While Milton's occupation, as a teacher, Crede mihi vix hoc carmine scire queas. Light and unfever'd with excess, I send Would'st thou from verse my ardent friendship know? Ah! not to scanted strains, and halting song, The circling glass, the winter's joyous blaze, At tu siquid agam scitabere, (si modo saltem Dona quidem dedimus Christi natalibus illa, Te quoque pressa manent patriis meditata cicutis, But thou, should interest, kind or curious, bend, preserved his familiarity with many of the Roman and Greek authors, and was consequently not without its use to him, it was not permitted to interfere with what he conceived to be his duties as a citizen, and with that patriotic object which had recalled him from the shores of Sicily and Greece. Determined, from his first acquaintance with the struggles of his country, to devote himself to her service, he did not hesitate with respect Know that the Son of heaven's eternal King, By holy sages sung, he dares to sing; And new born stars, and fanes with their dumb idols A solemn tribute on his natal day, Or ere the point of dawn I framed the lay. The reader need not be informed that, in these lines, Milton alludes to his ode on Christ's nativity. The expressions, in italics, are borrowed from this ode. This excellent translation Mr. Hayley has prudently omitted to notice when he published Mr. Cowper's version of the same elegy. Mr. H. was aware, no doubt, that any comparison of the two productions would not be in favour of his friend's, and therefore, with more judgment than candour he suppressed all reference to the superior composition. Of Mr. Cowper's translations, which have lately been published, that of Francini's Italian Ode is unquestionably the best. With respect to the rest, it cannot with truth be said that any of them rise above mediocrity. to the part in which he was to act. Conscious of his own proper strength, and sensible that genius armed with knowledge was a power of far greater and more extensive efficiency than the bodily force of any individual, he decided in favour of the pen against the sword; and stationed himself in the closet, where he was himself an host, rather than in the field, where every muscular private man would be his superior. This is substantially the account which we have from himself; and the motives of his conduct must obtain our approbation as honourable and wise.' The Long Parliament was now assembled as the representative of a nation, irritated and alarmed by very flagrant abuses of power "Atque illi quidem, Deo perinde confisi, servitutem honestissimis armis pepulere: cujus laudis etsi nullam partem mihi vindico, à reprehensione tamen vel timiditatis vel ignaviæ, siqua infertur, facilè me tueor. Neque enim militiæ labores et pericula sic defugi, ut non alia ratione et operam multò utiliorem nec minore cum periculo meis civibus navarim, et animum dubiis in rebus neque demissum unquam, neque ullius invidiæ vel etiam mortis plus æquo metuentem præstiterim. Nam cùm ab adolescentulo humanioribus essem studiis ut qui maximè deditus, et ingenio semper quàm corpore validior, posthabitâ castrensi operâ, qua me gregarius quilibet robustior facilè superasset, ad ea me contuli quibus plus potui; ut parte mei meliore ac potiore, si saperem, non deteriore, ad rationes patriæ, causamque hanc præstantissimam quantum maximè possem momentum accederem." in the civil and in the ecclesiastical department. The king's violent conduct to his four former parliaments, with his unrelenting imprisonment of their members, one of whom had died under the length and rigours of the confinement; his violent attempts to govern by prerogative alone; his arbitrary exactions in violation of all law, and the severe sentences, with which his council and his courts abetted and enforced his injudicious despotism, had alienated all the orders of the com "Relying on the assistance of God, they indeed repelled servitude with the most justifiable war; and though I claim no share of their peculiar praise, I can easily defend myself against the charge, (if any charge of that nature should be brought against me,) of timidity or of indolence. For I did not for any other reason decline the toils and the dangers of war than that I might in another way, with much more efficacy and with not less danger to myself, render assistance to my countrymen, and discover a mind neither shrinking from adverse fortune, nor actuated by any improper fear of calumny or of death. Since from my childhood I had been devoted to the more liberal studies and was always more powerful in my intellect than in my body, avoiding the labours of the camp, in which any robust common soldier might easily have surpassed me, I betook myself to those weapons which I could wield with the most effect; and I conceived that I was acting wisely when I thus brought my better and more valuable faculties, those which constituted my principal strength and consequence, to the assistance of my country and her most honourable cause." Def. Sec. P. W. v. 199. A very accurate and circumstantial history of England, by various authors, (a second edition of which was published in two munity, and had made them ripe for resistance and innovation. The despotism of the leaders of the church party had walked side vols. folio in 1719) says on this subject, "They" (the arrested members, when brought for trial into the court of King's Bench) "refused to submit to any thing but the necessity of a long imprisonment, where some of them died in custody; and others treasured up a reputation of confessors for the privileges of parliament; and in 1640 had an ample reward of thanks and money." (iii. 53.] As the reign of Charles the First in this variorum history is written by a zealous royalist, who is as minute and correct in his statement of facts as he is weak and prejudiced in his remarks on them, I might in this instance safely follow him, and assert on his authority that more than one of the leading parliamentary oppositionists at the time in question, on the dissolution of the third parliament of this reign, had fallen victims to the revenge and despotism of the court. But as the historian forbears to specify the number or the names of the patriot members who thus died for the liberties of their country, I have contented myself with asserting only what I knew to be fact; and for the, "some," of this writer have contented myself with substituting," one." Whitelocke records a vote of the Parliament in 1646, by which 150001. are given, in three equal divisions, to Mr. Strode's kindred, and to the children of Sir John Elliot and those of Sir Peter Hammond, "for the sufferings of their parents, &c. for opposing the illegalities of that time."* From this it might be inferred that Mr. Strode and Sir P. Hammond had perished by the same fate with Sir J. Elliot: but as this is not expressly mentioned by Whitelocke, (who is silent also as to the particular cause of Sir John Elliot's death,) I shall not insist on it. Of Sir John Elliot's doom his family have preserved a memorial in a portrait, which was drawn of him during his imprisonment and not long before his decease. [* White. Mem. p. 238.] |