X. To the Lady Margaret Ley. DAUGHTER to that good Earl, once President: Broke him, as that dishonest victory Kill'd with report that old man eloquent. Though later born than to have known the days 5 10 Ver. 1. Daughter to that good Earl,] She was the daughter of Sir James Ley, whose singular learning and abilities raised him through all the great posts of the Law, till he came to be made Earl of Marlborough, and Lord High Treasurer, and Lord President of the Council to King James I. He died in an advanced age; and Milton attributes his death to the breaking of the Parliament; and it is true that the Parliament was dissolved the 10th of March 1628-9, and he died on the 14th of the same month.' He left several sons and daughters; and the Lady Margaret was married to Captain Hobson of the Isle of Wight. It appears from the accounts of Milton's life, that in 1643 he used frequently to visit this lady and her husband; about which time we may suppose this Sonnet to have been composed. NEWTON. Ver. 8. Kill'd with report that old man eloquent.] Isocrates, the orator. The victory was gained by Philip of Macedon over the Athenians. T. WARTON. So well your words his noble virtues praise, XI. On the detraction which followed upon my writing certain treatises *. A Book was writ of late call'd Tetrachordon, Dr. Johnson says of this and the next Sonnet, that "the first is contemptible, and the second not excellent ;" and yet he had unfairly selected the contemptible Sonnet as a specimen, in his Dictionary, of this species of verse in English. But Milton wrote this Sonnet in sport. TODD. Ver. 1. A Book was writ of late call'd Tetrachordon,] This elaborate discussion, unworthy in many respects of Milton, and in which much acuteness of argument, and comprehension of reading, were idly thrown away, was received with contempt, or rather ridicule, as we learn from Howel's Letters. A better proof that it was treated with neglect, is, that it was attacked by two nameless and obscure writers only; one of whom Milton calls, a Serving-man turned Sollicitor! Our author's divorce was on Platonick principles. He held, that disagreement of mind, was a better cause of separation than adultery or frigidity. Here was a fair opening for the laughers. This and the following Sonnet were written soon after 1645. For this doctrine Milton was summoned before the Lords. But they not approving his accusers, the presbyterian clergy, or thinking the business too speculative, he was quickly dismissed. On this occasion Milton commenced hostilities against the Presbyterians. He illustrates his own system in this line of Par. Lost, B. ix. 372. "Go, for thy stay, not free, absents thee more." Milton wished he had not written this work in English. This is observed by Mr. Bowle, who points out the following proof, in the Defensio secunda. "Vellem hoc tantum, sermone vernaculo me non scripsisse : non And woven close, both matter, form, and stile; The subject new: it walk'd the Town awhile, Numbering good intellects; now seldom por'd on. Cries the stall-reader, Bless us! what a word on 5 A title page is this! and some in file Stand spelling false, while one might walk to Mile End Green. Why is it harder, Sirs, than Gordon, Colkitto, or Macdonnel, or Galasp? 9 enim in vernas lectores incidissem, quibus solenne est sua bona ignorare, aliorum mala irridere," Prose-Works, ii. 331. This was one of Milton's books published in consequence of his divorce [separation] from his first wife. Tetrachordon signifies expositions on the four chief places in Scripture which mention marriage or nullities in marriage. T. WARTON. Ver. 4. seldom por'd on.] It is not improbable that Milton here intended to ridicule a quaint couplet in G. Wither's Obsequies on Prince Henry, 1613. The Prince, says the poet, 66 was himselfe a book for kings to pore on, Ver. 8. Why is it harder,] Tonson, who might have been taught better by the Errata of the edition he followed, reads is better, in his edition of 1695. So also Colikkto, v. 9. T. WARTON. Ver. 9. Colkitto, or Macdonnel, or Galasp?] Milton is here collecting, from his hatred to the Scots, what he thinks Scottish names of an ill sound. Colkitto and Macdonnel, are one and the same person; a brave officer on the royal side, an Irish man of the Antrim family, who served under Montrose. The Macdonalds of that family are styled, by way of distinction, Mac Collcittok, i. e. descendants of lame Colin. Galasp is a Scottish writer against the Independents; for whom see Milton's verses On the forcers of Conscience, &c. He is George Gillespie, one of the Scotch Members of the Assembly of Divines, as his name is sub Those rugged names to our like mouths grow sleek, That would have made Quintilian stare and gasp. Thy age, like ours, O Soul of Sir John Cheek, Hated not learning worse than toad or asp, When thou taught'st Cambridge, and king Edward, Greek. scribed to their Letter to the Belgick, French, and Helvetian churches, dated 1643. In which they pray, "that these three nations may be joined as one Stick in the hands of the Lord :that all Mountains may become Plains before them and us; that then all who now see the Plummet in our hands, may also behold the Top-stone set upon the head of the Lord's house among us, and may help us with shouting to cry, Grace, Grace, to it." Rushw. p. 371. Such was the rhetorick of these reformers of reformation! T. WARTON. Ver. 12. Sir John Cheek,] Or Cheke. He was the first professor of the Greek tongue in the university of Cambridge, and was highly instrumental in bringing that language into repute, and restoring the original pronunciation of it; though with great opposition from the patrons of ignorance and popery, and especially from Gardiner, bishop of Winchester and chancellor of the university. He was afterwards made one of the tutors to Edward VI. See his Life by Strype, or in the Biographia Britannica. NEWTON. Thy age, like ours, &c. The same reflection as in his Epist. Fam. Prose-Works, iii. 567. "Qui Græcis componendis hoc sæculo studium atque operam impendit, periculum est ne plerumque surdo canat." Bow Le. Ver. 13. Hated not learning worse than toad or asp,] Mr. Bowle quotes Halle, Rich. ii. f. 34. "Diverse noble personages hated Kinge Richard worse than a toade or a serpent.” T. WARTON. So, in the translation of the first three books of Orlanda Innamorato, by R. T. 1598. "He worse than toade Angelica doth hate." XII. On the Same *. I DID but prompt the age to quit their clogs And in Harrington's Orl. Fur. B. xxvi. st. 17. "And for they hated them like snake or toade." TODD. SONNET XII. The preceding Sonnet is evidently of a ludicrous, the present of a more contemptuous cast.-There is a portrait of the celebrated Spanish poet, Lope de Vega, painted when he was young; surrounded by dogs, monkies, and other monsters, and writing in the midst of them, without attending to their noise. See Hayley's Essay on Epic Poet. Notes, p. 205. It is not improbable that Milton might have seen, or heard of, this curious picture of his contemporary; and be led, in consequence, to describe so minutely, in this Sonnet, the "barbarous noise that environed him.' Todd. Ver. 3. When straight a barbarous noise &c.] Milton was violently censured by the presbyterian clergy for his Tetrachordon, and other tracts of that tendency. T. WArton. Ver. 5. As when those hinds &c.] The fable of the Lycian clowns changed into frogs is related by Ovid, Met. vi. Fab. iv. And the poet, in saying "Which after held the sun and moon in fee," intimates the good hopes which he had of himself, and his expectations of making a considerable figure in the world. NEWTON. |