And what the Swede intends, and what the French. To measure life learn thou betimes, and know

Toward solid good what leads the nearest way; 10 For other things mild Heaven a time ordains, And disapproves that care, though wise in show, That with superfluous burden loads the day, And, when God sends a cheerful hour, refrains.

XXII.

To the Same.

CYRIACK, this three years day these eyes, though clear, To outward view, of blemish or of spot,

Bereft of light, their seeing have forgot;

Ver. 8. And what the Swede intends, &c.] So it is in the manuscript. In the first edition it was " And what the Swede intend," which in others is altered to "And what the Swedes intend." Charles Gustavus, king of Sweden, was at this time waging war with Poland; and the French with the Spaniards in the Netherlands: And what Milton says is somewhat in the manner and spirit of Horace, Od. II. xi. 1.

"Quid bellicosus Cantaber, et Scythes,

Ver. 3. In the printed editions this and the following lines were thus:

"Bereft of sight their seeing have forgot,
"Nor to their idle orbs doth day appear

"Or sun, or moon, &c." NEWTON.

Nor to their idle orbs doth sight appear
Of sun, or moon, or star, throughout the year,
Or man, or woman. Yet I argue not

5

Against Heaven's hand or will, nor bate a jot Of heart or hope; but still bear up and steer Right onward. What supports me, dost thou ask? The conscience, Friend, to have lost them overplied

Ver. 7.

"bate one jot." NEWTON.

bate a jot] In the printed copies,

Ver. 8. One of Milton's characteristicks was a singular fortitude of mind, arising from a consciousness of superiour abilities, and a conviction that his cause was just. The heart which he presents to Leonora is thus described, Sonn. vi. 4.

"Io certo a prove tante

"L'hebbi fedele, intrepido, costante,

"De pensieri leggiadro, accorto, e buono ;
"Quando rugge il gran mondo, e scocca il tuono,
"S'arma di se, e d'intero diamante :

"Tanto del forse, e d'invidia sicuro,

"Di timori, &c."

He concludes with great elegance, writing to a lady, "that it was not proof against love." T. WARTON.

Ver. 9. Right onward.] Mr. Harris, in his notes on the Treatise on Happiness, observes on this expression of Right onward, p. 306. "One would imagine that our great countryman. Milton had the reasoning of Marcus Antoninus in view. L. 5. §. 5. where, in this Sonnet, speaking of his own Blindness, he says with a becoming magnanimity, yet I argue not, &c. The whole Sonnet is not unworthy of perusal, being both simple and sublime." Jos. WARTON.

Ver. 10. When he was employed to answer Salmasius, one of his eyes was almost gone; and the physicians predicted the loss of both if he proceeded. But he says, in answer to Du Moulin, "I did not long balance whether my Duty should be preferred to my eyes." T. WARTON.

In liberty's defence, my noble task,

11

Ver. 11. In liberty's defence, &c.] This Sonnet was not hazarded in the edition of 1673, where the last appears. For the Defensio pro populo Anglicano, of which e here speaks with so much satisfaction and self applause, at the restoration was ordered to be burnt by the hands of the common hangman, together with his Iconoclastes, at which time his person was spared; and, by a singular act of royal clemency, he survived to write Paradise Lost. It is more remarkable, that John Goodwin, a famous Independent preacher, should have been indemnified, whose books. were also burnt, in which he justified the King's murther. But Milton's prose was to suffer another disgrace. Twenty-seven Propositions gathered from the writings of our author, Buchanan, Hobbes, Baxter, John Goodwin, Knox, Owen, and others, were proscribed by the University of Oxford, Jul. 21, 1683, as destructive both to Church and State; and ordered to be burnt in the court of the Schools. See the Decree of the University, in Somers's Tracts, iii. 223. In this general conflagration of religious and civil heterodoxy, were blended the books of many quakers and Fifth-monarchy men: the latter had affirmed, Prop. xix. "The powers of this world are usurpations upon the prerogative of Jesus Christ; and it is the duty of God's people to destroy them, in order to the setting up Christ on his throne," p. 225. This transaction is celebrated in a poem of the Musa Anglicanæ, called Decretum Oxoniense, 1683, vol. ii. p. 180, 181. edit. 1714. I transcribe some of the lines with abhorrence:

"Hæ tibi sint laudes immortalesque triumphi,

"O dea, Bellositi sacras quæ protegis arces !—

66

Quanquam O, si simili quicunque hæc scripserit auctor "Fato succubuisset, eodemque arserit igne;

"In medio videas flamma crepitante cremari

"MILTONUM, cœlo terrisque inamabile nomen!"

But by what follows, the writer does not seem to have been insensible to the beauties of Milton's poetry. T. WARTON.

Ver. 11.

my noble task,] In a Letter to Oldenburgh he says, "Ad alia ut me parem, nescio sane an

Of which all Europe rings from side to side. This thought might lead me through the world's vain mask

Content though blind, had I no better guide.

nobiliora et utiliora. Quid enim in rebus humanis asserenda Libertate nobilius aut utilius esse potest?" But he adds, with less triumph than in this Sonnet, about his blindness," siquidem per valetudinem, et hanc luminum orbitatem licuerit." Pr. W. ii. 574. This Sonnet was not written before 1651, when the Defensio appeared. T. WARTON.

Ver. 12. Of which all Europe rings] So I read, with the printed copies before doctor Newton's edition, in which talks is substituted from the manuscript instead of rings. But see Sonn. xv. 1. So, in the Hist. of Cyrus, &c. 1594. "Of whom Asia rings," and in Harington's Orl. Fur. 1607, p. 53. "Of whose great triumphs all the world shall ring." This Sonnet thus concluded, before doctor Newton's edition:

"Whereof all Europe rings from side to side.

"This thought might lead me through this world's vain

mask

"Content though blind, had I no other guide." TODD.

XXIII.

On his deceased Wife.

METHOUGHT I Saw my late espoused saint

Ver. 1. Methought I saw my late espoused saint &c.] Ralegh's elegant Sonnet, called A vISION upon the conceipt of the FAERIE QUEENE, begins thus,

"Methought I saw the grave where Laura lay.”

And hence perhaps the idea of a Sonnet in the form of a vision was suggested to Milton. This Sonnet was written about the year 1656, on the death of his second wife, Catherine, the daughter of Captain Woodcock of Hackney, a rigid sectarist. She died in child-bed of a daughter, within a year after their marriage. Milton had now been long totally blind so that this might have been one of his day-dreams. Captain Woodcock had a brother Francis, as I collect, a covenanter, and of the assembly of divines, who was presented by the usurping powers to the benefice of S. Olave in Southwark, 1646. One of his surname, perhaps the same with this Francis, was appointed by parliament in 1659, to approve of ministers; was a great frequenter of conventicles, and has some puritanical sermons extant in The morning exercise methodized, 1676. T. WARTON.

The idea of a Sonnet in the form of a Vision might be suggested to Milton by two compositions of this kind, in the Sonetti di diversi Accademici Sanesi printed at Siena in 1608, entitled Sogno nel qual vidde la sua donna, che già era morta, and Apparitione della sua donna morta ; both by Martio Bartolini, in pages 205, 210. See also Drayton's Matilda, ed. 1594, to which is prefixed a Sonnet entitled The Vision of Matilda, and signed H. G. Esquire.