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X.

To the Lady MARGARET LEY. Daughter to that good Earl, once President Of England's Council, and her Treasury, Who liv'd in both, unftain'd with gold or fee, And left them both, more in himself content, Till fad the breaking of that Parlament

Broke him, as that dishonest victory

At Chæronea, fatal to liberty,

Kill'd with report that old man eloquent. Though later born than to have known the days Wherein your father florish'd, yet by you, Madam, methinks I fee him living yet; So well your words his noble virtues praise, That all both judge you to relate them true, And to poffefs them, honour'd Margaret.

XI.

On the detraction which followed upon my writing certain treatifes.

A book was writ of late call'd Tetrachordon,

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1. Daughter to that good earl, &c.] See Dugdale's BARON. ii. 450. 8. old man eloquent.] Ifocrates, aged ninety nine years, who died on hearing the news of the victory obtained by Philip of Macedon over the Athenians and their allies. A republic brought under the dominion of a king, was a part of the Grecian history which Milton was likely to remember.

1. A book was writ of late call'd Tetrachordon.] Milton wifhed he had not wrote this work in English. This is obferved by Mr. Bowle,

who

And woven close, both matter, form and stile; The subject new it walk'd the town a while, Numb'ring good intellects; now seldom por❜d on.

who points out the following proof, in the DEFENSIO SECUNDA. "Vellem hoc tantum, fermone vernaculo me non fcripfiffe: non "enim in vernas lectores incidiffem, quibus folenne eft fua bona ignorare, aliorum mala irridere." PROSE-WORKS, ii. 331.

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This was one of Milton's books published in confequence of his divorce from his firft wife, Mary the daughter of Mr. Richard Powell of Forresthill four miles from Oxford, a gentleman of good family and repute. They were married at Forresthill in 1643, where the wedding was kept. About a month after marriage, fhe withdrew herfelf from his house, and returned to her friends in difguft. After a feparation of four years, during which time Milton wrote more than one treatife in favour of divorce, a happy reunion took place. Mr. Powell's manfion ftill remains; in which Mr. Mickle, the ingenious tranflator of the LUSIAD, lately made a fearch, with a view of finding fome of Milton's letters or papers. There is an old paper-room or deferted study in the house, where are many obfolete family writings, with letters to and from Mr. Powell, who was a great royalist in the rebellion. One of the letters is a requifition, dated about 1645. from fir Thomas Glemham governor of Oxford-garrifon, and late a gentleman commoner of Trinity college, to Mr. Powell, to fend a large quantity of winnowed wheat into the city of Oxford, then befieged. At length he discovered a small paper-book, in which were written four or five poems, of the hand-writing of about the close of the reign of James the firft. One of them is the copy of a well-known old English ballad. The reft I never faw before. Some of them have confiderable merit, but none seem to be the compofitions of Milton. It is however likely they were left there in confequence of Milton's intercourfe and connections with the family. The Powells were fharers of abbey-land in Oxfordshire. They were feated in the diffolved monastery of Sandford near Oxford; and one of them built the Gothic manerial ftone-house, now ftanding, at that village, in the reign of queen Elizabeth. Wood mentions John Powell, a great cavalier, living at Sandford in 1661. DIARIE, vol. ii. p. 174. But this was not Milton's father-in-law. Richardfon juftly conjectures, that the circumftances of Milton's reconciliation to this lady are beautifully' fhadowed in a like fcene between Adam and Eve, PARAD. L. B. x, 937. But none have obferved, that Milton alludes to fome of the particulars of this marriage, and its confequences, in the following fpeech of Samfon, SAMS. ACON. 219.

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Cries the stall-reader, Bless us! what a word on 5 A title page is this! and fome in file

Stand spelling falfe, while one might walk to MileEnd Green. Why is it harder, Sirs, than Gordon, Colkitto, or Macdonnel, or Galasp ?

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Thofe rugged names to our like mouths grow fleek, That would have made Quintilian ftare and gasp. Thy age, like ours, O Soul of Sir John Cheek,

Hated not learning worse than toad or afp,

When thou taught'ft Cambridge, and king Ed

ward Greek.

The FIRST I faw at Timna, and the pleas'd
Me, NOT MY PARENTS, that I fought to wed
The DAUGHTER OF AN INFIDEL: they knew not,
That what I mention'd was of God, &c.

She proving FALSE, &C.

The Chorus had juft obferved, v. 215.

I oft have heard men wonder

Why thou should't wed PHILISTIAN women, rather
Than of thine OWN TRIBE fairer, or as fair.

To fay nothing of the diffatisfaction fhe had conceived at her husband's unfocial and philofophical fyftem of life, fo different from the convi. vial plenty and chearfulness of her father's family, it is probable that the quarrel was owing to party. But when Cromwell's faction prevailed, Mr. Powell, who had taken an active part in affifting the king during the fiege of Oxford, finding his affairs falling into diftrefs, for prudential reafons ftrove to bring about an agreement between Milton and his daughter. Aubrey fays, that he could not bear to hear the outcries of her husband's nephews, his pupils, whom he frequently corrected too feverely.

TETRACHORDON fignifies Expofitions on the four chief places in Scripture which mention marriage or nullities in marriage.

9. Colkitto, or Macdonnel, or Galajp.] Some of the Scotch writers against the independents. See verfes on the FORCERS OF CONSCIENCE, &C.

13. Hated not learning worse than toad or afp.] Mr. Bowle quotes Halle, RICH. ii. f. 54. "Diverse noble perfonages hated Kinge "Richard worse than a toade or a serpent."

XII. To

XII.

On the SAME.

I did but prompt the age to quit their clogs
By the known rules of ancient liberty,

When strait a barbarous noise environs me

Of owls and cuccoos, affes, apes and dogs: 4 As when those hinds that were transform'd to frogs Rail'd at Latona's twin-born progeny,

Which after held the fun and moon in fee. But this is got by cafting pearl to hogs; That bawl for freedom in their fenfeless mood, 9 And ftill revolt when truth would set them free. Licence they mean when they cry Liberty; For who loves that, must first be wife and good; But from that mark how far they rove we see For all this waste of wealth, and lofs of blood.

XIII.

To Mr. H. LAWES on his Airs *.

Harry, whofe tuneful and well measur'd song
First taught our English mufic how to span

3. When ftrait a barbarous noise, &c.] Milton was violently cenfured by the presbyterian clergy for his TETRACHORDON, and other tracts of that tendency. See Ovid, METAM. vi. 381.

Henry Lawes was the fon of Thomas Lawes a vicar choral, of Salisbury cathedral. He was perhaps at first a choir-boy of that church. With his brother William, he was educated under Giovanni Coperario,

Xx

Words with just note and accent, not to scan
With Midas ears, committing fhort and long;

Coperario, fuppofed by Fenton in his Notes on Waller to be an Italian, but really an Englishman under the plain name of John Cooper, at the expence of Edward earl of Hertford. In the year 1625, he became a gentleman of the royal chapel, and was afterwards of the private MUSIC to king Charles the first. In 1633, in conjunction with Simon Ives, he compofed the mufic to a Mafk prefented at Whitehall on Candlemas night by the gentlemen of the four inns of court, under the direction of fuch grave characters as Noy the attorney-general, Edward Hyde afterwards earl of Clarendon, Selden, and Bulftrode Whitelock. Lawes and Ives received each one hundred pounds as compofers; and the whole cost, to the great offence of the puritanical party, amounted to more than one thoufand pounds. Lawes appears to have been well acquainted with the best poets, and the most popular of the nobility of his times. Befides what I have mentioned in Coмus, he fet to mufic all the Lyrics in Waller's Poems first published in 1645. Among which is an Ode addreffed to Lawes by Waller, full of high compliments. One of the pieces of Waller was fet by Lawes in 1635. He compofed the Songs in the POEMS and a Mafque, of Thomas Carew. See third edit. 1651. p. ult. The MASQUE was exhibited 1633. In the title-page to Comedies, Tra"gicomedies, and other Poems," by William Cartwright, published in 1651, it is faid, that "The Ayres and Songs were fet by Mr. "Henry Lawes." And Lawes himself has a commendatory poem prefixed, infcribed "To the memory of my moft deferving and peculiar friend Mr. William Cartwright." I have mentioned Lawes's Ayres and Dialogues for one, two, and three voices, 1653." See Note on COMUs, v. 85. The words of the numerous Songs in that work, are by fome of the most eminent poets of the day. A few young noblemen are alfo contributors. One of the pieces is a poem by John Birkenhead called "an Anniversary on the Nuptials of John "earl of Bridgewater, Jul. 22, 1642." p. 33. This was the young Lord Brackley, who acted the First Brother in Comus, and who married, about nineteen, Elizabeth daughter of William earl of Newcastle*. The first piece in the book is the COMPLAINT of ARIADNE, written by Cartwright abovementioned, and printed in his Poens. For a

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She died 1663, leaving a numerous iffue. She was a most amiable woman, The earl, her husband, ordered it to be recorded on his tomb, in Gadefden-church, that he "en"joyed, almost twenty two years, all the happiness that man could receive in the sweet fociety of the beft of wives." See above, p. 113 In the Newcastle book on Horfe. manship, there is a print of this earl of Bridgewater and his countefs, grouped with others. I inform the lovers of COMUs, that there is alfo a large mezzotinto plate in quarto of this earl, done in 1680, from a picture by W, Claret, an imitator of Lely, which I believe is at Afhridge.

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