Your plots and packing worse than those of Trent, That fo the Parliament May, with their wholefome and preventive shears, Clip your phylacteries, though bauk your ears, And fuccour our juft fears, nents of prefbyterian uniformity, that the parliament might check their growth by penal statutes. Against fuch enemies, Milton's chief hope of enjoying a liberty of confcience, and a permiffion to be of any religion but popery, was in Cromwell, who for political reasons allowed all profeffions; and who is thus addreffed as the great guardian of religious independence, Sonn. xvi. 11. "New foes arise, "Threatening to bind our fouls in fecular chains: Ver. 12. and Scotch what d'ye call:] Perhaps Henderfon, or George Galafpie, another Scotch minifter with a harder name, and one of the ecclefiaftical commiffioners at Weftminster. John Henderson appears as a loving friend in Rutherford's Joshua Redivivus, B. iii. Epift. 50. p. 482. And Hugh Henderson, B. i. Epift. 127. p. 186. See alfo, Ibid. p. 152. And Alexander Henderson, B. i. Epist. 16. p. 33. But I wish not to bewilder myfelf or my readers any further in the library of fanaticifm. Happily the books, as well as the names, of the enthusiasts on both fides of the question, are almost configned to oblivion. T. WARTON. Ver. 14. Your plots and packing worse than thofe of Trent,] The famous council of Trent. T. WARTON. Ver. 17. Clip your phylu&teries, though bauk your ears,] That is, although your ears cry out that they need clipping, yet the mild and gentle Parliament will content itfelf, with only clipping away your Jewish and perfecuting principles. WARBURTON. When they shall read this clearly in your charge, New Presbyter is but old Priest writ large. 20 Tickell, I think, is the first who gives baulk, or bauk, from the errata of edition 1673, which has bank. Fenton retains the errour from Tonfon's text. It is wonderful that Tonfon, in edit. 1695, fhould have retained bank, without confulting the Errata of an edition which is his model. The line ftands thus in the manufcript, ears.' "Crop ye as close as marginal P That is, Prynne, whofe ears were cropped clofe in the pillory, and who was fond of oftentatioufly loading the margin of his voluminous books with a parade of authorities. But why was the line altered when this piece was firft printed in 1673, as Prynne had been then dead four years? Perhaps he was unwilling to revive, and to expofe to the triumph of the royalifts now reftored, this difgrace of one of the leading heroes of the late faction; notwithstanding Prynne's apoftafy. The meaning of the prefent context is "Check your infolence, without proceeding to cruel punishments." To balk, is to Spare. T. WARTON. Mr. Warton, as well as doctor Newton, is here mistaken in respect to the text; for Mr. Warton thinks that Tickell firft gave bauk, and doctor Newton fays that all the editions read bank, although it is corrected in the table of Errata in the edition of 1673. But the truth is, Tonfon's edition of 1713, which is certainly valuable, and which appears to have been Tickell's model, (as I have had several occasions to obferve,) reads "bauk your ears." Tonfon's edition of 1747 reads alfo "baulk." Fenton reads the fame, and therefore has not retained the errour. To Mr. Warton's notice of Prynne I must add Milton's own account of that voluminous writer, in his treatife, The likelieft means to remove hirelings out of the Church: "A late hot querist for tithes, whom ye may know, by his wits lying ever befide him in the margin, to be ever befide his wits in the text, a fierce reformer once, now rankled with a contrary heat, &c." TODD. Ver. 20. New Prefbyter is but old Prieft] He expreffes the fame fentiment in his Areopagitica; "Bishops and Presbyters are the fame to us both name and thing." See alfo the conclufion of his Tenure of Kings and Magiftrates. NEWTON. Ver. 20. writ large.] That is, more domi neering and tyrannical. WARBURTON. Ver. 2. Original Various Readings, On the Forcers of Confcience. the vacant whore Plurality. Ver. 6. To force the confciences &c. Ver. 12. By haire-brain'd Edwards, Shallow is in the margin; and the pen is drawn through hairebrain'd. Ver, 17. Crop ye as close as marginal P―'s eares. |