WE live

Law to ourselves; our reason is our law.

Free, and none accountable, preferring

Hard liberty before the easy yoke

Of servile pomp.

Mammon, PARADISE LOST, BOOK II.

O not boast.

D°

Thou canst not touch the freedom of my mind With all thy charms, although this corporal rind Thou hast immanacled while Heaven sees good.

BUT patience is more oft the exercise

Of saints, the trial of their fortitude,

Making them each his own deliverer,
And victor over all

That tyranny or fortune can inflict.

COMUS

SAMSON AGONISTES

IT

T usually happens, by the appointment, and as it were retributive justice, of the Deity, that that people which cannot govern themselves, and moderate their passions, but crouch under the slavery of their lusts, should be delivered up to the sway of those whom they abhor, and made to submit to an involuntary servitude.

You, therefore, who wish to remain free, either instantly be wise, or, as soon as possible, cease to be fools; if you think slavery an intolerable evil, learn obedience to reason and the government of yourselves; and finally bid adieu to your dissensions, your jealousies, your superstitions, your outrages, your rapine, and your lusts..

If after such a display of courage and of vigour, you basely relinquish the path of virtue, if you do anything unworthy of yourselves, posterity will sit in judgment on your conduct. They will see that the foundations were well laid that the beginning (nay, it was more than a beginning) was glorious; but with deep emotions of concern will they regret, that those were wanting who might have completed the structure. They will lament that perseverance was not conjoined with such exertions and such virtues. They will see that there was a rich harvest of glory, and an opportunity afforded for the greatest achievements, but that men only were wanting for the execution; while they were not wanting who could rightly counsel, exhort, inspire, and bind an unfading wreath of praise round the brows of the illustrious actors in so glorious a

scene.

THE SECOND DEFENCE OF THE PEOPLE OF ENGLAND

SATAN,

With head uplift above the wave,
and eyes
That sparkling blazed; his other parts besides,
Prone on the flood, extended long and large,
Lay floating many a rood, in bulk as huge
As whom the fables name of monstrous size,
Titanian, or Earth-born, that warr'd on Jove,
Briareos or Typhon, whom the den

By ancient Tarsus held, or that sea-beast
Leviathan, which God of all his works
Created hugest that swim the ocean stream:
Him, haply, slumbering on the Norway foam,
The pilot of some small night-founder'd skiff
Deeming some island, oft, as seamen tell,
With fixed anchor in his scaly rind,

Moors by his side under the lee, while night
Invests the sea, and wishèd morn delays:

So stretch'd out huge in length the Arch-Fiend lay,

Chain'd on the burning lake.

PARADISE LOST, Book I.

HAIL, horrors! hail,

Infernal world! and thou, profoundest Hell, Receive thy new possessor, one who brings A mind not to be changed by place or time. The mind is its own place, and in itself Can make a Heaven of Hell, a Hell of Heaven. What matter where, if I be still the same, And what I should be, all but less than he Whom thunder hath made greater? Here at least We shall be free; the Almighty hath not built Here for his envy, will not drive us hence: Here we may reign secure, and in my choice To reign is worth ambition, though in Hell: Better to reign in Hell, than serve in Heaven.

AS

Satan, PARADISE LOST, Book I.

S the sound of waters deep,

Hoarse murmur echoed to his words applause

Through the infinite host.

PARADISE LOst, Book V.

N°

OW Night her course began, and, over Heaven Inducing darkness, grateful truce imposed, And silence on the odious din of war;

Under her cloudy covert both retired,

Victor and vanquish'd. On the foughten field
Michael and his Angels prevalent

Encamping placed in guard their watches round,
Cherubic waving fires: on the other part,
Satan with his rebellious disappear'd,

Far in the dark dislodged, and, void of rest,
His potentates to council call'd by night.

PARADISE LOST, Book VI.