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The drift of hollow ftates hard to be fpell'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

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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, suffered a most barbarous maffacre. Those who efcaped, 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 reinftated 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. Milton's mind, bufied with this affecting fubject, here broke forth in a strain 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.

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

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

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To Heav'n. Their martyr'd blood and ashes sow O'er all th' Italian fields, where still doth sway

2. Lie scatter'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 stocks and frones] It is pretended that when the church of Rome became corrupt, they preferved the primitive apoftolical chriftianity: and that they have manuscripts against the papal Antichrift and Purgatory, as old as 1120. See their History 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," againft 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.

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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 faft clafped 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.

The

The triple Tyrant; that from thefe 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 prefent

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My true account, left he returning chide; "Doth God exact day-labour, light deny'd," I fondly afk: But Patience, to prevent That murmur, foon replies, "God doth not need "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 fpectacles at eighty-four: but that his mother used them foon after fhe was thirty. MS. Muf. ASHMOL. ut infr.

7." Doth God exact 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 seem 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 poft o'er land and ocean without reft;

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They also serve who only stand and wait.”

XX.

To Mr. LAWRENCE.

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

12.

-Thousands at his bidding speed,

And poft o'er land and ocean without reft;

They also ferve who only stand and wait.] Compare Spenser, 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 fend;
Or on his own dread presence to attend.

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

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Millions of fpiritual creatures walk the earth

Unfeen, both when we wake, and when we sleep, &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 fen 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 royalists, but the Brownifts, fifthmonarchy-men, and other fectariits. 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,

Where shall we fometimes meet, and by the fire Help waste a fullen day, what may be won From the hard feason gaining? Time will run On smoother, till Favonius re-inspire

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lation, William Lawrence a writer, and appointed a Judge in Scotland by Cromwell, and in 1631 a gentleman commoner of Trinity college Oxford, died at Belfont near Staines in Middlesex, in 1682. Hence fays Milton, v. 2.

Now that the fields are dank, and ways are mire,

Where fhall we fometimes meet, &c.

This Sonnet does not appear in the edition 1645.

3.

And by the fire

Help waste a fullen day, &c.] He has fentiments of much the fame caft in the EPITAPH. DAMON. V. 45.

Quis me lenire docebit

Mordaces curas, quis longam fallere noctem
Dulcibus alloquiis? Grato cum fibilat igne
Molle pyrum, et nucibus ftrepitat focus, &c.

See also Drayton's
ODES, vol. iv. 1343.

6.

They may become John Hewes's lyre,
Which oft at Polefworth BY THE FIRE
Hath made us gravely merry.

-Till Favonius re-inspire, &c.] Favonius had before been rendered familiar in English poetry for Zephyr, by the following beautiful paffage in Jonfon's MASQUES, vol. vi. 24.

As if Favonius, father of the Spring,

Who in the verdant meads doth reign fole king,
Had rous'd him here, and shook his feathers wet
With purple-fwelling nectar and had let

:

The sweet and fruitful dew fall on the ground

To force out all the flowers that may be found, &c.

The gaudy peacock boasts not in his train

So many lights and fhadows, nor the rain

Refolving Iris, &c.

But the whole is from Claudian's Zephyr, Rapt. PROSERP. L. ii. 73.

Compellat Zephyrum. Pater o gratiffime Veris,

Qui mea lafcivo regnas per prata volatu, &c.
Dixerat. Ille novo madidantes nectare pennas
Concutit, et glebas fæcundo rore maritat:
Quaque volat, vernus fequitur color, &c.

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