and Prince
of Piedmont, against his Protestant subjects of the valleys of
the Cottian Alps.' In January, an edict required them to turn
Romanists or quit the country out of hand; it was enforced with
such barbarity that Cromwell took the case of the sufferers in
hand; and so vigorous was his action that the Edict was withdrawn
and a convention was signed (August 1655) by which the Vaudois
were permitted to worship as they would. Printed in 1673.

XV

The Nineteenth Sonnet (Masson) 'may have been written any time
between 1652 and 1655,' the first years of Milton's blindness,
'but it follows the Sonnet on the Piedmontese Massacre in Milton's
own volume of 1673.'

XVI, XVII

From the choric parts of _Samson Agonistes_ (i.e. the Agonist,
or Wrestler), first printed in 1671.

XVIII

Of uncertain date; first printed by Watson 1706-11. The version
given here is Emerson's (which is shorter than the original), with
the exception of the last stanza, which is Napier's (_Montrose_,
i. Appendices). Napier is at great pains to prove that the
ballad is allegorical, and that Montrose's 'dear and only love'
was that unhappy King whose Epitaph, the famous _Great, Good,
and Just_, he is said--falsely--to have written with his sword. Be
this as it may, the verses have a second part, which has dropped
into oblivion. For the Great Marquis, who reminded De Retz of
the men in Plutarch's _Lives_, was not averse from the practice
of poetry, and wrote, besides these numbers, a prayer ('Let
them bestow on every airth a limb'), a 'pasquil,' a pleasant
string of conceits in praise of woman, a set of vehement and
fiery memorial stanzas on the King, and one copy of verses more.

XIX, XX

_To Lucasta going to the Wars_ and _To Althea from Prison_
are both, I believe, from Lovelace's _Lucasta_ (1645).

XXI

First printed by Captain Thomson, _Works_ (1776), from a copy
he held, on what seems excellent authority, to be in Marvell's
hand. The true title is _A Horatian Ode on Cromwell's Return
from Ireland_ (1650). It is always ascribed to Marvell (whose
verse was first collected and printed by his widow in 1681),
but there are faint doubts as to the authorship.

XXII

_Poems_ (1681). This elegant and romantic lyric appears to have
been inspired by a passage in the life of John Oxenbridge, of
whom, 'religionis causa oberrantem,' it is enough to note that,
after migrating to Bermudas, where he had a church, and being
'ej