Hales quotes Waller's
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Go, lovely rose,Tell her that's youngAnd shuns to have her graces spied,That hadst thou sprungIn deserts where no men abideThou must have uncommended died." On _desert air_, cf. _Macbeth_, iv. 3: "That would be howl'd out inthe desert air." 57. It was in 1636 that John Hampden, of Buckinghamshire (a cousin ofOliver Cromwell), refused to pay the ship-money tax which Charles I.was levying without the authority of Parliament. 58. _Little tyrant_. Cf. Thomson, _Winter_: "With open freedom little tyrants raged." The artists who have illustrated this passage (see, for instance,_Favourite English Poems_, p. 305, and _Harper's Monthly_, vol. vii.p. 3) appear to understand "little" as equivalent to _juvenile_. Ifthat had been the meaning, the poet would have used some other phrasethan "of his fields," or "his lands," as he first wrote it. 59. _Some mute inglorious Milton_. Cf. Phillips, preface to _TheatrumPoetarum_: "Even the very names of some who having perhaps beencomparable to Homer for heroic poesy, or to Euripides for tragedy,yet nevertheless sleep inglorious in the crowd of the forgottenvulgar." 60. _Some Cromwell_, etc. Hales remarks: "The prejudice againstCromwell was extremely strong throughout the 18th century, evenamongst the more liberal-minded. That cloud of 'detractions rude,' ofwhich Milton speaks in his noble sonnet to our 'chief of men' as inhis own day enveloping the great republican leader, still lay thickand heavy over him. His wise statesmanship, his unceasingearnestness, his high-minded purpose, were not yet seen." After this stanza Thomas Edwards, the author of the _Canons ofCriticism_, would add the following, to supply what he deemed adefect in the poem: "Some lovely fair, whose unaffected charmsShone with attraction to herself alone;Whose beauty might have bless'd a monarch's arms,Whose virtue cast a lustre on a throne. "That humble beauty warm'd an honest heart,And cheer'd the labours of a faithful spouse;That virtue form'd for every decent partThe healthful offspring that adorn'd their house." Edwards was an able critic, but it is evident that he was no poet.
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