Page:Our Hymns.djvu/60

 40 OUK HYMNS I

same year his &quot; Samson Agonistes.&quot; Milton was also tie author of several political works, besides those already mentioned, and of works on &quot;Logic,&quot; and &quot;Grammar.&quot; His &quot;Treatise on True Religion &quot; was printed in 1673. He wrote also a &quot; Treatise on Theology,&quot; the manuscript of which was discovered in the State Paper Office, in 1823. This work shows that late in life Milton had adopted Arian views of the person of Christ, though he still helieved in His atoning sacrifice. Joseph &quot;VVarton styles him &quot;the most learned of our poets.&quot; His learning in various tongues and in almost all branches of knowledge was scarcely second to his incomparable genius, and his nobility of soul not inferior to either. His sonnets include some of universal celebrity. One of the most affecting and beautiful is that already referred to on his own blindness. Returning again to the subject of the loss of the use of his eyes, he speaks in another sonnet thus nobly :

&quot; What supports me, dost thou ask ? The conscience, friend, to have lost them overplied

In liberty s defence, my noble task, Of which all Europe rings from side tu side. , &amp;gt;f

This thought might lead me through the world s vain mask, Content, though blind, had I no better guide.&quot;

For translations of some of his Latin poems we are indebted to Cowper. In addition to the painful privation of sight, the illustrious poet suffered much bodily affliction towards the end ; but at length, at the age of sixty-six, he sank peacefully in death, on Sunday, the 8th of November, 1674. He was buried in St. Giles s, Cripplegate.

Such is a brief account of the life and labours of our greatest epic poet the equal of Dante and Homer, and at the same time the brightest star of Independency the poet of Puritanism when Cromwell was its prince.

Milton did not write many pieces suitable for use in ordinary public worship, but he made poetical translations of some of the Psalms

&quot; The Lord will come and not be slow.&quot; No 123,

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