fident thoughts, to imbark in a troubled Sea of noises and hoarse Disputes; from beholding the bright countenance of Truth, in the quiet and still Air of delightful Studies, to come into the dim reflection of hollow Antiquities sold by the seeming bulk, and there be fain to club quotations with men whose learning and belief lies in marginal stuffings; who when they have, like good sumpters, laid ye down their horse-load of Citations and Fathers at your door, with a Rhapsody of who and who were Bishops here or there, ye may take off their Packsaddles, their days work is done, and Episcopacy, as they think, stoutly vindicated. Let any gentle Apprehension that can distinguish learned Pains from unlearned Drudgery, imagine what pleasure or profoundness can be in this, or what honour to deal against such Adversaries. But were it the meanest under-service if God by his secretary Conscience injoin it, it were sad for me if I should draw back, for me especially; now when all men offer their aid to help, ease and lighten the difficult labours of the Church, to whose service, by the intentions of my Parents and Friends, I was destin'd of a child, and in mine own resolutions, till coming to some maturity of years, and perceiving what Tyranny had invaded the Church, that he who would take Orders must subscribe slave, and take an Oath withal; which unless he took with a Conscience that would retch, he must either straight perjure, or split his Faith; I thought it better to prefer a blameless silence before the sacred Office of speaking, bought and begun with servitude and forswearing. Howsoever thus Church-outed by the Prelats, hence may appear the right I have to meddle in these matters, as before the necessity and constraint appear'd."

That is Milton's fullest statement concerning the great poem he was meditating-epic, dramatic or lyrical, he had not yet determined which, nor what should be its theme, but for an epic he seems to think, with Tasso and the Italian critics, that the proper subject is to be taken from national history. As his thoughts shifted towards Scriptural themes the dramatic form, as we shall see, became the more prominent. He recurs to the subject once more, and for the last time, in a digression from the main theme of the most thorny and repellent of all these pamphlets, the dialogue called "Animadversions upon the Remonstrant's Defence against Smectymnuus," and he speaks in the same exalted strain. The Remonstrant has sneered at "the present age," and Milton, to whom the year 1641 promised to be the first year of a new era, turns on him passionately.

"What an over-worn and bedrid Argument is this, the last refuge ever of old falsehood, and therefore a good sign I trust that your Castle cannot hold out long. This was the plea of Judaism, and Idolatry against Christ and his apostles, of Papacy against Reformation; and perhaps to the frailty of Flesh and Blood, in a man destitute of better enlight'ning, may for some while be pardonable: for what has fleshly apprehension other to subsist by than Succession, Custom, and Visibility; which only hold, if in his weakness and blindness he be loath to lose, who can blame? but in a Protestant nation that should have thrown off these tattered Rudiments long ago, after the many strivings of God's Spirit, and our fourscore Years' vexation of him in this our Wil. derness since Reformation began, to urge these rotten Principles and twit us with the present Age, which is

to us an age of ages wherein God is manifestly come down among us, to do some remarkable good to our Church or State, is as if a Man should tax the renovating and re-ingend'ring Spirit of God with innovation, and that new Creature for an upstart novelty; yea the new Jerusalem, which without your admired link of Succession descends from Heaven, could not scape some such like censure. If you require a further answer, it will not misbecome a Christian to be either more magnanimous, or more devout than Scipio was; who instead of other answer to the frivolous accusations of Petilius the Tribune, This day Romans' (saith he) 'I fought with Hannibal prosperously; let us all go and thank the Gods that gave us so great a victory': in like manner will we now say, not caring otherwise to answer this unProtestant-like Objection; in this Age, Britain's God hath reform'd his Church after many hundred years of Popish corruption; in this Age hee hath freed us from the intolerable yoke of Prelats, and Papall Discipline; in this Age he hath renewed our Protestation against all those yet remaining dregs of Superstition. Let us all go, every true protested Brittain throughout the three Kingdoms, and render thanks to God the Father of Light and fountain of heavenly Grace, and to his son CHRIST our Lord; leaving this Remonstrant and his adherents to their own designs, and let us recount even here without delay the patience and long suffering that God hath us'd towards our blindness and hardness time after time. For he, being equally near to his whole Creation of Mankind, and of free power to turn his benefick and fatherly regard to what Region or Kingdom he pleases, hath yet ever had this Island under the special indulgent

eye of his Providence: and pitying us the first of all other Nations, after he had decreed to purify and renew his Church that lay wallowing in Idolatrous Pollutions, sent first to us a healing Messenger to touch softly our sores, and carry a gentle hand over our Wounds: he knockt once and twice and came again, opening our drowsyEyelids leisurely by that glimmering light which Wicklif, and his followers dispers't; and still taking off by degrees the inveterat scales from our nigh perisht sight, purg'd also our deaf Ears, and prepar'd them to attend his second warning Trumpet in our Grandsires' dayes. How else could they have been able to have received the sudden assault of his reforming Spirit warring against human Principles, and carnal sense, the pride of Flesh that still cry'd up Antiquity, Custom, Canons, Councils, and Laws, and cry'd down the Truth for Novelty, Schism, Profaneness and Sacrilege: when as we that have liv'd so long in abundant light, besides the sunny reflection of all the neighbouring Churches, have yet our Hearts rivetted with those old Opinions, and so obstructed and benumb'd with the same fleshly reasonings, which in our Forefathers soon melted and gave way, against the morning beam of the Reformation. If God had left undone this whole work so contrary to Flesh and Blood, till these times; how should wee have yeelded to his heavenly Call, had wee been taken, as they were, in the starkness of our Ignorance; that yet after all these spiritual Preparatives and Purgations, have our earthly Apprehensions so clamm'd, and furr'd with the old Levin. O if we freeze at noon after their early thaw, let us fear lest the Sun for ever hide himself, and turn his orient steps from our ingratefull Horizon, justly con

demn'd to be eternally benighted. Which dreadful Judgement, O thou the ever-begotten Light, and perfect Image of the Father, intercede, may never come upon us, as we trust thou hast; for thou hast open'd our difficult and sad times, and given us an unexpected breathing after our long oppressions; thou hast done justice upon those that tyranniz'd over us, while some men waver'd and admir'd a vain shadow of wisdom in a tongue nothing slow to utter guile, though thou hast taught us to admire only that which is good, and to count that only praise-worthy which is grounded upon thy divine Precepts. Thou hast discover'd the plots, and frustrated the hopes of all the wicked in the Land; and put to shame the persecutors of thy Church; thou hast made our false Prophets to be found a lie in the sight of all the People, and chas'd them with sudden Confusion and Amazement before the redoubled brightness of thy descending cloud that now covers thy Tabernacle. Who is there that cannot trace thee now in thy beamy Walk through the midst of thy Sanctuary, amidst those golden candlesticks, which have long suffered a dimness amongst us through the violence of those that had seiz'd them, and were more taken with the mention of their Gold then of their starry Light; teaching the doctrine of Balaam, to cast a stumbling-block before thy servants, commanding them to eat things sacrific'd to Idols, and forcing them to fornication. Come therefore, O thou that hast the seven Stars in thy right hand, appoint thy chosen Priests according to their Orders and Courses of old, to minister before thee, and duely to press and pour out the consecrated Oil into thy holy and everburning Lamps. Thou hast sent out the spirit of prayer