not to confesse ere any aske, I shall be blamelesse, if it be no other, then the joy and gratulation which it brings to all who wish and promote their Countries Liberty; whereof this whole Discourse propos'd will be a certaine testimony, if not a trophey. For this is not the Liberty which wee Mr. Dunster's Note in his Edit. of Par. Reg. p. 223, 4to. 1795. Is not this an overstrained interpretation? Need we dive so deep for the meaning? I apprehend it floats on the surface, and that our text concurs with the authorities I have produced to prove, that by "high passions" the Poet intended generally the impassioned emotions of the mind. Neither should we, I think, ascribe to "high actions" any larger extent of signification than heroic deeds. "This whole Discourse propos'd will be a certaine testimony, if not a trophey.] Did our Authour by Trophey anticipate a triumph of his work over the Parliament's Order? Or, are we to seek for a covert sense? Thus to use words is no very unfrequent practice with him. If so; he intended only to say, that this Speech would prove a memorial. The latter construction coincides with the following passage in his Tract, of Reformation, &c. "This is the Trophey of their Antiquity, and "boasted Succession through so many ages." (p. 76. 4to. 1641.) And probably also with the epilogistic verses to his Book of Elegies, when declaring that he had weaned himself from amatory sing-song, and the lighter parts of poetry, with which in maturer life he thought that he had squandered the vacant hours of his earlier days: "Hæc ego, mente olim læva, studioque supino, His meaning, then, is that this Oration would be-"an unde"niable testimony to the Liberty enjoyed under the Parliament, though he would not assume so far as to call it a work durable " can hope, that no grievance ever should arise in the Commonwealth, that let no man in this world expect; but when complaints are freely heard, deeply consider'd, and speedily reform'd, then is the ut most bound of civill Liberty attain'd, that wise men looke for. To which if I now manifest by the very sound of this which I shall utter, that wee are already in good part arriv'd, and yet from such a steepe disadvantage of tyranny and superstition grounded into our principles as was beyond the manhood of a Roman recovery, it will bee attributed first, as is most due, to the strong assistance of GOD our deliverer, next, to your faithfull guidance and undaunted wisdome, Lords and Commons of England! Neither is it in GOD's esteeme the diminution of his glory, when honourable things are spoken of good men and worthy Magistrates; which if I now first should begin to doe, after so fair a progresse of your laudable deeds, and such a long obligement upon the whole Realme to your indefatigable vertues, I might be justly reckn'd among the tardiest, and the unwillingest of them that praise yee. Neverthelesse there being three principall things, without which all praising is but "enough for a monument by which it should be perpetuated to "after-times." There is the same thought in his Defensio Secunda pro Populo Anglicano: "Ego quæ eximia, quæ excelsa, quæ omni laude propè majora fuere, iis testimonium, prope dixerim monumen"tum, perhibui, haud citò interiturum." Pr. W. II. 349, edit. 66 "1738. courtship and flattery, First, when that only is praised which is solidly worth praise: next, when greatest likelihoods are brought that such things are truly and really in those persons to whom they are ascrib'd; the other, when he who praises, by shewing that such his actuall perswasion is of whom he writes, can demonstrate that he flatters not; the former two of these I have heretofore endeavour'd, rescuing the employment from him who went about to impaire your merits with a triviall and malignant Encomium; the latter as belonging chiefly to mine owne acquittall, that whom I so extoll'd I did not flatter, hath been reserv'd opportunely to this occasion. For he who freely magnifies what hath been nobly done, and fears not to declare as freely what might be done better, gives ye the best Cov'nant of his fidelity; and that his loyalest affection and his hope waits on your pro 5 Rescuing the employment from him, &c.] i. e. from Hall, Bishop of Norwich. In the controversy with the Non-conforming Divines, who under the anagrammatic signature of Smectymnuus wrote conjointly against our hierarchical establishment, the Bishop had spoken of the proceedings of the Parliament with cold and faint approbation, such as left scarcely room for a doubt of his secret and sinister bent. This faultering and penurious praise accorded so little with MILTON's earnest persuasion of their merits as to call forth, on his part, a glowing panegyric. See Pr. W. I. 121. ed. 1738. To this recorded testimony of his fidelity to the Parliamentary cause, he is appealing with a just confidence, as vindicating him from all suspicion that he was a Malignant, because now controverting the propriety of one of their "Orders." だ ceedings. His highest praising is not flattery, and his plainest advice is a kinde of praising: for though I should affirme and hold by argument, that it would fare better with Truth, with Learning, and the Commonwealth, if one of your publisht Orders which I should name, were call'd in; yet at the same time it could not but much redound to the lustre of your milde and equall Government, when as private persons are hereby animated to thinke ye better pleas'd with publick advice, then other Statists have been delighted heretofore with publicke flattery. And men will then see what difference' there is between the magnanimity of a trienniall Parlament, and that jealous hautinesse of Prelates and cabin Counsellours that usurpt of late, when as 6 See ILLUSTRATION A. "Cabin counsellours-] That is, chamber-councellors, or councellors who are assembled by the King in a private chamber as it were in the cabin of a ship, to give him advice in matters of state. MASERes. This was said unadvisedly. The context-" Prelates and " cabin Counsellours that usurpt of late"-determines that MILTON pointed sarcastically at Laud and at Strafford and the other Individuals associated with them, who composed the Committee of Council, to whose care Charles, previously to the meeting of the Long Parliament, committed the principal management of public affairs, or to speak in the language of to-day, they were the King's Cabinet Ministers; of whom Clarendon says, "these persons made up the Committee of State, which " was reproachfully after called the Junto, and enviously then. "in the Court, the Cabinet Council.-Hist. of the Rebellion, I. 233, 8vo. MILTON appears to have shunned French terms; therefore it they shall observe yee in the midd'st of your victories and successes more gently brooking writt'n exceptions against a voted Order, then other Courts, which had produc't nothing worth memory but the weake ostentation of wealth", would have endur'd the least signifi'd dislike at any sudden Proclamation. If I should thus farre presume upon the meek demeanour of your civill and gentle greatnesse, Lords and Commons'! as what your publisht Order hath was that he wrote cabin for cabinet here, as in Elxovoxλdorys': They would not stay perhaps the Spanish demurring, and putting off such wholesome acts and counsels, as the Po"litic Cabin at Whitehall had no mind to." p. 30, 8vo. 1690. " Other Courts which had produc't nothing worth memory but the weake ostentation of wealth,] This I take to be an allusion to the imposing pomp which the Court of Star-Chamber displayed on particular days. In "A Discourse concerning the "High Court of Star-Chamber," printed in Rushworth, it is observed that," It was a glorious sight upon a Star-day, when "the Knights of the Garter appear with the Stars on their Gar"ments, and the Judges in their Scarlet."-Hist. Collect. II. 473. 9 The meek demeanour of your civil and gentle greatnesse, Lords and Commons!] Civil retains here its Latin idiom: "cum "sic hominis natura generata sit, ut habeat quiddam innatum quasi civile atque populare, quod Græci ToλTIXÒy vocant." Cicero; de Fin. Bon. & Mal: lib. 5, sect. 23. And gentle then meant well-born, or of no vulgar rank: "Be he ne'er so vile "This day shall gentle his condition." Shakspeare; Hen. V. A. 4. S. 3. Again; "There is every dayes experience of Gentlemen |