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false anagram on her name, Elizabeth, JESABEL; false both in matter and manner. For, allow it the abatement of H, (as anagrams must sue in chancery for moderate favour,) yet was it both unequal and ominous that T, a solid letter, should be omitted, the presage of the gallows whereon this anagrammatist was afterwards justly executed.

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Yea, let the testimony of Pope Sixtus V. himself be believed, who professed that, amongst all the princes in Christendom, he found but two who were worthy to bear command, had they not been stained with heresy; namely, Henry IV, king of France, and Elizabeth, queen of England. And we may presume that the Pope, if commending his enemy, is therein infallible. We come to her death, the discourse whereof was more welcome to her from the mouth of her private confessor than from a public preacher; and she loved rather to tell herself, than to be told, of her mortality; because the open mention thereof made (as she conceived) her subjects divide their loyalty betwixt the present and the future prince. We need look into no other cause of her sickness than old age, being seventy years old, (David's age,) to which no king of England since the Conquest did attain. Her weakness was increased by her removal from London to Richmond in a cold winter day, sharp enough to pierce through those who were armed with health and youth. Also melancholy (the worst natural parasite, whosoever feeds him shall never be rid of his company!) much afflicted her, being given over to sadness and silence.

Then prepared she herself for another world, being more constant in prayer and pious exercises than ever before. Yet spake she very little to any, sighing out more than she said, and making still music to God in her heart.

And as the red rose, though outwardly not so fragrant, is inwardly far more cordial than the damask, being more thrifty of its sweetness, and reserving it in itself; so the religion of this dying queen was most turned inward, in soliloquies betwixt God and her own soul, though she wanted not outward expressions thereof. When her speech failed her, she spake with her heart, tears, eyes,

hands and other signs, so commending herself to God, the best Interpreter, who understands what his saints desire to say. Thus died queen Elizabeth; whilst living, the first maid on earth; and when dead, the second in heaven.

Surely, the kingdom had died with their queen, had not the fainting spirits thereof been refreshed by the coming-in of gracious king James. She was of person, tall: of hair and complexion, fair, well-favoured, but high-nosed; of limb and feature, neat; of a stately and majestic deportment. She had a piercing eye, wherewith she used to touch what metal [mettle] strangers were made of, who came into her presence. But as she counted it a pleasant conquest, with her majestic look to dash strangers out of countenance; so she was merciful in pursuing those whom she overcame; and afterwards would cherish and comfort them with her smiles, if perceiving towardliness and an ingenuous modesty in them. She much affected rich and costly apparel; and if ever jewels had just cause to be proud, it was with her wearing them.

VII.

JOHN MILTON.

(1608-1674.)

AREOPAGITICA;

A SPEECH OF MR. JOHN MILTON FOR THE LIBERTY OF UNLICENC'D PRINTING, TO THE PARLAMENT OF ENGLAND.

[Written in 1644.]

LORDS and Commons of England, consider what Nation it is whereof ye are and whereof ye are the governours: a Nation not slow and dull, but of a quick, ingenious, and piercing spirit, acute to invent, subtle and sinewy to discours, not beneath the reach of any point the highest that human capacity can soar to. Therefore the studies of learning in her deepest Sciences have bin so ancient, and so eminent among us, that Writers of good antiquity and ablest judgement have bin perswaded that ev'n the school of Pythagoras, and the Persian wisdom took beginning from the old Philosophy of this Iland. And that wise and civill Roman, Julius Agricola, who govern'd once here for Casar, preferr'd the naturall wits of Britain before the labour'd studies of the French. Nor is it for nothing that the grave and frugal Transilvania sends out yearly from as farre as the mountainous borders of Russia, and beyond the Hercynian wilderness, 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 propending1 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

1 inclining.

sounded forth the first tidings and trumpet of Reformation to all Europ. And had it not been the obstinat perversenes of our Prelats against the divine and admirable spirit of Wicklef, to suppresse him 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 been compleatly ours. But now, as our obdurat Clergy have with violence demean'd' the matter, we are become hitherto the latest and the backwardest Schollers, of whom3 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 Englishmen; I say as his manner is, first to us, 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, encompast and surrounded with his protection; 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, then there be pens and heads there, sitting 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 white already. Where there is much desire to learn, there of necessity will be

2 treated.

[of those] of whom.

4 breastplates.

much arguing, much writing, many opinions; for opinion in good men is but knowledge in the making. Under these fantastic terrors of sect and schism, we wrong the earnest and zealous thirst after knowledge and understanding which God hath stirr'd up in this City. What some lament of, we rather should rejoice at, should rather praise this pious forwardness among men, to reassume the ill-deputed care of their Religion into their own hands again. A little generous prudence, a little forbearance of one another, and som grain of charity might win all these diligences to joyn and unite in one generall and brotherly search after Truth; could we but forgoe this Prelaticall tradition of crowding free consciences and Christian liberties into canons and precepts of men. I doubt not, if some great and worthy stranger should come among us, wise to discern the mould and temper of a people, and how to govern it, observing the high hopes and aims, the diligent alacrity of our extended thoughts and reasonings in the pursuance of truth and freedom, but that he would cry out as Pirrhus did, admiring the Roman docility and courage, if such were my Epirots, I would not despair the greatest design that could be attempted to make a Church or Kingdom happy. Yet these are the men cry'd out against for schismaticks and sectaries; as if, while the Temple of the Lord was building, some cutting, some squaring the marble, others hewing the cedars, there should be a sort of irrationall men who could not consider there must be many schisms and many dissections made in the quarry and in the timber, ere the house of God can be built. And when every stone is laid artfully together, it cannot be united into a continuity, it can but be contiguous in this world; neither can every peece of the building be of one form; nay rather the perfection consists in this, that out of many moderat varieties and brotherly dissimilitudes that are not vastly disproportionall arises the goodly and the graceful symmetry that commends the whole pile and structure. Let us therefore be more considerat builders, more wise in spirituall architecture, when great reformation is expected. For now the time seems come, wherein Moses the great Prophet may

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