while the whole noise of timorous and flocking birds, with those also that love the twilight, flutter about, amaz'd at what she means, and in their envious gabble would prognosticat a year of sects and schisms*. • Purging and unscaling her long abused sight at the fountain itself of heav'nly radiance; while the whole noise of timorous and flocking birds, with those also that love the twilight, flutter about, amaz'd at what she means, and in their envious gabble would prognosticat a year of sects and schisms.] In the narrative of St. Paul's Conversion, it is recorded, that "there fell from "his eyes as it had been scales, and he received sight forth"with." Acts; ch. 9. v. 18.- It has been thought that the touches of MILTON's hand are visible in the Preface to E. Phi lipps's Theatrum Poetarum, 12mo. 1675; the following passage is perhaps some confirmation of this opinion: "the scales and "dross of his barbarity purging off by degrees." p. 11. Emendatory Criticism is always perilous. Had not unscaling been authorized, and perhaps suggested, by this scriptural use, would it not have looked like a specious conjecture, that it was a misprint for unsealing? a word current in a similar sense among the writers of that age. And with the greater semblance of probability, since muing, another term in Falconry, immediately precedes it. To this reading the quotations that follow would have given a considerable degree of plausibility. "Are your Eyes yet unseal'd?" Ben Jonson; Works; p. 240. fol. 1692. that is, unclos'd. And Shakespeare; Ant. and Cleop. A. 3. S. 11. "But when we in our viciousness grow hard, "(O misery on't!) the wise Gods seal our eyes." "A noise of Musicians anciently signified a concert or company "of them."-(See the Variorum Shakspeare; IX. 74. ed. 1793.) Our Authour employs the phrase whole noise with much the same import as Horace's 'Scriptorum chorus omnis amat nemus.” What should ye doe then? should ye suppresse all this flowry crop of Knowledge and new ligat sprung up and yet springing daily in this City? should ye set an Oligarchy of twenty ingrossers over it, to bring a famin upon our minds again, when we shall know nothing but what is measur'd to us by their bushel"? Beleeve it, Lords and Com I must not forget, that in this flight of Eloquence, MILTON kept in view a Simile in Pindar's second Olympiad : σοφος ο πολ λα ειδως φυα ΠΑΓΓΛΩΣΣΙΑ ΚΟΡΑΚΕΣ ΩΣ ΔΙΟΣ ΠΡΟΣ ΟΡΝΙΧΑ ΘΕΙΟΝ· μεταφρασις· Sapiens est qui multa novit naturæ solertia. Qui autem disciplina usi sunt vehementes garrulitate, velut corvi, irrita clamant adversus avem Divinam. The Scholiast interprets the Grecian Bard to have characterized his Detractor Bachylides under this similitude. 5 When we shall know nothing but what is measur'd to us by their bushel.] There is a strenuous passage to the same purport in his address to Cromwell. "Tum si liberè philosophari volenti"bus permiseris, quæ habent, sine magistelli cujuspiam privato "examine, suo periculo in lucem proferre: ita enim maximè "veritas effloruerit; nec semidoctorum semper sive censura, "sive invidia, sive tenuitas animi, sive superstitio aliorum in"venta, omnémque scientiam suo modulo metietur, suóque arbitrio "nobis impertiverit. Postremò si ipse neque ́verum neque fal"sum, quicquid id est, audire metueris: eos autem minimè om"nium audieris, qui sese liberos esse non credunt, nisi aliis esse "liberis, per ipsos non liceat; nec studiosius aut violentius quicquam agunt, quàm ut fratrum non corporibus modò sed con"scientiis quoque vincula injiciant; pessimámque omnium ty"rannidem, vel pravarum consuetudinum vel opinionum suarum " & in rempublicam & in ecclesiam inducant, tu ab eorum mons! they who counsell ye to such a suppressing, doe as good as bid ye suppresse your selves; and I will soon shew how. If it be desir'd to know the immediat cause of all this free writing and free speaking, there cannot be assign'd a truer then your own mild, and free, and human government; it is the Liberty, Lords and Commons! which your own valorous and happy counsels have purchast us; Liberty which is the nurse of all great wits; this is that which hath rarify'd and enlightn'd our spirits like the influence of Heav'n; this is that which hath enfranchis'd, enlarg'd and lifted up our apprehensions degrees above themselves. Ye cannot make us now lesse capable, lesse knowing, lesse eagarly parte semper steteris, qui non suam tantummodo sectam aut "factionem, sed omnes æquè cives, æquali jure liberos esse in "civitate arbitrantur oportere. Hæc sicut satis Libertas non "est, quæ quidem à magistratibus exhiberi potest, is mihi am"bitionis atque turbarum, quam Libertatis ingenuæ studiosior "videtur; præsertim cum agitatus tot factionibus populus, ut "post tempestatem, cùm fluctus nondum resederunt, statum il"lum rerum optabilem atque perfectum, ipse non admittat." Pr. W. II. 347. ed. 1738. " The whole strain of this address is excellent, as well for its matter as its style, and of itself decisive that he never bent a courtier's knee to the Protector, as Johnson more than insinuated. 6 Liberty which is the nurse of all great wits; &c.] Literally from Longinus: “ ΘΡΕΨΑΙ τε γαρ, φησιν, ικανη τα φρονήματα 6. των ΜΕΓΑΛΟΦΡΟΝΩΝ η ΕΛΕΥΘΕΡΙΑ, και επελπίσαι και ακα διωθείν το πρόθυμον της προς αλληλους εριδος και της περι τα πρωτεία φιλοτιμίας.”Περί ΥΨΟΥΣ ; p. 144. 410. 1722. Pearce. pursuing of the Truth, unlesse ye first make your selves, that made us so, lesse the lovers, lesse the founders of our true Liberty. We can grow ignorant again, brutish, formall, and slavish, as ye found us; but you then must first become that which ye cannot be, oppressive, arbitrary, and tyrannous, as they were from whom ye have free'd us. That our hearts are now more capacious, our thoughts more erected to the search and expectation of greatest and exactest things, is the issue of your owne Vertu propagated in us; ye cannot suppresse that, unlesse ye reinforce an abrogated and mercilesse law, that Fathers may dispatch at will their own Children. And who shall then stick closest to ye, and excite others? not he who takes 7 Our thoughts more erected to the search and expectation of greatest and exactest things.] Erected is elevated, animated, elated. "Tali oratione graviora metuentes composuit, erexitque." -Tacit. Hist. IV. 74. So in the Memoirs of Sir John Berkley, "what with the encou"raging messages which his Majesty had from the Presbyterian Party and the City of London, his Majesty seemed very much " erected.”—Maseres's select Tracts relating to the Civil Wars, &c. p. 368. 1815. Did it require support, these examples of erected might be brought in aid of Mr. Horne Tooke's happy derivation of alert from erigere. The gradations of which corruption are most ingeniously and undeniably traced out in the Diversions of Purley. II. 24. To arrive at this Etymology was a process in which there are few Philologers who would not bave despaired of success. Exact is also after the Latin, and signifies perfect. We have had before in this Speech-" that your Order may be exact and "not deficient." It is in this sense that Philipps in the Theatrum Poetarum called his Uncle, "the exactest of Heroic Poets." up armes for Cote and Conduct, and his four nobles of Danegelt. Although I dispraise not the defence Not he who takes up armes for Cote and Conduct, and his four nobles of Danegelt.] The raising of pecuniary aids by County assessments under the pretext of clothing new levies of Men, and for conducting and subsisting them on the march till they bad joined the Corps to which they were attached, was one of the dormant exactions which Charles revived a short time after his accession; as he did Ship-money and commutations for Knighthood; and as he issued Privy Seals for extortions under the name of Benevolences. We learn from Clarendon, that Petitions were presented to the Long Parliament, soon after it met "against Lords Lieutenants of Counties, and their Deputy"Lieutenants, for having levied money upon the country, for "conducting and clothing of soldiers."-Hist. of the Rebellion; I. 279. Svo. And that Conduct imports what I have just suggested, the succeeding extract from the Northumberland Household Book clearly establishes: "Here begyn the ordure how the per"sones shall be ordured and rayted for their condeth money, "which shall goe forwardes with my Lord to the warre at any "tyme that the Kynge co'mandeth his Lordship from the places "they come froo to the place where my Lord shall abide.” See the Antiquarian Repertory; IV. 351. 1809. We learn from Puttenham, that Conduct came early into our language: "Ye have also this worde Conduict, a French word, "but well allowed of vs, and long since vsuall, it soundes "somewhat more than this word (leading) for it is applied onely "to the leading of a Captaine, and not as a little boy shoulde "leade a blinde man, therefore more proper to the case when "he saide, conduict of whole armies."-The Arte of English Poesie; p. 122. edit. 1811. The military adventurers, like Sir John Hawkewood (Morant's "Hist. and Antiq. of Essex;" II. 288), who in the 15th and 16th centuries hired out their bands of followers to the different States of Italy, must, I imagine, have derived their name of Condottieri, from the same root. Nat. Bacon affords all the further information that is requisite |