Men whofe life, learning, faith and pure May with their wholesome and preventive fhears 16 Clip Gangrana, a book in which the errors, herefies, blafphemies, and lewd practice, which broke out in the last four years (1642, 1643, 1644, 1645,) are recited: See Collier's Ecclefiaftical Hiftory, Vol. 2. p. 855. Mr. Thyer gives this account of it, that it was publish'd in 1646, and dedicated to the Parlament by Thomas Edwards minifter of the Gofpel, and was intitled Gangrana, or a Catalogue and Discovery of many of the errors, berefies, blafphemies, and pernicious practices of the Secaries of this time, vented and acted in England in thefe four last years. Scotch what dye call might be perhaps the famous Alexander Henderfon, or as that expreffion implies fome hard name, George Gillespie, a Scotch P 3 minifter Clip your phylacteries, though bauk your ears, And fuccour our just fears, When they shall read this clearly in your charge, minifter and commiffioner at Weft- 20 prefs'd in his treatise of the likelieft Means to remove hirelings out of the church. "And yet a late hot Que"rift for tithes, whom ye may "know by his wit's lying ever-be"fide him in the margin, to be 66 ever befide his wits in the text; 17. Clip your phylacteries, though fierce reformer once, bauk your cars,] So we read as "rankled with a contrary heat, it is corrected in the table of Er-" &c." Vol. 1. p. 569. Edit. rata in the edition of 1673: in all 1738. the editions it is falfly printed bank This line in the Manu your ears. Crop ye as close as marginal P-s ears. He means Prynne who had been fentenc'd to lofe his ears, and afterwards was sentenc'd to lofe the remainder of them, fo that he was cropt clofe indeed: and the reafon of his calling him marginal is ex a now 20. New Prefbyter is but Old Prieft] He expreffes the fame fentiment in other parts of his works. Bishops and Prefbyters are the fame to us both name and thing. &c. See his Speech for the liberty of unlicenc'd printing. Vol. 1. p. 153. and the conclufion of his treatife intitled The Tenure of Kings and Magiftrates. SONNETS. SONNETS. I. To the NIGHTINGALE. 215 Nightingale, that on yon bloomy spray Warbleft at eve, when all the woods are still, Thou with fresh hope the lover's heart doft fill, While the jolly hours lead on propitious May. Thy liquid notes that close the eye of day, : The Sonnet is a fpecies of poetry of Italian extraction, and the famous Petrarch hath gained the reputation of being the firft author and inventor of it. He wrote a great number in commendation of his mistress Laura, with whom he was in love for twenty years together, and whofe death he lamented with the fame zeal for ten years afterwards and for the tendernefs and delicacy of his paffion, as well as for the beauty and elegance of his fentiments and language, he is esteemed the great mafter of love-poetry among the Moderns, and his Sonnets are univerfally allow'd to be the ftandard and perfection of that kind of writing. The Sonnet, I think, confifts generally of one thought, and that always turn'd in fourteen verfes of the length of our heroics, 5 Firft two ftanza's or measures of four verfes each, and two of three, the first eight verfes having no more than two rimes: and herein it differs from the Canzone, which is not confin'd to any number of ftanza's or verses. It is certainly one of the most difficult of all the leffer kinds of poetry, fuch fimplicity and fuch correctness being requir'd in the compofition: And. I have often wonder'd that the quaintnefs and exactness of the rimes alone did not deter Milton from attempting it, but he was carried on by his love of the Italians and Italian poetry: and other celebrated writers have been equally fond of copying Petrarch, as Bellay, Ronfard, Malherb &c. among the French; Sidney, Spenfer, Shakespear &c. among the English; but none of them have P 4 con |