Sea-girt it lies, where giants dwelt of old, Thy course, there shalt thou find a lasting seat; And kings be born of thee, whose dreadful might DANTE.C Ah Constantine, of how much ill was cause, DANTE. Founded in chaste and humble poverty, 'Gainst them that rais'd thee dost thou lift thy horn, b From Milton's Hist. Engl. b. i. Pr. W. ii. 5. These Fragments of translation were collected by Tickell from Milton's Prose Works. More are here added. But those taken from the Defensio are not Milton's, but are in Richard Washington's Translation of the Defensio into English. Tickell, supposing that Milton translated his own Latin Defensio into English, has inserted them among these fragments of Translations as the productions of Milton. Birch has reprinted Richard Washington's translation, which appeared in 1692, 8vo. among our author's Prose Works. T. Warton. c Infern. c. xix. See Hoole's Ariosto, b. xvii. v. 552. vol. ii. p. 271. d From Of Reformation in England, Prose Works, vol. i. p. 10. e Parad. c. xx. So say Tickell and Fenton, from Milton himself. But the sentiment only is in Dante. The translation is from Petrarch, Sonn. 108. "Fun"data in casta et humili povertate, &c." Expunged in some editions of Petrarch for obvious reasons. T. Warton. f From Of Reformation, &c. Prose Works, vol. i. p. 10. ARIOSTO. Then past he to a flow'ry mountain green, HORACE.i Whom do we count a good man? Whom but he EURIPIDES.! This is true liberty, when freeborn men Having t' advise the public may speak free; HORACE." Laughing, to teach the truth, What hinders? As some teachers give to boys Epist. i. xvi. 40. m Milton's Motto to his "Are"opagetica, A Speech for the "liberty of unlicensed Printing, " &c." Prose Works, vol. i. 141. n Sat. i. i. 24. • From Apol. Smectymn. From Tetrachordon, Prose Prose Works, vol. i. 116. Works, vol. i. 239. HORACE.P Joking decides great things. Stronger and better oft than earnest can. SOPHOCLES." 'Tis you that say it, not I. You do the deeds, And your ungodly deeds find me the words. SENECA.t There can be slain No sacrifice to God more acceptable, XIX. On the new forcers of conscience under the Long BECAUSE you have thrown off your Prelate Lord, From them whose sin ye envied, not abhorr❜d, To force our consciences that Christ set free, This copy of verses was first added in the second edition of the author's poems in 1673, and I suppose was made, when the Directory was established, and disputes ran high between the Presbyterians and Independents in the year 1645, the latter pleading for a toleration, and the former against it. And in the Manuscript it is not in Milton's own hand, but in another, the same that wrote some of the Sonnets. 1. Because you have thrown off your Prelate Lord, &c.] In railing at establishments, Milton not only condemned episcopacy. He thought even the simple institutions of the new reformation too rigid and arbitrary for the natural freedom of conscience. He contended for that sort of individual or personal religion, by which every man is to be his own priest. When these verses were written, which form an irregular sonnet, presbyterianism was triumphant: and the independents and the churchmen joined in one® 5 Taught ye by mere A. S, and Rotherford? Men whose life, learning, faith, and pure intent freedom, wherever it hath "been desired. Nevertheless, "as we perceive it aspiring to "be a compulsive power upon "all without exception in pa"rochial, classical, and provin"cial hierarchies, or to require "the fleshly arm of magistracy "in the execution of a spiritual "discipline, to punish and amerce "by any corporal infliction those "whose consciences cannot be "edified by what authority they are compelled, we hold it no "" more to be the hedge and bul"wark of religion, than the Popish and Prelatical courts, "or the Spanish Inquisition." 8. Taught ye by mere A. S. and Rotherford ?] The independents were now contending for toleration. In 1643, their principal leaders published a pamphlet with this title, " An Apo 66 logeticall Narration of some "Ministers formerly exiles in "the Netherlands, now members "of the Assembly of Divines. Humbly submitted to the ho"nourable Houses of Parliament. "By Thomas Goodwyn, Sy"drack Sympson, Philip Nye, "Jer. Burroughs, and William Bridge, the authors thereof. "Lond. 1643." In quarto. Their system is a middle way between Brownism and presbytery. This piece was answered by one A. S. the person intended by Milton. "Some Observations and Anno"tations upon the Apologeticall "Narration, humbly submitted "to the honourable Houses of "Parliament, the most reverend " and learned divines of the As sembly, and all the protestant "churches here in this island "and abroad. Lond. 1644." In quarto. The Dedication is subscribed A. S. The independents then retorted upon A. S. in a pamphlet called "A Reply of the two Brothers to A. S. "Wherein you have Observa"tions, Annotations, &c. upon "the Apologeticall Narration. "With a plea for liberty of "conscience for the apologists "church-way: against the cavils "of the said A. S. formerly "called M. S. to A. S. &c. &c. "Lond. 1644." In quarto. I quote from the second edition enlarged. There is another piece by A. S. It is called a Reply "to the second Return." This I have never seen. His name was never known. Samuel Rutherford, or Rutherfoord, was one of the chief commissioners of the church of Scotland, who sate with the Assembly at Westminster, and who concurred in settling the grand points of presbyterian discipline. He was professor of divinity in the university of Saint Andrew's, and has left a great variety of Calvinistic tracts. He was an avowed enemy to the independents, as appears from his Disputation on pretended liberty of conscience, 1649. This was answered by John Cotton a Separatist of New England. It is hence easy to see, why Rutherford was an obnoxious character to Milton. Rutherford's Letters, called Joshua Redivivus, are a genuine specimen of the enthusiastic cant of the old Scotch Divines. Their ninth edition |
