shall be both pardoned, and commended: as I could not have passed her over, even amidst the silence of others, without the deepest ingratitude; having by some most fortunate fatality, some hidden consent and concurrence of stars or feelings or circumstances, found in her (whom most I wished, but least expected) an arbitress so impartial, and so favourable, at the utmost cisively by Toland, are claimed for Marvell by Warton; but re-asserted, in a conclusive Note, by Dr. Symmons, whose version of them I subjoin: 'Imperial Maid, great arbitress of war! Queen of the Pole! yourself it's brightest star! Thrones are not always by it's frown defied.' (C. S.) The original, Warton pronounces "simple and sinewy"but "too great a compliment to Christina, who was contemptible both as a queen and a woman." "An ample and lively picture (he adds) of her court, politics, religion, intrigues, rambles, and masquerades is to be gathered from Thurloe's "State-Papers!" See also a pithy Note upon her in Dr. S.'s Life, p. 428 (a). A Life of this extraordinary woman (now rare) appeared in 1658, entitled The History of the Sacred and Royal Majesty of Christina Alessandra, Queen of Swedland, &c.;' written by Count Galeazzo Gualdo Priorato, and translated by John Burbery. The comparative pittance of 20,000 crowns per ann., it is almost painful to add, was but irregularly paid. the extremity of the world. I must now resume very different labour, which I left behind. Our party (you say) were dismayed by the character of The Royal Defence,' and looked out for some half-starved petty schoolmaster, to lend his venal pen to the vindication of parricide. This most malignant fiction you devised, remembering that the royalists, when they were 'looking out' for a mouth-piece of their lies and invectives, applied to Saumaise-a grammarian, if not hungry for bread, certainly too thirsty for gold; who not only most readily sold them his secret services, but threw his soundness of intellect (if, indeed, he ever had any) into the bargain: remembering that Saumaise in his lost and ruined condition, when he was looking out' for some one to assist in patching up his torn and tattered character, was induced by the retributive impulse of the Almighty to apply to you-not a pastor of Geneva, for thence you had been ejected, but a Bishop of Lampsacus, a genuine God of the Gardens, and finally the polluter of his house; which led him on his. death-bed, nauseating the flummery he had so disgracefully purchased of you, and exchanging his friendship for violent enmity, to imprecate bitter curses on the head of his panegyrist. At last they found one, and a formidable hero he was, to oppose to Saumaise, John Milton! I did not know that I was a a hero,' though you may very probably be a hero's son, for you are a complete pest.* But that I alone was found to defend the cause of the people of England, as far as their interest was at stake, gave me true concern, though I am proud to stand single in their approbation. It is doubtful (you subjoin) who, and what I am;-So it was, of old, with regard to Homer and Demosthenes. I had learned, in fact, to keep in check my tongue and my pen, which Saumaise never could; and I concealed within my breast many things which, had I then produced them, would long since have earned me the distinction I now possess. But I did not greedily woo coy renown, and should not ever have brought forward even my late labours, had not imperious occasion called them forth; little solicitous that others should be apprised of the extent of my acquirements, and seeking not fame, but opportunity, in my publications:t whence I became known to great numbers, long before Saumaise became known to him → For the illustration of the proverb, Heroum filii noxæ, see Erasm. Adag. + Upon this subject is preserved a MS. letter in the library of Trinity College, Cambridge, written to a friend in his "three and twentieth yeere;" wherein he represents himself as " kept off with a sacred reverence and religious advisement how best to undergoe; not taking thought of being late, so it give advantage to be more fit," &c. Erras, More (subjoins our Epic Marcellus, in his Pro Se Defensio') et me non nôsti: mihi lentè crescere, et velut occulto avo, satius semper fuit. self, though now he is better known than Tom Fool.* —A man, or a worm. I had rather in truth be, what even the Psalmist pronounces himself, a worm, than bear in my bosom that worm of yours, which will never die. It is reported (you continue) that he was vomited forth for his profligacy from the University of Cambridge, and sought shelter from his disgrace abroad in Italy. From this single statement you may infer the degree of credit due to those persons, upon whose authority you adduce your hear-say evidence against me: for that both you and they are here guilty of a most impudent lie, is known to all who know me, and I will still more satisfactorily prove in the sequel. And why, if I had been expelled from Cambridge, should I seek shelter' in 'Italy,' rather than in France or Holland; where you with all your infamy are tolerated as a minister of the gospel, and live in impunity, and are allowed to mount the pulpit, and to the deep disgrace of that church defile with your polluted hands it's hallowed mysteries? Why, I say, in Italy?' Like a modern Saturn, forsooth, I must fly to Latium,‡ as a lurkingplace. No, More: I had before known, and * Andremone notior est caballo. + Psalm xxii. 6. Ut alicubi laterem. To this last word, etymologists refer the derivation of Latium. g ha ha littl of t not f when long then found, Italy' to be, not (as you insi nuate) the receptacle and asylum of reprobates, but the seat of polite literature and all civil learning. Upon his return, he wrote a Tract on Di vorces. I only wrote what had previously been written at great length by Bucer in his "De Regno Christi,' Fagius on Deuteronomy, Erasmust (with particular reference to English His four successive Treatises upon this subject were respectively entitled, The Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce," The Judgement of Martin Bucer concerning Divorce,' Tetrachordon, and Colasterion. Upon the third of these, which "contained an Exposition of the Four Passages (Gen. i, 27, 28., Deut. xxiv. 1, 2., Matt. v. 31, 32., and 1 Cor. vii. 13, 16.) in the Sacred Writings, supposed more immediately to respect the permanency of the marriage-obligation," Warton has a note worth consulting, ib. p. 338. Johnson, it is somewhat surprising, does not mention the fourth; nor, indeed, the Tractate upon Education,' in it's regular place. + These, with the addition of Martyr, are again enumerated in the Pro Se Defensio, as having previously maintained his pinions on the question of Divorce. Martin Bucer, an Alsa1 and a Dominican friar, was converted to Protestantism by writings of Erasmus and Luther, and by Cardinal Contarini ted as the most formidable foe of the Church of Rome. jus, a German (whose real name was Buchlein) by n the Pentateuch, printed in folio, 1546, and aftered among the Critici Sacri, contributed greatly to wledge of the Hebrew tongue. They both, on rchbishop Cranmer, came over to England in 1 were sent to Cambridge, where Bucer was ssor, and employed in a new translation of y died within a year of each other, Fagius 11551; and both their bodies were taken |