SCRAPS FROM THE PROSE WRITINGS.

FROM "OF REFORMATION TOUCHING CHURCH DISCIPLINE IN ENGLAND," 1641.

[DANTE, Inferno, xix. 115.]

AH, Constantine, of how much ill was cause,
Not thy conversion, but those rich domains
That the first wealthy Pope received of thee!

[PETRARCH, Sonnet 107.]

FOUNDED in chaste and humble poverty,

'Gainst them that raised thee dost thou lift thy horn,
Impudent whore? Where hast thou placed thy hope?
In thy adulterers, or thy ill-got wealth?
Another Constantine comes not in haste.

[ARIOSTO, Orl. Fur. xxxiv. Stanz. 80.] THEN passed he to a flowery mountain green, Which once smelt sweet, now stinks as odiously: This was that gift (if you the truth will have) That Constantine to good Sylvestro gave.

FROM THE APOLOGY FOR SMECTYMNUUS,

1642.

[HORACE, Sat. i. 1, 24.]

LAUGHING to teach the truth

What hinders? as some teachers give to boys
Junkets and knacks, that they may learn apace.

[HORACE, Sat. i. 10, 14.]

JOKING decides great things

Stronglier and better oft than earnest can.

[SOPHOCLES, Electra, 624.]

'TIS you that say it, not I. You do the deeds, And your ungodly deeds find me the words.

FROM AREOPAGITICA, 1644.

[EURIPIDES, Supplices, 438.]

THIS is true liberty, when freeborn men,
Having to advise the public, may speak free;
Which he who can and will deserves high praise :
Who neither can nor will may hold his peace.
What can be juster in a state than this?

FROM TETRACHORDON, 1645.

[HORACE, Epist. i. 16, 40.]

WHOM do we count a good man? Whom but he
Who keeps the laws and statutes of the senate,
Who judges in great suits and controversies,
Whose witness and opinion wins the cause?
But his own house, and the whole neighbourhood,
Sees his foul inside through his whited skin.

FROM "THE TENURE OF KINGS AND MAGISTRATES," 1649.

[SENECA, Her. Fur. 922.]

THERE can be slain

No sacrifice to God more acceptable
Than an unjust and wicked king.

FROM THE HISTORY OF BRITAIN, 1670.

[In Geoffrey of Monmouth the story is that Brutus the Trojan, wandering through the Mediterranean, and uncertain whither to go, arrived at a dispeopled island called Leogecia, where he found, in a ruined city, a temple and oracle of Diana. He consulted the oracle in certain Greek verses, of which Geoffrey gives a version in Latin elegiacs; and Milton translates these.]

GODDESS of Shades, and Huntress, who at will
Walk'st on the rolling sphere, and through the deep,
On thy third reign, the Earth, look now, and tell
What land, what seat of rest thou bidd'st me seek,
What certain seat, where I may worship thee
For aye, with temples vowed, and virgin quires.

[Sleeping before the altar of the Goddess, Brutus received from her, in vision, an answer to the above in Greek. Geoffrey quotes the traditional version of the same in Latin elegiacs, which Milton thus translates.]

BRUTUS, far to the west, in the ocean wide,
Beyond the realm of Gaul, a land there lies,
Sea-girt it lies, where giants dwelt of old;
Now void, it fits thy people. Thither bend
Thy course; there shalt thou find a lasting seat;
There to thy sons another Troy shall rise,
And kings be born of thee, whose dreaded might
Shall awe the world, and conquer nations bold.

PART II.

THE LATIN POEMS.

Separate Title-page in Edition of 1645:-"Joannis Miltoni Londinensis Poemata. Quorum pleraque intra annum ætatis vigesimum conscripsit. Nunc primum edita. Londini, Typis R. R. Prostant ad Insignia Principis, in Cœmeterio D. Pauli, apud Humphredum Moseley. 1645."

66

Separate Title-page in Edition of 1673 :— Same as above, word for word, as far as to Londini," inclusively; after which the rest runs thus: "Excudebat W. R. anno 1673."