And Dunbar field resounds thy praises loud,

And Worcester's laureate wreath. Yet much remains 10 To conquer still; Peace hath her victories

No less renowned than War; new foes arise
Threatening to bind our souls with secular chains.
Help us to save free conscience from the paw
Of hireling wolves, whose Gospel is their maw.

8. Dunbar field :-3rd Sept. 1650.

9. The" crowning mercy" of Worcester was gained 3rd Sept. 1651.

105. SONNET ON HIS OWN BLINDNESS.

When I consider how my light is spent

Ere half my days, in this dark world and wide,
And that one talent which is death to hide,
Lodged with me useless, though my soul more bent
5 To serve therewith my Maker, and present

My true account, lest He, returning, chide;
"Doth God exact day-labour, light denied?"
I fondly ask but Patience, to prevent

That murmur, soon replies, " God doth not need 10 Either man's work, or his own gifts; who best Bear his mild yoke, they serve him best; his state

Is kingly; thousands at his bidding speed,
And post o'er land and ocean without rest :
They also serve who only stand and wait."

8. Fondly, foolishly.

Prevent, go before, anticipate, Lat. prævenire:-"who will be there so early that they intend to prevent the sun

rising." Walton's Compleat Ang'er. Hinder suggests exactly the same notion, but in the inverse way-to cause one to be behind.

From THE AREOPAGITICA.

106. THE BENEFICENT RESULTS OF THE LIBERTY OF THE PRESS.

This is a lively and cheerful presage of our happy success and victory. For as in a body when the blood is fresh, the spirits pure and vigorous, not only to vital, but to rational faculties, and those

SPECS. ENG. LIT.

L

in the acutest and the pertest' operations of wit and subtlety, it argues 2 in what good plight and constitution the body is; so, when the cheerfulness of the people is so sprightly up as that it has not only wherewith to guard well its own freedom and safety, but to spare, and to bestow upon the solidest and sublimest points of controversy and new invention, it betokens 3 us not degenerated, not drooping to a fatal decay, by casting off the old and wrinkled skin of corruption, to outlive these pangs, and wax young again, entering the glorious ways of truth and prosperous virtue, destined to become great and honourable in these latter ages. Methinks I see in my mind a noble and puissant nation rousing herself like a strong man after sleep, and shaking her invincible locks; methinks I see her as an eagle, mewing her mighty youth, and kindling her undazzled eyes at the full mid-day beam; purging and unscaling her longabused sight at the fountain itself of heavenly radiance; while the whole noise of timorous and flocking birds, with those also that love the twilight, flutter about, amazed at what she means, and, in their envious gabble, would prognosticate a year of sects and schisms.

Though all the winds of doctrine were let loose to play upon the earth, so Truth be in the field, we do injuriously, by licensing and prohibiting, to misdoubt her strength. Let her and falsehood grapple; who ever knew Truth put to the worst in a free and open encounter? Her confuting is the best and surest suppressing. He who hears what praying there is for light and clear knowledge to be sent down among us, would think of other matters to be constituted beyond the discipline of Geneva, framed and fabricked already to our hands. Yet when the new life which we beg for shines in upon us, there be who envy and oppose, if it come not first in at their casements. What a collusion is this, whenas we are exhorted by the wise

1. Pertest: pert seems to have once had two meanings, that of nimble, active, prompt; and its modern. It is in the former sense that Milton uses it here; as also in Comus, 118, "Trip the pert faeries;" and in Shakespeare, Prospero calling Ariel, says, " Appear and pertly." The word is of Celtic origin, though some regard it as a mere contraction for malapert.

2. Argues, makes plain, Lat. arguit.

3. Betokens, declares, shows by a token or mark, Ger. zeichen, the Gothic t being represented by z in O. H. G., according to Grimm's law.

4. Mewing, passing through a transforming process, as a bird does when it mews or moults its feathers; fr. Fr. muer, which is generally taken from Lat. mutare. A mew was a place where hawks were confined when moulting.

man to use diligence, "to seek for wisdom as for hidden treasures," early and late, that another order shall enjoin us to know nothing but by statute! When a man hath been labouring the hardest labour in the deep mines of knowledge, hath furnished out his findings in all their equipage,5 drawn forth his reasons, as it were a battle ranged, scattered and defeated all objections in his way, calls out his adversary into the plain, offers him the advantage of wind and sun, if he please, only that he may try the matter by dint of argument; for his opponents then to skulk, to lay ambushments, to keep a narrow bridge of licensing where the challenger should pass, though it be valour enough in soldiership, is but weakness and cowardice in the wars of Truth. For who knows not that Truth is strong, next to the Almighty? She needs no policies, nor stratagems, nor licensings, to make her victorious; those are the shifts and the defences that error uses against her power; give her but room, and do not bind her when she sleeps.

5. Equipage: to equip originally meant to furnish a ship, Fr. équiper and esquif, from schifo, a ship; and then, as words usually pass from the particular to the

general signification, it came to signify furnishing in general (Max Müller's Lectures, 1st series, p. 241).

107. Andrew Marvell. 1620-1678. (History, p. 130.)
THE SONG OF THE EXILES.

5

10

Where the remote Bermudas ride
In the Ocean's bosom unespied;
From a small boat that rowed along,
The listening winds received this song.
"What should we do but sing his praise,
That led us through the watery maze

Unto an isle so long unknown,
And yet far kinder than our own!
He gave us this eternal spring,

Which here enamels everything;
And sends the fowls to us in care
On daily visits through the air.
He hangs in shades the orange bright,
Like golden lamps in a green night;

15

20

And does in the pomegranates close
Jewels more rich than Ormuz shows.
With cedars, chosen by his hand
From Lebanon He stores the land;
And makes the hollow seas that roar,
Proclaim the ambergris on shore.
He cast (of which we rather boast)
The Gospel's pearl upon our coast;
And in these rocks for us did frame
A temple where to sound his name.
Oh! let our voice his praise exalt,
Till it arrive at heaven's vault;
Which then, perhaps, rebounding, may
Echo beyond the Mexique bay!"
Thus sang they in the English boat,
30 A holy and a cheerful note;

25

25

And all the way, to guide their chime,
With falling oars they kept the time.

15. Close, enclose.

18. Stores, fr. Fr. estorer, to build, furnish; and that from Lat. instaurare.

30. Holy as the consciousness of the close relationship that exists between physical and moral purity is shown by

the double meaning in old times of the word clean; so the close connection generally felt to exist between soundness of soul and of body is illustrated by the common origin of heal, health, hale, holy, all of which come from Goth. hails, sound.

CHAPTER VIII.

THE AGE OF THE RESTORATION.

108. Samuel Butler. 1612-1680. (History, p. 123.)

HUDIBRAS'S RELIGION.

For his Religion, it was fit

To match his learning and his wit;
'Twas Presbyterian, true blue;

For he was of that stubborn crew

5 Of errant saints, whom all men grant
To be the true Church Militant;
Such as do build their faith upon
The holy text of pike and gun;
Decide all controversy by
10 Infallible artillery;

And prove their doctrine orthodox
By apostolic blows, and knocks;
Call fire, and sword, and desolation,
A godly, thorough Reformation,
15 Which always must be carried on,
And still be doing, never done;
As if Religion were intended
For nothing else but to be mended.
A sect, whose chief devotion lies
20 In odd perverse antipathies;

4. Stubborn, like a stub, or stump, of a tree.

5. Errant saints, wandering saints who go about spreading their doctrines by every conceivable means.

19. Sect, literally a division, has taken a second form in modern times, set. Sept, the Irish word for clan, is also supposed to be the same term.