ged his ears into those of an ass.

4. committing short and long: setting long syllables and short ones to
fight against each other, and so destroying harmony.

5. The subject is conceived as a single idea, and so takes the verb in
the singular. exempts thee: singles thee out, selects thee.

8. couldst humor best our tongue: couldst best adapt or accommodate
itself to our language.

10. Phoebus' quire: the poets. _Quire_ is Milton's spelling of _choir_.

12-14. Read the story of Dante's meeting with his friend, the musician
Casella, in the second canto of Purgatory.

XV (1648).

The taking of Colchester by the parliamentary army under Fairfax, Aug.
28, 1648, was one of the most important events of the Civil War.

7. the false North displays Her broken league. The Scotch and the English
accused each other of having violated the Solemn League and Covenant, to
which the people of both countries had subscribed.

8. to imp their serpent wings. To _imp_ a wing with feathers is to attach
feathers to it so as to strengthen or improve its flight. The word is
originally a term of falconry. See Richard II. II 1 292. See also
Murray's _New English Dictionary_.

13-14. Valor, Avarice, Rapine; personified abstracts, after the manner of
our earlier poetry.

XVI.

As Secretary for Foreign Tongues to the Council of State of the
Commonwealth, Milton saw much of Cromwell, and came under the influence
of his voice and manner. Whether the great general had ever taken note of
the poems written by the secretary who turned his despatches into Latin,
or whether he gave any special heed to the man himself, with whom he must
have come into some sort of personal relation, we have no means of
knowing. We know, however, perfectly well what the poet thought of the
victorious general. Though by no means always approving his state policy,
Milton retained to the end the warm personal admiration for Cromwell
which he expresses in this sonnet.

7-9. Darwen stream, usually spoken of as the battle of Preston, was
fought Aug. 17, 1648; Dunbar, Sept. 3, 1650; Worcester, Sept. 3, 1651.

12. to bind our souls with secular chains: to fetter our religious
freedom with laws made by the civil power.

14. hireling wolves. Milton applies this degrading appellation to
clergymen who received pay from the state. His appeal to Cromwell was not
successful. Cromwell was to become the