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 rapin share the land. XVI. To the Lord General CROMWELL.* 9 Cromwell, our chief of men, who through a cloud To peace and truth thy glorious way hast plough'd, And on the neck of crowned fortune proud Fletcher, PURPL. ISL. C. i. 24. -IMPING their flaggie wings With thy ftolne plumes. Shakespeare, RICH. ii. A. ii. S. i. IMP out our drooping country's broken wing. 5 Where Mr. Steevens produces other inftances. It occurs alfo in poets much later than Milton. See also Reed's OLD PL. vii. 172. 520. X. 351. 13. Of public fraud.-] The Prefbyterian Committees and Subcommittees. The grievance fo much complained of by Milton in his History of England. See Birch's edition. Public fraud is opposed to public faith, the fecurity given by the parliament to the City-contributions for carrying on the war. W. * Written 1652. The proftitution of Milton's Mufe to the celebration of Cromwell, was as inconfiftent and unworthy, as that this enemy to kings, to antient magnificence, and to all that is venerable and majestic, should have been buried in the Chapel of Henry the Seventh. But there is great dignity both of fentiment and expreffion in this Sonnet. Unfortunately, the close is an anticlimax to both. After a long flow of perfpicuous and nervous language, the unexpected paufe at "Worcester's laureat wreath," is very emphatical, and has a striking effect. 5. And on the neck of crowned fortune proud Haft rear'd God's trophies, and his work pursued.] These admirable Haft rear'd God's trophies, and his work purfued, While Darwen stream with blood of Scots imbrued, And Dunbar field refounds thy praises loud, And Worcester's laureat wreath. Yet much remains To conquer ftill; peace hath her victories No lefs renown'd than war: new foes arise Threatening to bind our fouls with fecular chains: Help us to fave free confcience from the paw Of hireling wolves, whofe gospel is their maw. 10 admirable verses, not only to the mutilation of the integrity of the ftanza, but to the injury of Milton's genius, were reduced to the following meagre contraction, in the printed copies of Philips, Toland, Tonfon, Tickell, and Fenton. And fought God's battles, and his works pursued. Ibid. -Crowned fortune.-] His malignity to Kings aided his imagination in the expreffion of this fublime fentiment. H. 9. And Worcester's laureat wreath.-] This feems pretty, but is inexact in this place. However, the expreffion alludes to what Cromwell faid of his fuccefs at Worcester, that it was his crowning mercy. H. This hemiftic originally stood, And twenty battles more. Such are often our firft thoughts in a fine paffage. I take it, that one of the effential beauties of the Sonnet is often to carry the pauses into the middle of the lines. Of this our author has given many striking examples; and here we difcern the writer whofe ear was tuned to blank verfe. 12. Secular chains.] The Minifters moved Cromwell to lend the fecular arm to fupprefs fectaries. W. 14. Of hireling wolves, whofe gospel is their maw.] Hence it appears that this Sonnet was written about May, 1652. By hireling wolves he means the prefbyterian clergy, who poffeffed the revenues of the parochial benefices on the old conftitution, and whose conformity he fuppofes to be founded altogether on motives of emolument. See Note on LYCIDAS, V. 114. There was now no end of innovation and reformation. In 1649, it was propofed in parliament to abolish Tythes, as Jewish and antichriftian, and as they were authorised only by the ceremonial law of Mofes, which was abrogated by the gofpel. But as the propofal tended to endanger lay-impropriations, the notion of their DIVINE X x 2 RIGHT XVII. To Sir HENRY VANE the younger. Vane, young in years, but in fage counsel old, RIGHT was allowed to have fome weight, and the business was poftponed. This was an argument in which Selden had abused his great learning Milton's party were of opinion, that as every parifh fhould elect, fo it fhould respectively sustain, its own mi nifter by public contribution. Others proposed to throw the tythes of the whole kingdom into one common ftock, and to distribute them according to the fize of the parishes. Some of the Indepen→ dents urged, that Chrift's ministers should have no fettled property at all, but be like the apoftles who were fent out to preach without ftaff or fcrip, without common neceffaries; to whom Chrift faid, Lacked ye any thing? A fucceffion of miracles was therefore to be worked, to prevent the faints from starving. See Baxter's LIFE, p. 115. Kennet's CASE OF IMPROPRIATIONS, p. 268. Walker's SUFFERINGS, p. 36. Thurloe's STATE PAP. vol. ii, 687. Milton's praise of Cromwell may be thought inconfiftent with that zeal which he profeffed for liberty: for Cromwell's affumption of the Protectorate, even if we allow the lawfulness of the Rebellion, was palpably a violent ufurpation of power over the rights of the nation, and was reprobated even by the republican party. Milton, however, in various parts of the DEFENSIO SE CUNDA, gives excellent admonitions to Cromwell, and with great fpirit, freedom, and eloquence, not to abuse his new authority. Yet not without an intermixture of the groffeft adulation. Note on SAMSON AGONISTES, v. 1268. See Perhaps written about the time of the laft, having the fame tendency. 1. Vane, young in years, but in fage counsel old, &c.] Sir Henry Vane the younger was the chief of the independents, and therefore Milton's friend. He was the contriver of the Solemn League and Covenant. He was an eccentric character, in an age of eccentric characters. In religion the most fantastic of all enthusiasts, and a weak writer, he was a judicious and fagacious politician. The warmth of his zeal never misled his public measures. He was a knight-errant in every thing but affairs of ftate. The fagacious bishop Burnet in vain attempted to penetrate the darkness of his creed. He held, that the devils and the damned would be faved. He believed himself the perfon delegated by God, to reign over the The helm of Rome, when gowns not arms re pell'd The fierce Epirot and the African bold, Whether to fettle peace, or to unfold The drift of hollow ftates hard to be spell'd, Then to advise how war may best upheld Move by her two main nerves, iron and gold, In all her equipage: besides to know 9 Both spiritual pow'r and civil, what each means, What fevers each, thou haft learn'd, which few have done : The bounds of either fword to thee we owe: Therefore on thy firm hand religion leans the faints upon earth for a thousand years. His principles founded a fect called the VANISTS. On the whole, no fingle man ever exhibited fuch a medley of fanaticism and diffimulation, folid abilities and vifionary delufions, good fenfe and madness. In the pamphlets of that age he is called fir Humorous Vanity. He was beheaded in 1662. On the Scaffold, he compared Tower Hill to mount Pifgah, where Mofes went to die, in full affurance of being immediately placed at the right hand of Chrift. Milton alludes to the execution of Vane and other regicides, after the Restoration, and in general to the sufferings of his friends on that event, in a speech of the Chorus on Samfon's degradation. SAMS. AGON. v. 687. See alfo Ibid. v. 24.1. This Sonnet feems to have been written in behalf of the independents, against the prefbyterian hierarchy. 13. -] Peace with the bollow States of Firm hand. In the manufcript right hand, but altered to firm hand; and should have been altered further to firm arm. W. XVIII. On the late maffacre in PIEMONT.* Avenge, O Lord, thy flaughter'd faints, whose bones In 1655, the duke of Savoy determined to compel his reformed fubjects in the Vallies of Piedmont, to embrace popery, or quit their country. All who remained and refused to be converted, with their wives and children, fuffered a moft barbarous maffacre. Thofe who escaped, fled into the mountains, from whence they fent agents into England to Cromwell for relief. He inftantly commanded a general fast, and promoted a national contribution in which near forty thousand pounds were collected. The perfecution was fufpended, the duke recalled his army, and the furviving inhabitants of the Piedmontefe Vallies were reinstated in their cottages, and the peaceable exercise of their religion. On this bufinefs, there are feveral ftate-letters in Cromwell's name written by Milton. One of them is to the Duke of Savoy. See PROSE-WORKS, ii. 183. feq. 437. 439. Milton's mind, bufied with this affecting fubject, here broke forth in a ftrain of poetry, where his feelings were not fettered by ceremony or formality. The proteftants availed themselves of an opportunity of expofing the horrours of popery, by publishing many fets of prints of this unparalleled fcene of religious butchery, which operated like Fox's BOOK OF MARTYRS. Sir William Moreland, Cromwell's agent for the Vallies of Piedmont at Geneva, published a minute account of this whole tranfaction, in "The Hiftory of the Valleys of "Piemont, &c. Lond. 1658." With numerous cuts, in folio. Milton among many other atrocious examples of the papal fpirit appeals to this maffacre, in Cromwell's Letter to king Charles Guftavus, dat. 1656. "Teftes ALPINA valles miferorum cæde ac fanguine redundantes, &c." PR. W. ii. 454. 66 2. Lie fcatter'd on the Alpine mountains cold.] From Fairfax's TASSO, C. xiii. 60. -Into the valleys greene Distill'd from tops of ALPINE MOUNTAINS COLD. 3. Ev'n them who kept thy truth fo pure of old, When all our fathers worshipt stocks and ftones] It is pretended that when the church of Rome became corrupt, they preferved the primitive apoftolical christianity: and that they have manufcripts against |