Ad PYRRHAM. ODE V. Horatius ex Pyrrhæ illecebris tanquam è naufragio enataverat, cujus amore irretitos, affirmat effe miferos. Q UIS multa gracilis te puer in rofa Cui flavam religas comam Emirabitur infolens! Qui nunc te fruitur credulus aurea, Fallacis. Miferi quibus Intentata nites. Me tabula facer Votiva paries indicat uvida Sufpendiffe potenti Veftimenta maris Deo. XIX. On the new forcers of conscience under the Long PARLAMENT. Ecause you have thrown off your Prelate Lord, Because And with stiff vows renounc'd his Liturgy, To feife the widow'd whore Plurality From them whofe fin ye envied, not abhorr'd, Dare ye for this adjure the civil fword To force our consciences that Christ set free, This copy of verfes alfo was first added in the fecond edition of the author's poems in 1673, and I fuppofe was made, when the Directory was establish'd, and disputes ran high between the Presbyterians and Independents in the year 1645, the latter pleading for a toleration, and the former against it. And in the Manufcript it is not in Milton's own hand, but in another, the fame that wrote fome of the Sonnets. 3. the widow'd whore] In the Manufcript it was at first the vacant whore. - 7. with a claffic hierarchy] In the Presbyterian form of government there were congregational, claffical, provincial, and national affemblies. See what the author fays in his Obfervations on the Irish peace, p. 356. Vol. 1. Edit. 1738." Their next impeachment is, 5 And ride us with a claffic hierarchy Taught ye by mere A. S. and Rotherford ? Men whofe life, learning, faith and pure intent Would have been held in high esteem with Paul, 10 Muft now be nam'd and printed Heretics By fhallow Edwards and Scotch what d'ye call: But we do hope to find out all your tricks, Your plots and packing worse than those of Trent, That fo the Parlament 16 May with their wholsome and preventive shears 8. — by mere A. S. and Rotberford?] I know not who is meant by A. S. Some book might have been publifh'd fign'd by thofe letters, and perhaps an equivoque might also be intended. Sam. Rotherford was one of the commiffioners of the church of Scotland. 12. By fhallow Edwards &c] In the Manufcript it was at firft bare-brain'd Edwards. He wrote the Gangrena, a book in which the errors, herefies, blafphemies, and lewd practice, which broke out in the last four years (1642, 1643, 1644, 1645,) are recited: See Collier's Ecclefiaftical Hiftory, Vol. 2. p. 855. Mr. Thyer gives this account of it, that it was publish'd in 1646, and dedicated to the Parlament by Thomas Edwards minifter of the When Gofpel, and was intitled Gangræna, or a Catalogue and Discovery of many of the errors, herefies, blafphemies, and pernicious practices of the Sectaries of this time, vented and acted in England in these four last years. Scotch what d'ye call might be perhaps the famous Alexander Henderfon, or as that expreffion implies fome hard name, George Gillespie, a Scotch minifter and commiffioner at Westminster, called Galafpe in Whitlock, and Galafp in one of our author's Sonnets: and nothing could be exprefs'd with greater contempt. 17. Clip your phylacteries, though bauk your ears,] So we read as it is corrected in the table of Errata in the edition of 1673: in all the editions it is fally printed bank your Ttt ears. When they fhall read this clearly in your charge, SONNET I. To the NIGHTINGALE. O Nightingale, that on yon bloomy spray ears. S. Warbleft at eve, when all the woods are still, Thou with fresh hope the lover's heart doft fill, at first, 20 While This line in the Manufcript was thus for the liberty of unlicenc'd printing. Vol. 1. Crop ye as close as marginal P-s ears. He means Prynne who had been fentenc'd to lofe his ears, and afterwards was fentenc'd to lofe the remainder of them, fo that he was cropt close indeed: and the reason of his calling him marginal is express'd in his treatife of the likelieft Means to remove hirelings out of the church. "And yet a late hot Querift for "tithes, whom ye may know by his wit's lying ever befide him in the margin, to be "ever befide his wits in the text; a fierce re"former once, now rankled with a contrary "heat, &c." Vol. 1. p. 569. Edit. 1738. 20. New Presbyter is but Old Prieft] He expreffes the fame fentiment in other parts of his works. Bishops and Prefbyters are the fame to us both name and thing. &c. See his Speech p. 153. and the conclufion of his treatife intitled The Tenure of Kings and Magiftrates.. The Sonnet is a fpecies of poetry of Italian extraction, and the famous Petrarch hath gained the reputation of being the first author and inventor of it. He wrote a great number in commendation of his mistress Laura, with whom he was in love for twenty years together, and whofe death he lamented with the fame zeal for ten years afterwards: and for the tendernefs and delicacy of his paffion, as well as for the beauty and elegance of his fentiments and language, he is esteemed the great mafter of love-poetry among the Moderns, and hisSonnets are univerfally allow'd to be the ftandard and perfection of that kind of writing. The Sonnet, I think, confifts generally of one thought, and that always turn'd in fourteen While the jolly hours lead on propitious May. First heard before the fhallow cuccoo's bill, Foretel my hopeless doom in fome grove nigh; Whether the Mufe, or Love call thee his mate, 5 ΙΟ Donna was almost extinct among us, till it was reviv'd of late with good fuccefs by an ingenious Gentleman in Dodsley's Mifcellanies. We have obferved elsewhere how fond our poet was of the Nightingale, and this address to her is founded upon the fame notion or tradition as Chaucer's verfes of the Cuccoo and the Nightingale. But as I lay this othir night waking, verfes of the length of our heroics, two ftan- And amonge 'hem it was a commune tale, That it were gode to here the nightingale, Moche rathir than the leudè cuccoo fing. &c. 6. First heard before] Virgil Æn. IV. 24. Sed mihi vel tellus optem prius ima dehifcat, Ante pudor quam te violo, aut tua jura refolvo. Richardfon. |