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shrunk. If I should misrepresent any of these circumstances, my falsehood must instantly be detected by thousands of my own countrymen, and by many foreigners, who are acquainted with my person, and to whose ridicule and contempt I should justly be exposed: it might then be fairly concluded that he who, in an affair of no moment, could unnecessarily be guilty of a gross and wanton violation of truth, could not be deserving of credit in any thing which he asserted. Thus much have I been compelled to speak of my own person;-of your's, though I have been informed that it is the most contemptible and the most strongly expressive of the dishonesty and malice which actuate it, I am as little disposed to say any thing as others would be to hear.

I wish that it were in my power, with the same facility, with which I have repelled his other attacks, to refute the charge, which my unfeeling adversary brings against me, of blindness: but, alas! it is not in my power, and I must consequently submit to it. It is not, however, miserable to be blind: he only is miserable who cannot acquiesce in his blindness with fortitude. And why should I repine at a calamity, which every man's mind ought to be so prepared and disci

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plined as to be able, on the contingency of its happening, to tolerate with patience: a calamity to which man by the condition of his nature is liable; and which I know to have been the lot of some of the greatest and the best of my species. Among those, on whom it has fallen, I might reckon a few of the wisest of the bards of remote antiquity, whose want of sight the Gods are said to have compensated with extraordinary and far more valuable endowments, and whose virtues were so venerated that men would rather arraign the Gods themselves of injustice than draw from the blindness of these admirable mortals an argument of their guilt. What is handed down to us respecting the augur Tiresias is very commonly known. Of Phineus Apollonius, in his Argonautics, thus sings

"Careless of Jove, in conscious virtue bold,
His daring lips the will of Heaven unfold.
The God hence gave him years without decay,
But robb'd his eyeballs of the pleasing day.”

But independently of its communications
respecting its author, by which it is princi-
pally recommended to us, the "Second De-
fence" exhibits many striking passages and
a variety of entertaining matter. It intro-
duces to our notice many of the writer's re-

publican friends, and, besides an animated address to Cromwell, which it is our intention to extract, it presents us with an eloquent eulogy on Christina the Queen of Sweden. This extraordinary character, whose extravagances had not yet been so completely unveiled as to disgust the world, was, at this moment, renowned throughout Europe for her liberality, her erudition, her love and patronage of the learned. On the favour of Milton the daughter of the great Adolphus had a particular claim in consequence of the praise which, though a sovereign, she had liberally given to his "Defence of the People of England;" and on all occasions he seems anxious to requite her with the most prodigal panegyric. Of this not only the passage, to which I have now referred, is an instance, but the verses also, which, at a period, as we may conjecture, somewhat earlier than the present, he had written under a portrait of the Protector, transmitted as an official compliment to the northern Potentate from the fortunate usurper of England. To transcribe the prose eulogy would detain us too long from more interesting matters; but the poetic compliment, at once concise and splendid, shall be inserted to gratify our readers.

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Utque senex armis impiger ora tero;
Invia fatorum dum per vestigia nitor,
Exequor et populi fortia jussa manu.

Ast tibi submittit frontem reverentior umbra :
Non sunt hi vultus regibus usque truces.°

Imperial Maid, great arbitress of war!

Queen of the pole!-yourself its brightest star!

• Some doubts have been raised about the author of these verses, and a few, among whom is Mr. Warton, bave assigned them to the pen of Andrew Marvell. For my own part I cannot find any reason to dispute Milton's title to them. To write them was evidently within the province of the Latin Secretary, and, as they must have been composed before 1654, in which year Christina abdicated her throne, and as Marvell was pot associated in the office of Latin Secretary till 1657, they must have been written when Milton sustained the duties of his place without an assistant. Is it likely, then, I will ask, that he should solicit aid for the composing of eight verses, addressed to a person who was manifestly a great object of his regard? The notion entertained by Mr. Warton, that Milton, who was perpetually conversant with the classics and with latin composition, should, by the disuse of a few years, so far lose his facility in the constructing of latin verse, as to be unable to write them, strikes me as ludicrously absurd. The inference from their being found in a posthumous publication of Marvell's works is surely of no consequence. A friend might certainly transcribe a friend's verses, and place them by his own on the same subject, without suspecting that he was thus bringing the author's first claim to them into suspicion. Induced probably by the same reasons which have influenced my opinion in this instance, Bishop Newton, Dr. Birch, and, the late ingenious editor of Paradise Regained, Mr. Dunster have concurred in considering these verses as the property of Milton.

Christina! view this helmet-furrow'd brow;
This age, that arms have worn, but cannot bow;
As through the pathless wilds of fate I press;
And bear the people's purpose to success.
Yet see! to you this front submits its pride:
Thrones are not always by its frown defied.

P

Before we proceed to exhibit the address to Cromwell, it will be proper to direct our attention to the state of the British public at this remarkable conjuncture.

That part of the Long Parliament, which had been permitted by Cromwell and the fanatic army to continue its sittings, and which, in derision, was called the Rump Parliament, had conducted the political vessel with great ability and effect. It had lately been augmented by many of its old members who, having seceded in consequence of their opposition to the trial of the king, were now, on their subscribing THE ENGAGEMENT,' re-admitted to their seats; and with their presence they imparted a more imposing speciousness of aspect to the Legislative Assembly. If some of its laws betrayed the severity and narrowness of the presbyterian priesthood, the greater number of them dis

P-The form of this test, of the submission of the subject to the existing government, was simple and concise; it was nothing more than a solemn promise" to be true and faithful to the government established without king or house of peers." The Engagement" was substituted, on the death of the king, for the famous "Solemn League and Covenant."

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