courtship and flattery, First, when that only is praised which is solidly worth praise: next, when greatest likelihoods are brought that such things are truly and really in those persons to whom they are ascrib'd; the other, when he who praises, by shewing that such his actuall perswasion is of whom he writes, can demonstrate that he flatters not; the former two of these I have heretofore endeavour'd, rescuing the employment from him who went about to impaire your merits with a triviall and malignant Encomium; the latter as belonging chiefly to mine owne acquittall, that whom I so extoll'd I did not flatter, hath been reserv'd opportunely to this occasion. For he who freely magnifies what hath been nobly done, and fears not to declare as freely what might be done better, gives ye the best Cov'nant of his fidelity; and that his loyalest affection and his hope waits on your pro

3 Rescuing the employment from him, &c.] i. e. from Hall, Bishop of Norwich. In the controversy with the Non-conforming Divines, who under the anagrammatic signature of Smectymnuus wrote conjointly against our hierarchical establishment, the Bishop had spoken of the proceedings of the Parliament with cold and faint approbation, such as left scarcely room. for a doubt of his secret and sinister bent. This faultering and penurious praise accorded so little with MILTON's earnest persuasion of their merits as to call forth, on his part, a glowing panegyric. See Pr. W. I. 121. ed. 1738.

To this recorded testimony of his fidelity to the Parliamentary cause, he is appealing with a just confidence, as vindicating him from all suspicion that he was a Malignant, because now controverting the propriety of one of their "Orders."

ceedings. His highest praising is not flattery, and his plainest advice is a kinde of praising: for though I should affirme and hold by argument, that it would fare better with Truth, with Learning, and the Commonwealth, if one of your publisht Orders which I should name, were call'd in; yet at the same time it could not but much redound to the lustre of your milde and equall Government, when as private persons are hereby animated to thinke ye better pleas'd with publick advice, then other Statists have been delighted heretofore with publicke flattery. And men will then see what difference there is between the magnanimity of a trienniall Parlament, and that jealous hautinesse of Prelates and cabin Counsellours" that usurpt of late, when as

See ILLUSTRATION A.

Cabin counsellours-] That is, chamber-councellors, or councellors who are assembled by the King in a private chamber as it were in the cabin of a ship, to give him advice in matters of state. MASERES.

This was said unadvisedly. The context-" Prelates and " cabin Counsellours that usurpt of late"-determines that MILTON pointed sarcastically at Laud and at Strafford and the other Individuals associated with them, who composed the Committee of Council, to whose care Charles, previously to the meeting of the Long Parliament, committed the principal management of public affairs, or to speak in the language of to-day, they were the King's Cabinet Ministers; of whom Clarendon says, "these persons made up the Committee of State, which " was reproachfully after called the Junto, and enviously then " in the Court, the Cabinet Council.-Hist. of the Rebellion, I. 233, 8vo.

MILTON appears to have shunned French terms; therefore it

they shall observe yee in the midd'st of your victories and successes more gently brooking writt'n exceptions against a voted Order, then other Courts, which had produc't nothing worth memory but the weake ostentation of wealth", would have endur'd the least signifi'd dislike at any sudden Proclamation. If I should thus farre presume upon the meek demeanour of your civill and gentle greatnesse, Lords and Commons'! as what your publisht Order hath

was that he wrote cabin for cabinet here, as in Eixovoxλdorys': "They would not stay perhaps the Spanish demurring, and putting off such wholesome acts and counsels, as the Po"litic Cabin at Whitehall had no mind to." p. 30, 8vo. 1690.

• Other Courts which had produc't nothing worth memory but the weake ostentation of wealth,] This I take to be an allusion to the imposing pomp which the Court of Star-Chamber displayed on particular days. In "A Discourse concerning the "High Court of Star-Chamber," printed in Rushworth, it is observed that, "It was a glorious sight upon a Star-day, when "the Knights of the Garter appear with the Stars on their Gar"ments, and the Judges in their Scarlet."-Hist. Collect. II. 473.

cum

9 The meek demeanour of your civill and gentle greatnesse, Lords and Commons!] Civil retains here its Latin idiom: “ "sic hominis natura generata sit, ut habeat quiddam innatum quasi civile atque populare, quod Græci ToλTixò vocant."

66

Cicero; de Fin. Bon. & Mal: lib. 5, sect. 23.

Aud gentle then meant well-born, or of no vulgar rank :

"Be he ne'er so vile

"This day shall gentle his condition."

Shakspeare; Hen. V. A. 4. S. 3.

Again; "There is every dayes experience of Gentlemen

directly said, that to gainsay, I might defend my selfe with ease, if any should accuse me of being new or insolent, did they but know how much better I find ye esteem it to imitate the old and elegant humanity of Greece, then the barbarick pride' of a Hunnish and Norwegian statelines. And

"born, that are sordid and mean in nature, and of Plebeians by birth that are genteel'd in disposition."-A Commentary on Fortescue De Laudibus Legum Anglia; by E. Waterhous, Esq. p. 529. fol. 1663.

1 The old and elegant humanity of Greece, then the barbarick pride, &c.] By humanity we are to understand courtesy, politeness, a Latin sense; the same as in the acknowlegments he addressed in Cromwell's name to the Count of Oldenburgh for a set of German Horses which that Prince had presented to the Protector:-" cùm quòd essent ipsæ singulari erga me humanitate ac benevolentiâ refertæ."-Pr. W. II. 434. ed. 1738.

Humane was to convey a similar sense in Par. Lost, II. 109.

"Belial, in act more graceful and humane.”

But the Commentators, from P. Hume downward, have passed it over, as if they considered it to stand there in the acceptation now received among us.

The Athenians, with a vanity common to every People preeminent in the arts of cultivated life, regarded all nations but the Greeks as strangers to civilization. With them he who was not a Greek was comprehended under the general appellation of Barbarian.

In this large sense it was that Cato, the Censor, while vehement in his opposition to the introduction of Grecian Literature at Rome, warned his Son, "quandocumque ista gens suas litteras "dabit, omnia corrumpet. Tum etiam magis, si medicos suos "huc mittet. Jurarunt inter se, barbaros necare omnes medicina. "Et hoc ipsum mercede faciunt, ut fides iis sit, et facile disper

out of those ages, to whose polite wisdom and letters we ow that we are not yet Gothes and Jutlanders, I could name him who from his private house wrote that Discourse to the Parlament of Athens, that perswades them to change the forme of Democraty which was then establisht. Such

dant. Nos quoque dictitant barbaros, et spurcius nos, quam "alios opicos, adpellatione foedant."-Plin. Hist. Nat. lib. 39; cap. 7.

MILTON, then, sets "the elegant humanity of Greece" in opposition to" barbarick pride" with exact propriety. Of this propriety, Warburton, who thought highly of the AREOPAGITICA, and imitated it, seems to have been unaware; for when copying this passage, he gave these phrases a different construction. This was in his "Enquiry into the Causes of Prodigies and "Miracles, as related by Historians;" where he remarks, “We justly pride ourselves in imitating the free Manners and elegant Humanity of Greece and Rome; rather than the barbarous In"quisitorial Spirit of a Spanish or Italic Hierarchy."-Tracts by Warburton and a Warburtonian; p. 96, 8vo. 1789.

• I could name him who from his privat house wrote that Discourse to the Parlament of Athens, that perswades them to change the forme of Democraty which was then establisht.]

He took this immediately from Dionysius Halicarnasseus; who had said of Isocrates, Η τίς ἐκ ἂν θαυμάσειε τὴν ἐπιβολὴν τῶ ῥήτορος; ὃς ἐτόλμησε διαλεχθῆναι περὶ πολιτείας ̓Αθηναίοις, ἀξιῶν μεταθέσθαι μὲν τὴν τότε καθεσῶσαν δημοκρατίαν, ὡς μεγάλα βλάπτεσαν τὴν πόλιν, ὑπὲρ τῆς τῶν δημαγωγῶν ἐδεὶς ἐπεχείρει EYE-De Antiquis Oratoribus Commentarii; p. 83. 1781. Mores's edit. At the same time he might have also remembered Cicero. "Exstitit igitur jam senibus illis, quos paulo ante "diximus, Isocrates, cujus domus cunctæ Græciæ quasi ludus "quidam patuit, atque officina dicendi, magnus orator, & per"fectus magister, quamquam forensi luce caruit, intraque pa