hedge-skirmishes, and upon their guards, being so near, as could have been in battle, would not admit that patience; for Sir William Waller, who was not to suffer that body to join with the king, no sooner drew out his whole army to Lansdown, which looked towards Marsfield, but they suffered themselves to be engaged upon great disadvantage. It was upon the fifth of July when Sir William Waller, as soon as it was light, possessed himself of that hill; and after he had, upon the brow of the hill over the high way, raised breast-works with fagots and earth, and planted cannon there, he sent a strong party of horse towards Marshfield, which quickly alarumed the other army, and was shortly driven back to their body. As great a mind as the king's forces had to cope with the enemy, when they had drawn into battalia, and found the enemy fixed on the top of the hill, they resolved not to attack them upon so great disadvantage; and so retired again towards their old quarters: which Sir William Waller perceiving, sent his whole body of horse and dragoons down the hill, to charge the rear and flank of the king's forces; which they did throughly, the regiment of cuirassiers so amazing the horse they charged, that they totally routed them; and standing firm and unshaken themselves, gave so great terror to the king's horse, who had never before turned from an enemy, that no example of their officers, who did their parts with invincible courage, could make them charge with the same confidence and in the same manner they had usually done. However, in the end, after Sir Nicholas Slanning, with three hundred musketeers, had fallen upon and beaten their reserve of dragooners, prince Maurice and the earl of Carnarvon, rallying their horse, and winging them with the Cornish musketeers, charged the enemy's horse again, and totally routed them; and in the same manner received two bodies more, and routed and chased them to the hill; where they stood in a place almost inaccessible. On the brow of the hill there were breast-works, on which were pretty bodies of small shot, and some cannon; on either flank grew a pretty thick wood towards the declining of the hill, in which strong parties of musketeers were placed; at the rear was a very fair plain, where the reserves of horse and foot stood ranged; yet the Cornish foot were so far from being appalled at this disadvantage, that they desired to fall on, and cried out, "that they might have leave to fetch off those cannon." In the end, order was given to attempt the hill with horse and foot. Two strong parties of musketeers were sent into the woods, which flanked the enemy. And the horse and musketeers up the road way, which were charged by the enemy's horse and routed; then Sir Bevil Greenvil advanced, with a party of horse on his right hand, that ground being best for them, and his musketeers on the left, himself leading up his pikes in the middle; and in the face of their cannon, and small shot from their breast-works, gained the brow of the hill, having sustained two full charges of the enemy's horse; but in their third charge, his horse failing, and giving ground, he received, after other wounds, a blow on the head with a poleaxe, with which he fell, and many of his officers about him; yet the musketeers fired so fast upon the horse, that they quit their ground, and the two wings, who were sent to clear the woods, having done their work, and gained those parts of the hill, at the same time they beat off their foot, and became possessed of their breast-works; and so made way for their whole body of horse, foot, and cannon to ascend the hill; which they quickly did, and planted themselves on the ground which they had won; the enemy retiring about demiculverin shot behind a stone wall upon the same level, and standing in reasonable good order. Either party was sufficiently tired and battered to be contented to stand still. The king's horse were so shaken, that of two thousand which were upon the field in the morning, there were not above six hundred on the top of the hill. The enemy was exceedingly scattered too, and had no mind to venture on plain ground with those who had beaten them from the hill; so that, ́exchanging only some shot from their ordnance, they looked one at another till the night interposed. About twelve of the clock, it being very dark, the enemy made a show of moving towards the ground they had lost; but giving a smart volley of small shot, and finding themselves answered with the like, they made no more noise: which the prince observing, he sent a common soldier to hearken as near the place where they were as he could; who brought word, that the enemy had left lighted matches in the wall behind which they had lain, and were drawn off the field; which was true; so that as soon as it was day the king's army found themselves possessed entirely of the field, and the dead, and all other ensigns of victory; Sir William Waller being marched to Bath, in so much disorder and apprehension, that he left a great store of arms and ten barrels of powder behind him; which was a very seasonable supply to the other side, who had spent in that day's service no less than fourscore barrels, and had not a safe proportion left. In this battle, on the king's part, there were more officers and gentlemen of quality slain than common men, and more hurt than slain. That which would have clouded any victory, and made the loss of others the less spoken of, was the death of Sir Bevil Greenvil; who was indeed an excellent person, whose activity, interest, and reputation was the foundation of what had been done in Cornwall; and his temper and affections so public, that no accidents which happened could make any impression in him; and his example kept others from taking any thing ill, or at least seeming to do so. In a word a brighter courage and a gentler disposition were never married together to make the most cheerful and innocent conversation. The History of the Rebellion, Book VII. P. 57, 1. 2. Allayed and alloyed are constantly used as identical words in seventeenth century English. P. 57, 1. 5. Manners in the sense of mores = morals." P. 57, ll. 14, 15. Proctorship and doctorship would seem meant, not literally, but "experience in business and teaching." P. 59, 1. 5. Superior. Abbot, who favoured the Puritans and shot a keeper. JOHN MILTON. John Milton was born in London in 1608, and died there in 1674. His prose, less valuable absolutely, is not less relatively important than his verse. With his contemporary Clarendon he shows more strongly than any other writer the general organic defects of the prose of his day, and its excellence in particular passages. THE SEARCH FOR DEAD TRUTH. RUTH indeed came once into the world with her divine TRUT Master, and was a perfect shape most glorious to look on : but when he ascended, and his Apostles after him were laid asleep, then straight arose a wicked race of deceivers, who as that story goes of the Egyptian Typhon with his conspirators, how they dealt with the good Osiris, took the virgin Truth, hewed her lovely form into a thousand pieces, and scattered them to the four winds. From that time ever since, the sad friends of Truth, such as durst appear, imitating the careful search that Isis made for the mangled body of Osiris, went up and down gathering up limb by limb still as they could find them. We have not yet found them all, Lords and Commons, nor ever shall do, till her Master's second coming; he shall bring together every joint and member, and shall mould them into an immortal feature of loveliness and perfection. Suffer not these licensing prohibitions to stand at every place of opportunity forbidding and disturbing them that continue seeking, that continue to do our obsequies to the torn body of our martyred Saint. We boast our light; but if we look not wisely on the sun itself, it smites us into darkness. Who can discern those planets that are oft combust, and those stars of brightest magnitude that rise and set with the sun, until the opposite motion of their orbs bring them to such a place in the firmament, where they may be seen evening or morning. The light which we have gained, was given us not to be ever staring on, but by it to discover onward things more remote from our knowledge. It is not the unfrocking of a priest, the unmitring of a bishop, and the removing him from off the Presbyterian shoulders that will make us a happy nation, no, if other things as great in the Church, and in the rule of life both economical and political be not looked into and reformed, we have looked so long upon the blaze that Zuinglius and Calvin hath beaconed up to us, that we are stark blind. There be who perpetually complain of schisms and sects, and make it such a calamity that any man dissents from their maxims. 'Tis their own pride and ignorance which causes the disturbing, who neither will hear with meekness, nor can convince, yet all must be suppressed which is not found in their Syntagma. They are the troublers, they are the dividers of unity, who neglect and permit not others to unite those dissevered pieces which are yet wanting to the body of Truth. To be still searching what we know not, by what we know, still closing up truth to truth as we find it, for all her body is homogeneal and proportional, this is the golden rule in Theology as well as in Arithmetic, and makes up the best harmony in a Church; not the forced and outward union of cold, and neutral, and inwardly divided minds. Lords and Commons of England, consider what Nation it is whereof ye are, and whereof ye are the governors: a Nation not slow and dull, but of a quick, ingenious, and piercing spirit, acute to invent, subtle and sinewy to discourse, not beneath the reach of any point the highest that human capacity can soar to. Therefore the studies of learning in her deepest sciences have been so ancient, and so eminent among us, that writers of good antiquity, and ablest judgment have been persuaded that even the school of Pythagoras, and the Persian wisdom took beginning from the old philosophy of this island. And that wise and civil Roman, Julius Agricola, who governed once here for Cæsar, |