Ev'n them who kept thy truth so pure of old, When all our fathers worshipp'd stocks and stones, Forget not in thy book record their groans was this prayer in behalf of the persecuted Protestants entirely without effect. For Cromwell exerted himself in their favour, and his behaviour in this whole transaction is greatly to his honour, even as it is related by an historian, who was far from being partial to his memory. "Nor "would the Protector be back"ward in such a work, which "might give the world a par"ticular opinion of his piety and " zeal for the protestant religion; "but he proclaimed a solemn fast, and caused large contri"butions to be gathered for them throughout the kingdom of England and Wales. Nor did "he rest here, but sent his agents to the Duke of Savoy, a prince "with whom he had no correspondence or commerce, and "the next year so engaged the "Cardinal of France, and even "terrified the Pope himself, "without so much as doing any "favour to the English Roman "catholics, that that Duke "thought it necessary to restore "all that he had taken from "them, and renewed all those privileges they had formerly enjoyed. So great was the "terror of his name; nothing being more usual than his "saying, that his ships in the "Mediterranean should visit Ci"vita Vecchia, and the sound of "his cannon should be heard in "Rome." See Echard, vol. 2. 2. Lie scatter'd on the Alpine mountains cold.] From Fairfax's Tasso, c. xiii. 60. 66 5 -Into the valleys greene 3. Ev'n them who kept thy truth so pure of old, &c.] And so in his letter to the States of the United Provinces he calls them Alpinos incolas orthodoxam religionem antiquitus profitentes, the inhabitants at the feet of the Alps, ancient professors of the orthodox faith; and afterwards in the same letter, apud quos nostra religio vel ab ipsis Evangelii primis doctoribus tradita per manus et incorrupte servata, vel multo ante quam apud cæteras gentes sinceritati pristina restituta est, among whom our religion was either disseminated by the first doctors of the Gos pel, and preserved from the defilement of superstition, or else restored to its pristine sincerity long before other nations ob tained that felicity. 3. It is pretended that they have manuscripts against the papal Antichrist and Purgatory, as old as 1120. See their History by Paul Perrin, Genev. 1619. Their poverty, and seclusion from the rest of the world for so many ages, contributed in great measure to this simplicity of worship. 66 In his pamphlet, "the likeliest means to remove Hirelings out "of churches," against endowing churches with tythes, our author frequently refers to the happy poverty and purity of the Waldenses. And he quotes Peter Who were thy sheep, and in their ancient fold Mother with infant down the rocks. The vales redoubled to the hills, and they Their moans To heav'n. Their martyr'd blood and ashes sow 10 O'er all th' Italian fields, where still doth sway 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 consider how my light is spent 14.the Babylonian woe.] The woes denounced against Rome, under the name of Babylon, in Scripture. 14. -Babylonian woe.] Antichrist. Warburton. The Pope is called Antistes Babylonius the Babylonish bishop, In Quint. Nov. v. 156. T. Warton. *Aubrey says that Milton's father could read without spectacles at eighty-four: but that his mother used them soon after she was thirty. MS. Mus. Ashmol. T. Warton. 3. And that one talent which is death to hide,] He speaks here with allusion to the parable of the talents, Matt. xxv. and he speaks with great modesty of himself, as if he had not five, or two, but only one talent. Lodg'd with me useless, though my soul more bent To serve therewith my Maker, and present Is kingly; thousands at his bidding speed, And post o'er land and ocean without rest; 5 10 There they in their trinall triplicities T. Warton. XX. To Mr. LAWRENCE.* LAWRENCE, of virtuous father virtuous son, *This Mr. Lawrence was the son of the President of Cromwell's council: and this Sonnet was also in the edition of 1673. 1. Lawrence, of virtuous father virtuous son, &c.] Of the virtuous son nothing has transpired. The virtuous father, Henry Lawrence, was Member for Herefordshire in the Little Parliament which began in 1653, and was active in settling the protectorate of Cromwell. In consequence of his services, he was made President of Cromwell's council; where he appears to have signed many severe and arbitrary decrees, not only against the royalists, but the Brownists, fifth-monarchy men, and other sectarists. He continued high in favour with Richard Cromwell. As innovation is progressive, perhaps the son, Milton's friend, was an independent, and a still warmer republican. The family appears to have been seated not far from Milton's neighbourhood in Buckinghamshire: for Henry Lawrence's near relation, 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 says Milton, ver. 2. Now that the fields are dank, and ways are mire, Where shall we sometimes meet, &c. Milton, in his first Reply to More written 1654, recites among the most respectable of his friends who contributed to form "Montacuthe Commonwealth, "tium, Laurentium, summo in"genio ambos, optimisque arti"bus expositos, &c." Pr. W. ii. 346. Where by Montacutium we are to understand Edward Montague, Earl of Manchester; who, while Lord Kimbolton, was one of the members of the House of Commons impeached by the King, and afterwards a leader in the Rebellion. I believe they both deserved this panegyric. T. Warton. 3. and by the fire Help waste a sullen day, &c.] He has sentiments of much the same cast in the Epitaph. Damon, v. 45. -Quis me lenire docebit Mordaces curas, quis longam fallere noctem Dulcibus alloquiis? Grato cum sibilat igne Molle pyrum, et nucibus strepitat focus, &c. See also Drayton's Odes, vol. iv. 1343. They may become John Hewes's lyre, From the hard season gaining? time will run He who of those delights can judge, and spare XXI. To CYRIAC SKINNER.* CYRIAC, whose grandsire on the royal bench 6. Favonius] The same as Zephyrus, or the western wind that blows in the spring. Plin. lib. xvi. sect. 39. Hic est genitalis spiritus mundi, a fovendo dictus, ut quidem existimavere. Flat ab occasu æquinoctiali, ver inchoans. And so Lucretius, i. 10. Nam simul ac species patefacta est verna diei, Et reserata viget genitabilis aura Favoni. 6. Favonius had before been rendered familiar in English poetry for Zephyr, by a beautiful passage in Jonson's Masques, 10 5 word, Poems, ed. 1629. p. 12. and 131. T. Warton. 8. that neither sow'd nor spun.] Alluding to Matt. vi. 26, 28. they sow not, neither do they spin. 13. The close of this Sonnet is perfectly in the style of Horace and the Grecian lyrics. As is that of the following to Cyriac Skinner. T. Warton. Cyriac Skinner was the son of William Skinner, Esq. and grandson of Sir Vincent Skinner, and his mother was Bridget, one of the daughters of the famous Sir Edward Coke, Lord Chief Justice of the King's Bench. As if Favonius, father of the spring, Mr. Wood informs us, that he vol. vi. 24. &c. But the whole passage is from Claudian's Zephyr, Rapt. Proserp. 1. ii. 73. Beaumont also has the was one of Harrington's political club, and sometimes held the chair; and farther adds, that he was a merchant's son of London, |