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The frozen earth, and clothe in fresh attire

The lilly' and rofe, that neither sow'd nor fpun. What neat repast shall feast us, light and choice, Of Attic tafte, with wine, whence we may rife

To hear the lute well touch'd, or artful voice Warble immortal notes and Tuscan air?

He who of those delights can judge, and fpare
To interpofe them oft, is not unwife.

XXI.

To CYRIAC SKINNER *.

Cyriac, whofe grandfire on the royal bench
Of British Themis, with no mean applause
Pronounc'd and in his volumes taught our laws,
Which others at their bar fo often wrench

Non tales volucer pandit Junonius alas,
Nec fic innumeros arcu mutante colores
Incipiens redimitur hyems, cum tramite flexo
Semita fecretis interviret humida nimbis.

Compare Beaumont's BoswORTH-FIELD, edit. 1629. p. 12.
And mild FAVONIUS breathes.

Again, Poems, ibid. p. 131.

And like FAVONIUS gives a gentle blast.

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13. The close of this Sonnet is perfectly in the ftyle of Horace and and the Grecian lyrics. As is that of the following to Cyriac Skinner.

* Cyriac Skinner was one of the principal members of Harrington's political club. Wood fays, that he was " an ingenious young "gentleman, and fcholar to John Milton, which Skinner fometimes "held the chair." ATH. OxON. ii. 591. I find one Cyriac Skinner, I know not if the fame, a member of Trinity college Oxford in 1640. In 1659-60, Milton published "A Ready and easy way to establish a

"free

To day deep thoughts refolve with me to drench 5 In mirth, that after no repenting draws;

Let Euclid reft and Archimedes pause,

And what the Swede intends, and what the French. To measure life learn thou betimes, and know 9 Toward folid good what leads the nearest way; For other things mild Heav'n a time ordains, And difapproves that care, though wife in show,

That with fuperfluous burden loads the day, And, when God fends a chearful hour, refrains.

"a free Commonwealth, &c." This was foon afterwards attacked in a burlesque pamphlet, pretended to be written by Harrington's club, under the title of "The cenfure of the ROTA upon Mr. Mil"ton's Book entitled The Ready and easy way, &c. Lond. Printed by "Paul GIDDY printer to the ROTA, at the figne of the WINDMILL "in Turne againe Lane, 1660." But Harrington's club, which encouraged all proposals for new models of government, was very unlikely to have made fuch an attack; and Milton's very familiar intimacy with Skinner, to whom he addreffes two Sonnets, full of confidence and affection, was alone fufficient to have prevented any remonftrance from that quarter. Aubrey fays, that Milton's IDEA THEOLOGIE in manufcript is "in the hands of Mr. Skinner a Mer"chant's fon in Mark-Lane. Mem. There was one Mr. Skinner of the "Jerker's office up two pair of ftayres at the Custom-house." MS. ASHм. ut infr. See below, SONN. xxii. 4.

6. In mirth, that after no repenting draws.] This is the decent mirth of Martial,

Nox non ebria, fed foluta curis.

A like phrase occurs in PARAD. REG. B. ii. 160.

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XXII.

To the SAME.

Cyriac, this three years day these eyes, though clear,
To outward view, of blemish or of spot,
Bereft of light their seeing have forgot,
Nor to their idle orbs doth fight appear
Of fun, or moon, or ftar, throughout the year,
Or man, or woman. Yet I argue not

Against Heav'n's hand or will, nor bate a jot
Of heart or hope; but ftill bear up and steer

6

4. Nor to their idle orbs, &c.] Compare SAMS. AGON. v. 80. And PARAD. LOST, B. iii. 23. Whitelocke mentions Milton only once. Speaking of fome articles of treaty, he says, " they were fent to one "Mr. Milton a blind man to put into Latin." Milton being Latin secretary. Milton gives an account of the beginning and progress of his blindness, in a Letter to Leonard Philaras Envoy from the Duke of Parma to the king of France, dated at Westminster, Sept. 28, 1654. In which he fays, he began to be totally blind about three years ago. See PROSE-WORKS, vol. ii. 575. This Sonnet was therefore written about 1654. Wood fays, that Skinner, who lived with his father a merchant in Mark-Lane, had in his poffeffion Milton's IDEA THEOLOGIE, never published.

8. One of Milton's characteristics was a fingular fortitude of mind, arifing from a confciousness of fuperiour abilities, and a conviction that his caufe was juft. The heart which he prefents to Leonora is

thus defcribed, SoNN. vi. 4.

Io certo a prove tante

L'hebbi fedele, intrepido, coftante,

De penfieri leggiadro, accorto, e buono ;

Quando rugge il gran mondo, e scocca il tuono,

S'arma di fe, e d'intero diamante,

Tanto del forfe, e d'invidia ficuro,

Di timori, &c.

He concludes, with great elegance, writing to a lady, that it was not

proof against love.

TE

Right onward. What supports me, dost thou ask?
The confcience, Friend, to have lost them overply'd
In liberty's defense, my noble task,

Of which all Europe talks from fide to fide.

II

This thought might lead me through the world's

vain mark

Content though blind, had I no better guide.

XXIII.

On his deceased W IF E.

Methought I saw my late espoused saint
Brought to me like Alceftis from the grave,

9. Right onward.-] Mr. Harris, in his notes on the TREATISE ON HAPPINESS, obferves on this expreffion of Right onward, p. 306. " One "would imagine that our great countryman Milton had the reasoning "of Marcus Antoninus in view. L. 5. §. 5. Where in this Sonnet, "fpeaking of his own Blindness, he fays with a becoming magnani"mity, yet I argue not, &c. The whole Sonnet is not unworthy of "perufal, being both SIMPLE and SUBLIME." Dr. J. WARTON.

11. In liberty's defence, &c.] This Sonnet was not hazarded in the edition of 1673, where the laft appears. For the DEFENSIO PRO POPULO ANGLICANO, of which he here fpeaks with fo much fatisfaction, and felf-applause, at the restoration was ordered to be burnt by the hands of the common hangman, together with his IcoNOCLASTES, at which time his person was spared; and, by a fingular act of royal clemency, he furvived to write PARADISE LOST. It is more remarkable, that Goodwin, a famous Independent preacher, fhould have been indemnified, whose books were also burnt, in which he juftified the king's murther.

1. Methought I faw my late efpoufed faint, &c.] Raleigh's elegant Sonnet, called a VISION upon the conceipt of the FAERIE QUEENE, begins thus,

Methought I faw the grave where Laura lay. And hence perhaps the idea of a Sonnet in the form of a vifion was fuggefted to Milton,

Whom Jove's great fon to her glad husband gave, Rescued from death by force, though pale and

faint.

Mine, as whom wash'd from spot of child-bed taint Purification in the old Law did fave,

And fuch, as yet once more I trust to have Full fight of her in Heav'n without restraint, Came vested all in white, pure as her mind :

Her face was veil'd, yet to my fancied fight

5

This Sonnet was written about the year 1661, on the death of his fecond wife, Catharine, the daughter of captain Woodcock of Hackney, a rigid fectarist. She died in child-bed of a daughter, within a year after their marriage. Milton had now been totally blind for two or three years fo that this might have been one of his day-dreams.

Captain Woodcock had a brother Francis, as I collect, a covenan ter, and of the affembly of divines, who was prefented by the ufurp ing powers to the benefice of S. Olave in Southwark, 1646. One of his furname, perhaps the fame with this Francis, was appointed by parliament in 1659, to approve of minifters; was a great frequenter of conventicles, and has fome puritanical fermons extant in The morning exercise methodized, 1676.

2. Brought to me like Alceßis. —] The last scene of the ALCESTIS of Euripides, our author's favourite writer, to which he alludes in this paffage, is remarkably pathetic; particularly at v. 1155.

Ω φιλτάτης γυναικὸς όμμα, &c.

And all that follows on Hercules's discovering that it was his wife whom Hercules had brought to him covered with a veil. And equally tender and pathetic is the paffage in the first Act, which defcribes Alceftis taking leave of her family and house, when she had refolved to die to fave her husband: particularly from v. 175. to v. 196. Thomfon closely copied this paffage in his EDWARD and ELEONORA. I have often wondered, that Addifon, who has made fo many observations on the allegory of SIN and DEATH, in the PARADISE LOST, did not recollect, that the perfon of DEATH, was clearly and obviously taken from the ANATOΣ of Euripides in this Tragedy of ALCESTIS. Dr. J. WARTON.

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