Walker's Sufferings, p. 36. Thurloe's State Pap. vol. ii. 687. Milton's praife of Cromwell may be thought inconfiftent with that zeal which he profeffed for liberty: for Cromwell's affumption of the Protectorate, even if we allow the lawfulness of the Rebellion, was palpably a violent ufurpation of power over the rights of the nation, and was reprobated even by the republican party. Milton, however, in various parts of the Defenfio Secunda, gives excellent admonitions to Cromwell, and with great fpirit, freedom, and eloquence, not to abuse his new authority. Yet not without an intermixture of the groffeft adulation.

T WARTON,

XVII.

To Sir HENRY VANE the younger

VANE, young in years, but in fage counsel old, Than whom a better fenator ne'er held

* Perhaps written about the time of the last, having the fame tendency. Sir Henry Vane the younger was the chief of the independents, and therefore Milton's friend. He was the contriver of the Solemn League and Covenant. He was an eccentrick character, in an age of eccentrick characters. In religion the most fantastick of all enthufiafts, and a weak writer, he was a judicious and fagacious politician. The warmth of his zeal never mifled his publick meafures. He was a knight-errant in every thing but affairs of ftate. The fagacious bifhop Burnet in vain attempted to penetrate the darknefs of his creed. He held, that the devils and the damned would be faved. He believed himself the perfon delegated by God, to reign over the faints upon earth for a thousand years. His principles founded a fect called the Vanifts. On the whole, no fingle man ever exhibited fuch a medley of fanaticifm and diffimulation, folid abilities and vifionary delufions, good fenfe and madness. In the pamphlets of that age he is called fir Humourous Vanity. He was beheaded in 1662. On the Scaffold, he compared Tower Hill to mount Pifgah, where Mofes went to die, in full affurance of being immediately placed at the right hand of Chrift. Milton alludes to the execution of Vane and other regicides, after the Restoration, and in general to the fufferings of his friends on that event, in a speech of the Chorus on Samfon's degradation, Samf. Agon. v. 687. See alfo Ibid. v. 241. This Sonnet feems to have been written in behalf of the independents, against the prefbyterian hierarchy.

Ver. 1.

T. WARTON.

in fage counfel] This is much better

than the printed copies, " in fage councils." NEWTON.

The whole line resembles one in Sylvefter, as Mr. Dunster also has noticed, Du Bart. 1621, p. 338.

The helm of Rome, when gowns, not arms, repell❜d

The fierce Epirot and the African bold; Whether to fettle peace, or to unfold

5

The drift of hollow States hard to be spell'd; Then to advise how War may, beft upheld, Move by her two main nerves, iron and gold, In all her equipage: befides to know

Both fpiritual power and civil, what each

means,

10

What fevers each, thou haft learn'd, which few have done :

The bounds of either fword to thee we owe :

"Ifaac, in yeers young, but in wisdom growen." TODD.

Ver. 6.

States of Holland.

hollow States] Peace with the hollow WARBURTON.

Ver. 7. In the printed copies the metre is fpoiled in this verfe, and the fenfe in the following:

"Then to advise how war may be best upheld

"Mann'd by her two main nerves, &c." NEWTON.

Ver. 9. In all her equipage:] Briefly, but finely, expreffing what Shakspeare has written in Othello:

"all quality,

"Pride, pomp, and circumstance, of glorious war."

Compare alfo Spenfer, Faer. Qu. i. xi. 6.

"The god of war

with his fiers equipage." In the printed editions this third stanza wanted one whole line, and gave another line thus corrupted, as Dr. Newton ftates:

"befides to know

"What ferves each, thou haft learn'd, &c." TODD.

Therefore on thy firm hand Religion leans In peace, and reckons thee her eldest son.

Ver. 13. This and the next line are infinitely better in the manufcript than in the printed editions:

"Therefore on thy right hand Religion leans,

"And reckons thee in chief her eldest fon." NEWTON.

XVIII.

On the late maffacre in PIEMONT*.

AVENGE, O Lord, thy flaughter'd faints, whofe bones

* In 1655, the duke of Savoy determined to compel his reformed fubjects in the Vallies of Piedmont, to embrace popery, or quit their country. All who remained and refused to be converted, with their wives and children, fuffered a most barbarous maffacre. Those who efcaped, fled into the mountains, from whence they fent agents into England to Cromwell for relief. He instantly commanded a general faft, and promoted a national contribution in which near forty thousand pounds were collected. The perfecution was suspended, the duke recalled his army, and the furviving inhabitants of the Piedmontese Vallies were reinstated in their cottages, and the peaceable exercise of their religion. On this business, there are several state-letters in Cromwell's name written by Milton. One of them is to the duke of Savoy. See Profe-works, ii. 183, feq. 437, 439. Milton's mind, bufied with this affecting fubject, here broke forth in a strain of poetry, where his feelings were not fettered by ceremony or formality. The proteftants availed them felves of an opportunity of expofing the horrours of popery, by publishing many fets of prints of this unparalleled scene of religious butchery, which operated like Fox's Book of Martyrs. Sir William Moreland, Cromwell's agent for the Vallies of Piedmont at Geneva, published a minute ac

Lie fcatter'd on the Alpine mountains cold; Even them who kept thy truth fo pure of old, When all our fathers worshipt stocks and ftones,

Forget not in thy book record their groans 5 Who were thy sheep, and in their ancient fold Slain by the bloody Piemontese that roll'd Mother with infant down the rocks.

moans

Their

count of this whole tranfaction, in "The History of the Valleys of Piemont, &c. Lond. 1658." fol. with numerous cuts. Milton, among many other atrocious examples of the papal spirit, appeals to this maffacre, in Cromwell's Letter to king Charles Gustavus, dat. 1656. "Teftes Alpina valles miferorum cæde ac fanguine redundantes, &c." Pr. W. ii. 454. T. WARTON.

Ver. 2.

the Alpine mountains cold;] From Fair

fax's Taffo, B. xiii. ft. 60.

"Into the valleys greene

"Distill'd from tops of Alpine mountains cold.”

T. WARTON.

Ver. 3. Even them who kept thy truth so pure of old,

When all our fathers worshipt Stocks and ftones,] It is pretended that, when the church of Rome became corrupt, they preferved the primitive apoftolical chriftianity: and that they have manuscripts against the papal Antichrift and Purgatory, as old as 1120. See their History by Paul Perrin, Genev. 1619. Their poverty, and feclufion from the reft of the world for fo many ages, contributed in great measure to this fimplicity of worfhip. In his pamphlet, "The likelieft means to remove Hirelings out of churches," againft endowing churches with tithes, our author frequently refers to the happy poverty and purity of the Waldenfes. T. WARTON.

Ver. 7.

that roll'd

Mother with infant down the rocks.] There is a print of this piece of cruelty in Moreland. He relates, that" a mother