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

5

Tower Hill to mount Pisgah, 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 this fpeech of the Chorus on Samfon's degradation, SAMS, AGON. v. 687.

Nor only do'ft degrade them, or remit

To life obfcur'd, which were a fair difmiffion;

But throw'it them lower than thou did'ft exalt them high,
Unfeemly falls in human eye,

Too grievous for the trespass or omiffion!

Oft leav'ft them to the hostile sword

Of heathen and profane, their carcasses

To dogs and fowls a prey, or else captiv'd:

Or to th' unjust tribunals, UNDER CHANGE OF TIMES,
And CONDEMNATION of th' ingrateful MULTITUDE.

He then alludes to his own fituation. See also v. 241. feq. I take this opportunity of obferving, that Milton, who envelops much of his own history and of the times in this play, has ufed the character of Samfon for another temporary allegory, in the REASON OF CHURCH GOVERNMENT, B. ii. CONCL. He fuppofes Samfon to be a king, who being difciplined in temperance grows perfect in ftrength, his illuftrious and funny locks being the Laws. While thefe are undiminished and unfhorn, with the jaw bone of an afs, that is his meaneft officer, he defeats thousands of his adverfaries. But reclining his head on the lap of flattering Prelates, while he fleeps, they cut off thefe trees of his Laws and Prerogatives, once his ornament and defence, delivering him over to violent and oppreffive counsellors; who, like the Philiftines, extinguish the eyes of his natural difcernment, forcing him to grind in the prifon boufe of their infidious defigns against his power. "Till he, knowing this prelatical rafor to have bereft him of his "wonted might, nourish again his puiffant hair, the golden beams "of Law and Right: and they sternly fhook, thunder with ruin upon these his evil counsellors, but not without great affliction to "bimfelf." PROSE-WORKS, V. i. p. 75.

"

This Sonnet feems to have been written in behalf of the independents, against the presbyterian hierarchy.

The

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: befides 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.
In peace, and reckons thee her eldest fon.

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 most barbarous maffacre. Those who escaped, fled into the mountains, from whence they fent agents into England to Cromwell for relief. He inftantly commanded a general faft, and promoted a national contribution in which near forty thoufand 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 business, there are feveral state-letters in Cromwell's name written by Milton. One of them is to the Duke of Savoy. See PROSE-WORKS, ii. 183. feq. 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 History of the Valleys of Piemont, &c. Lond. "1658." With numerous cuts, in folio.

Lie scatter'd on the Alpine mountains cold; Ev'n them who kept thy truth fo pure of old, When all our fathers worshipt stocks and stones, Forget not in thy book record their groans

5

Who were thy sheep, and in their ancient fold Slain by the bloody Piemontese that roll'd Mother with infant down the rocks. Their moans The vales redoubled to the hills, and they

9

To Heav'n. Their martyr'd blood and afhes fow O'er all th' Italian fields, where still doth fway

2. Lie fcatter'd on the Alpine mountains cold.] From Fairfax's Tasso, C. xiii. 60.

Into the valleys greene

Diftill'd from tops of ALPINE MOUNTAINS COLD.

3. Ev'n them who kept thy truth fo pure of old,

When all our fathers worshipt frocks and fones] It is pretended that when the church of Rome became corrupt, they preferved the primitive apoftolical chriftianity: and that they have manufcripts against the papal Antichrift and Purgatory, as old as 1120. See their Hiftory by Paul Perrin, Genev. 1619. Their poverty, and feclufion from the rest of the world for fo many ages, contributed in great measure to this fimplicity of worship.

In his pamphlet, "The likelieft means to remove HIRELINGS Out "of churches," against endowing churches with tythes, our author frequently refers to the happy poverty and purity of the Waldenfes. And he quotes Peter Gilles, and "an antient Tractate-inferted in the "Bohemian hiftory." This pamphlet was written after our Sonnet, in 1659. See PROSE-WORKS, vol. i. 568. 574.

7.

That roll'd

Mother with infant down the rocks. -] There is a print of this piece of cruelty in Moreland. He relates, that “a mother was hurled "down a mighty rock, with a little infant in her arms; and three "days after, was found dead with the little childe alive, but fast "clasped between the arms of the dead mother which were cold and ftiffe, infomuch that those who found them had much ado to get "the young childe out." p. 363.

66

The

The triple Tyrant; that from these may grow
A hundred fold, who having learn'd thy way
Early may fly the Babylonian woe.

XIX.

On his BLINDNESS..

When I confider how my light is spent
Ere half my days, in this dark world and wide,

*

And that one talent which is death to hide,

Lodg'd with me useless, though my foul more bent

To serve therewith my Maker, and present

My true account, left he returning chide;

"Doth God exact day-labour, light deny'd," I fondly ask: But Patience, to prevent That murmur, foon replies, "God doth not need

5

"Either man's work or his own gifts; who beft "Bear his mild yoke, they serve him best: his state

Aubrey fays that Milton's father could read without spectacles at eighty-four: but that his mother used them soon after she was thirty. MS. Muf. ASHMOL. ut infr.

7. "Doth God exa&t day-labour, light deny'd ?" Here is a pun on the doctrine in the gospel, that we are to work only while it is light, and in the night no man can work. There is an ambiguity between the natural light of the day, and the author's blindness. I have introduced the turned commas, both in the question and anfwer, not from any authority, but because they feem abfolutely neceffary to the fenfe.

9. From this ninth verfe to the end of this Sonnet, is a speech of PATIENCE, here perfonified. Dr. J. WARTON.

"Is kingly; thousands at his bidding speed,
"And post o'er land and ocean without reft;

They also serve who only stand and wait.”

XX.

To Mr. LAWRENCE.

Lawrence, of virtuous father virtuous son,
Now that the fields are dank, and ways are mire,

12.

Thousands at his lidding Speed,

And poft o'er land and ocean without reft;

They alfo ferve who only stand and wait.] Compare Spenfer, in the HYMNE OF HEAVENLY LOVE, ft. x. Of the angels.

There they in their trinall triplicities

About him wait, and on his will depend;
Either with nimble wings to cut the skies,
When he them on his meffages doth fenda
Or on his own dread prefence to attend.

It is the fame conception in PARAD L. B. iv. 677.

Millions of fpiritual creatures walk the earth

Unfeen, both when we wake, and when we fleep, &c.

See alfo on the DEATH OF A FAIR INFANT, V. 59.
To earth from thy prefixed feat didit POST.

We have POST in PARAD. L. B. iv. 171.

With a vengeance fent

From Media POST to Egypt.

1. Lawrence, of virtuous father virtuous fou, &c.] Of the virtuous fon nothing has tranfpired. The virtuous father Henry Lawrence, was member for Hertfordshire in the Little Parliament which began in 1653, and was active in fettling the protectorate of Cromwell. In confequence of his fervices, he was made Prefident of Cromwell's Council; where he appears to have figned many fevere and arbitrary decrees, not only against the royalifts, but the Brownifts, fifthmonarchy-men, and other fectaritts. He continued high in favour with Richard Cromwell. As innovation is progreffive, perhaps the fon, Milton's friend, was an independent and a ftill warmer republican. The family appears to have been feated not far from Milton's neighbourhood in Buckinghamshire: for Henry Lawrence's near re

lation,