that the grave and frugal Transilvanian sends out yearly from as farre as the mountanous borders of Russia, and beyond the Hercynian wildernes, not their youth, but their stay'd men, to learn our language, and our theologic arts. Yet that which is above all this, the favour and the love of Heav'n, we have great argument to think in a peculiar manner propitious and propending towards us. Why else was this Nation chos'n before any other, that out of her as out of Sion should be proclaim'd and sounded forth the first tidings and trumpet of Reformation to all Europ? And had it not bin the obstinat perversnes of our Prelats against the divine and admirable spirit of Wicklef, to suppresse him

the labour'd studies of the French.-The grave and frugal Transilvanian sends out yearly, &c.] «Sequens hiems saluberrimis "consiliis absumpta namque, ut homines dispersi ac rudes, eoque "bello faciles, quieti et otio per voluptates assuescerent: hor“tari privatim, adiuvare publice, ut templa, fora, domus ex"truerent, laudando promptos, et castigando segnes. ita ho"noris aemulatio pro necessitate erat. Jam vero principum "filios liberalibus artibus erudire, et ingenia Britannorum studiis "Gallorum anteferre, ut qui modo linguam Romanam abnue"bant, eloquentiam concupiscerent. inde etiam habitus nostri "honor, et frequens toga. paullatimque discessum ad delini❝menta vitiorum, porticus, et balnea, et conviviorum elegan"tiam. idque apud imperitos humanitas vocabatur, cum pars "servitutis esset." Tacitus; II. 491. edit. Ernesti. 1752.

This description of the successful results arising from Agricola's conciliatory administration of Britain fully warrants the application to him of the epithets "wise and civil," that is, politic.

I have not a sufficient acquaintance with our ecclesiastical History to give an explanation of the annual mission from Transylvania to this Country, mentioned above.

ours.

as a schismatic and innovator, perhaps, neither the Bohemian Husse and Jerom, no, nor the name of Luther, or of Calvin had bin ever known: the glory of reforming all our neighbours had bin compleatly But now, as our obdurat Clergy have with violence demean'd the matter, we are become hitherto the latest and the backwardest Schollers, of whom GOD offer'd to have made us the teachers. Now once again by all concurrence of signs, and by the generall instinct of holy and devout men, as they daily and solemnly expresse their thoughts, GOD is decreeing to begin some new and great period in his Church, ev'n to the reforming of Reformation it self: what does he then but reveal Himself to his servants, and, as his manner is, first to his English-men? I say as his manner is, first to us,

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"With violence demean'd the matter.] i. e. managed it. So in the Paston Letters; "Ye charge of ye Reule demesnyng and governance and also of nourture of ye Kings persone.” III. 4. "What does he then but reveal Himself to his servants, and, as his manner is, first to his English-men?] That the English People stood eminently high in the divine favour was deeply impressed on MILTON's belief. This was a tenet congenial alike to his Piety and to his Patriotism. Almost at the commence

ment of his earliest prose-work he advances, that "England had "this Grace and Honour from GOD to be the first that should "set up a Standard for the recovery of lost Truth, and blow the "first Evangelick Trumpet to the Nations," &c. Of Reformation touching Church-Discipline in England: p. 6. 4to. 1641. He falls again into the same track of Thought in the dedicatory Address of his Doct. and Disc. of Divorce to the Parliament and the Assembly of Divines; where he pursues it through a deduc tion of historical examples :-" It would not be the first, or se

though we mark not the method of his counsels, and are unworthy. Behold now this vast City; a City of refuge, the mansion house of Liberty, en

"cond time, since our ancient Druides, by whom this Island "was the Cathedrall of Philosophy to France, left off their PaIgan Rites, that England hath had this Honour vouchsaft from "Heav'n to give out Reformation to the world. Who was it "but our English Constantine that baptiz'd the Roman Em

pire? Who but the Northumbrian Willibrode, and Wini"fride of Devon with their followers, were the first Apostles of Germany? Who but Alcuin and Wicklef our Countrymen open'd the eyes of Europe, the one in Arts, the other in Religion? Let not England, forget her precedence of teaching "Nations how to live."-2nd Ed. 1644.'

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One of his Contemporaries treats such a supposition as chimerical, in a remarkable passage, the phraseology of which leaves cause to conjecture that he hinted at MILTON. "If I "(said Algernon Sydney) should be so much an Englishman, as " to think the will of GOD to have been more particularly revealed "to our Ancestors, than to any other Nation, and that all of them ought to learn from us, yet it would be difficult to decide many questions that may arise."-Disc. concerning Government, ch.

3. sect. 18.

We should regret to think that either of these inlightened, stedfast and hardy Assertors of their Country's Liberty had at any time regarded the other with an unfriendly eye.-MILTON acknowleges with distinguishing praise the services which Sydney, among other " Patrons of the People," had rendered to the common Cause:-" Huitlochium, Picheringum, Striclan"dium, Sidnamum, atque Sidneium (quod ego illustre nomen "nostris semper adhæsisse partibus lætor) Montacutium, Lau"rentium, summo ingenio ambos, optimisque artibus expolitos; Valiosque permultos eximiis meritis cives, partim senatorio jampridem munere, partim militari operâ insignes."-Pr. W. II. 346. ed. 1738.

A City of refuge, the mansion-house of Liberty.] Cicero was in his recollection :-" quæ una in omnibus terris domus

compast and surrounded with his protection; the shop of warre hath not there more anvils and hammers waking, to fashion out the plates and instru ments of armed Justice in defence of beleaguer'd Truth, then there be pens and heads there, sitting

"est virtutis, imperii, dignitatis."-De Orat. l. 1. s. 45. He styles Germany, Libertatis ferè domicilium, in his Defensio secunda.

9 The shop of warre hath not there more anvils and hammers waking, to fashion out the plates and instruments of armed Justice in defence of beleaguer'd Truth.] Thus Chaucer; Cant. Tales;

v. 2121.

"Som wol ben armed in an habergeon,

"And in a brest-plate, and in a gipon;

"And some wol haue a pair of plates large."

On which Tyrwhitt observed, by a pair of plates "armour for "the breast and back" was intended. There is not, however, sufficient precision in this explanation to insure a clear conception of the Poet's meaning. It might be equally applied to the chain-armour or coat of mail worn in battle by our Forefathers. Modern Writers confound them. A passage in Samson Agonistes marks the difference :

"the hammer'd cuirass, Chalybean temper'd steel, and frock of mail."

v. 133.

The Military had not yet thrown off Armour altogether. Cromwell's own Regiment of Horse were Cuirassiers: of whom Whitelock says" being well arm'd within, by the satisfaction "of their own Consciences, and without, by good iron arms, they would as one Man, stand firmly, and charge desperately." Memorials; p. 72. ed. 1732.

These Cuirassiers bore a principal part in winning the victory at Marston Moor; yet they with the other parliamentary forces, Men who possessed too much self-respect to allow themselves to be called common Soldiers, as if they were mere mercenaries, and in consequence were styled Privates, as Ludlow informs us, afterward fell so far from principle that they overturned the authority of the Parliament, engrossed the powers of Govern

by their studious lamps, musing, searching, revolving new notions and idea's' wherewith to present, as with their homage and their fealty, the approaching Reformation: others as fast reading, trying all things, assenting to the force of Reason and convincement. What could a man require more from a Nation so pliant and so prone to seek after Knowledge. What wants there to such a towardly and pregnant soile, but wise and faithfull labourers, to make a knowing People, a Nation of Prophets, of Sages, and of Worthies. We reck'n more then five months yet to harvest; there need not be five weeks, had we but eyes to lift up, the fields are

ment and became the oppressors of their Country. A memorable lesson !

1

"Impius hæc tam culta novalia miles habebit?

"Barbarus has segetes?"

Revolving new notions and ideas.] These two words Bolingbroke observes are commonly used as if they were synonymous. He adds that Locke and even Bishop Berkeley has used them so; and then goes into some elaborate reasoning to show, how we may avoid this confusion of Language, if we conceived ideas to be particular in their nature, and general only in their application, and notions to be general in their nature, and particular only by their application; Philosophical Works; I. 116. 8vo. Mallet's edit.

MILTON, ever scrupulous in verbal accuracy, distinguishes them as having definite meanings. Idea which ought only to signify something of which we can form an image in the mind, has by colloquial use now nearly lost its correct sense. For a detailed history of this word consult the Bishop of Worcester's (Stillingfleet's) Answer to Locke's Letter; p. 31. 8vo. 1697. To which I add, that it is said Petrarch first introduced this word from Aristotle into a modern Language.