His mischief, that due course doth keep,
Turns on his head and his ill trade

60

Of violence will undelayed

Fall on his crown with ruin steep.

Then will I Jehovah's praise
According to his justice raise,
And sing the Name and Deity
Of Jehovah the Most High.

PSALM VIII.

August 14, 1653.

O JEHOVAH our Lord, how wondrous great
And glorious is thy name through all the earth,
So as above the heavens thy praise to set!
Out of the tender mouths of latest bearth,
Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings thou
Hast founded strength, because of all thy foes,
To stint the enemy, and slack the avenger's brow,
That bends his rage thy providence to oppose.

When I behold thy heavens, thy fingers' art,
The moon and stars, which thou so bright hast set
In the pure firmament, then saith my heart,
Oh, what is man that thou rememberest yet

And think'st upon him, or of man begot

That him thou visit'st, and of him art found? Scarce to be less than gods thou mad'st his lot;

With honour and with state thou hast him crowned.

10

O'er the works of thy hand thou mad'st him lord;
Thou hast put all under his lordly feet,
All flocks and herds, by thy commanding word,
All beasts that in the field or forest meet,
Fowl of the heavens, and fish that through the wet
Sea-paths in shoals do slide, and know no dearth.
O Jehovah our Lord, how wondrous great

And glorious is thy name through all the earth!

20

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. 8o.]

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.

1

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.