Fairfax, whose Name in Arms through Europe rings, And fills all Mouths with Envy or with Praise, And all her Jealous Monarchs with Amaze. And Rumours loud which daunt remotest Kings,
Thy firm unshaken Valour ever brings Victory home, while new Rebellions raise Their Hydra-heads, and the false North displays Her broken League to Imp her Serpent Wings:
O yet! a Nobler task awaits thy Hand, For what can War, but Acts of War still breed Till injur'd Truth from Violence be freed;
And publick Faith be rescu'd from the Brand Of publick Fraud; in vain doth Valour bleed, While Avarice and Rapine shares the Land.'This and the two following sonnets [one to Cromwell, the other to Sir Henry Vane] are not found in the edition of Milton's poems in 1673, and the reason of omitting them in the reign of Charles II. is too obvious to need explaining.
They were first printed at the end of Philip's Life of Milton, prefixed to the English translation of his state-letters, in 1694, which was twenty years after his death; they were afterwards cited by Toland in his life of Milton 1698; and as far as I can perceive, they were not inserted among his other poems till the fifth edition in 1713.
But the printed copies, probably being taken at first from memory, are wonderfully incorrect; whole verses are omitted, and the beauty of these sonnets is in great measure defac'd and destroy'd.
It is therefore a singular piece of good fortune, that they are still extant in Milton's Manuscript, the first in his own hand-writing, and the others by another hand, as he had then lost his sight: and having such an authentic copy, we shall make it our standard, and thereby restore these sonnets to their original beauty.
This to the Lord General Fairfax appears from the Manuscript to have been address'd to him at the siege of Colchester, which was carried on in the summer of 1648.(line 6: --- though new rebellions raise &c):
At this time there were several insurrections of the royalists, and the Scotch army was marching into England under the command of Duke Hamilton.'~ Th.
Newton,
Milton's Works, 2nd edition, 1753.
