As Egypt does not on the clouds rely, The taste of hot Arabia's spice we know, To dig for wealth, we weary not our limbs, Gold, though the heaviest metal, hither swims. Ours is the harvest where the Indians mow, We plow the deep, and reap what others sow. Things of the noblest kind our own soil breeds; Stout are our men, and warlike are our steeds: Rome, though her eagle through the world had flown, Could never make this island all her own. Here the third Edward, and the Black Prince too, When for more worlds the Macedonian cried, He safely, might old troops to battle lead, Against th' unwarlike Persian and the Mede, Whose hasty flight did, from a bloodless field, More spoils than honor to the victor yield. A race unconquer'd, by their clime made bold, Whom the old Roman wall, so ill confin'd, They, that henceforth must be content to know. Preferr'd by conquest, happily o'erthrown, Like favor find the Irish, with like fate Holland, to gain your friendship, is content In our late fight, when cannons did diffuse, Your never-failing sword made war to cease, And now you heal us with the acts of peace; Our minds with bounty and with awe engage, Invite affection, and restrain our rage. Less pleasure take brave minds in battles won, To pardon, willing, and to punish, loth, When Fate or error had our age misled, One! whose extraction from an ancient line Oft have we wonder'd, how you hid in peace A mind proportion'd to such things as these ; How such a ruling spirit you could restrain, And practise first over yourself to reign. Your private life did a just pattern give, But when your troubled country call'd you forth, Still, as you rise, the state, exalted too, The rising sun night's vulgar lights destroys. Had you, some ages past, this race of glory This Cæsar found; and that ungrateful age, That sun once set, a thousand meaner stars If Rome's great senate could not wield that sword You! that had taught them to subdue their foes, Could order teach, and their high spirits compose To every duty could their minds engage, Provoke their courage, and command their rage So, when a lion shakes his dreadful mane, As the vex'd world, to find repose, at last Then let the Muses, with such notes as these, Tell of towns storm'd, of armies over-run, Illustrious acts high raptures do infuse. To crown your head, while you in triumph ride Verse, thus design'd, has no ill fate. THE STORY OF PHOEBUS AND DAPHNE APPLIED. THYRSIS, a youth of the inspired train, Or form some image of his cruel fair. Beauty like a shadow flies, Phyllis to this truth we owe On what shepherd you have smil'd, For the joys we now may prove, ON A GIRDLE. THAT, which her slender waist confin'd, It was my Heaven's extremest sphere, The pale which held that lovely deer: My joy, my grief, my hope, my love, Did all within this circle move! A narrow compass! and yet there TO ZELINDA. FAIREST piece of well-form'd earth! Nor all appear, among those few, They blow those sparks, and make them rise I can describe the shady grove, TO A LADY, SINGING A SONG OF HIS COMPOSING. CHLORIS, yourself you so excel, When you vouchsafe to breathe my thought, That, like a spirit, with this spell Of my own teaching, I am caught. That eagle's fate and mine are one, Which, on the shaft that made him die, Espy'd a feather of his own, Wherewith he wont to soar so high. Had Echo with so sweet a grace Narcissus' loud complaints return'd Not for reflection of his face, But of his voice, the boy had burn'd * Alexander. JOHN MILTON. has been severely criticised. After the restoration, his "Defensio" and "Eikonoklastes" (a reply to the famous "Eikon Basilike") were burned by the hangman. JOHN MILTON was born in London, December | 9, 1608. His father, who was descended from a wealthy Catholic family, had been disinherited for embracing Protestantism, and thereafter followed the occupation of a scrivener. He had considerable musical talent, and composed the psalm-tunes "York" and "Norwich." John was thoroughly educated, first by a private tutor, then at St. Paul's School, London, and finally at Cambridge, where he received the degree of Master of Arts in 1632. At the university he was noted for his skill in composing Latin verses. He then spent five years in retirement at his father's house in Horton, Buckinghamshire, studying the Greek and Latin classics. Here his best poems-"Lycidas," "L'Allegro," "Il Penseroso," and " Čomus". -were written. The last named was performed in 1634, at Lud-dise Lost" was the result. It was published in low Castle, before the Earl of Bridgewater, then Lord-President of Wales. In 1638 Milton travelled in France, Italy, and Switzerland. At Naples he was entertained by Manso, Marquis of Villa, the patron of Tasso. At Geneva he made the acquaintance of Spanheim and Diodati. He returned to England in 1639, and set up a private school in London. Two years later he engaged in the current controversies, and in 1642 published his treatises on reformation and church government. In 1643 he married Mary Powell, daughter of a royalist of Oxfordshire, who found his studious life and quiet home a severe contrast to her former freedom and gayety. At the end of the honeymoon she went back to her father's for a visit, and refused to return. Thereupon Milton repudiated her, and published a treatise on "Divorce," and one on "The Four Chief Places in Scripture which treat of Marriage." He then began paying his addresses to a young lady, but an unexpected meeting with his wife ended in a reconciliation. In 1649 he published a work justifying the execution of King Charles, and soon after he was appointed Latin secretary to the Council of State. In 1653, his wife died, leaving three daughters, and in 1656 he married a second, who lived but little more than a year. In memory of her he wrote the sonnet included among the selections which follow. About 1654 he became totally blind, the result of excessive study. On the publication of the Act of Oblivion, he married a third wife, Elizabeth Minshull, and retired to a house in Artillery Park, where he set about the execution of a design he had long cherished and had confidently announced-that of writing a great poem which would be considered one of the glories of his country. He first contemplated writing it in the form of a mystery, then of a drama, and considered subjects drawn from British history, but finally concluded to make it a regular epic, on the fall of man; and "Para 1667, and he received £5 for it, with the promise of an equal sum when the sale should reach 1,300 copies. The poem made its way slowly, but in the course of half a century had gained recognition as an English classic. Forty-five years after its publication, Addison analyzed and lauded it in a series of articles in the Spectator. In 1825 Macaulay made his debut as an essayist with an elaborate eulogy on Milton and his poetry, especially praising "Paradise Lost." On the other hand, the wits of the time laughed at the cumbrous epic. Waller remarked: "The old blind schoolmaster, John Milton, hath written a tedious poem on the fall of man; which, if its great length be not accounted for a merit, it hath no other." In our own day, it has been taken in hand by M. Taine, who treats it with a true Frenchman's acuteness and lack of reverence. He says: "This Adam entered Paradise via England. There he learned respectability, and there he studied moral speechifying. Let us hear this man before he has tasted of the tree of knowledge. A bachelor of arts, in his introductory address, could not utter more fitly and nobly a greater number of pithless sentences. . . . This Miltonic Deity is only a schoolmaster, who, foreseeing the fault of his pupil, tells him beforehand the grammar rule, so as to have the pleasure of scolding him without discussion. Moreover, like a good politician, he had a second motive, just as with his angels, 'For state, as sovran king; and to inure our prompt obedience.' The word is out; we see what Milton's heaven is; a Whitehall filled with bedizened footmen. The learned Frenchman, Claude de Saumaire, having been employed to write a work in favor of the royal cause, Milton answered it by his "Defensio pro Populo Anglicano," in which he displayed a command of logic and a genius for abuse which at once made him famous, both at Milton describes the tables, the home and abroad. The government made him dishes, the wine, the vessels. It is a popular a present of £1,000 for the service, while Sau- festival. I miss the fireworks, the bell-ringing, maire's book was suppressed by the government as in London, and I can fancy that all would of Holland, where it had been printed. Milton drink to the health of the new king. . . . What was an enthusiastic admirer of Cromwell, and a heaven! It is enough to disgust one with remained true to him to the last, for which he paradise. We have orders of the day, a hier |