The  sonnet,  or  Elegy  on  Mrs.  Catherine  Thomson  in
the  form  of  a  sonnet,  though  in  poetical  merit  not  distin-
guishable from  the  average  religious  verse  of  the  Caroline
age,  has  an  interest  for  the  biographer.  It  breathes
a  holy  calm  that  is  in  sharp  contrast  with  the  angry
virulence  of  the  pamphlets,  which  were  being  written  at
this  very  time  by  the  same  pen.  Amid  his  intemperate
denunciations  of  his  political  and  ecclesiastical  foes,  it
seems  that  Milton  did  not  inwardly  forfeit  the  peace  which
passeth  all  understanding.  He  had  formerly  said  himself
(Doctrine  and  Disc.},  "nothing  more  than  disturbance  of
mind  suspends  us  from  approaching  to  God."  Now,  out
of  all  the  clamour  and  the  bitterness  of  the  battle  of
the  sects,  he  can  retire  and  be  alone  with  his  heavenly
aspirations,  which  have  lost  none  of  their  ardour  by
having  laid  aside  all  their  sectarianism.  His  genius  has


vir.]  SONNETS.  89

forsaken  him,  but  his  soul  still  glows  with  the  fervour  of
devotion.
The  sonnet  (xv.)  On  the  Lord- General  Fairfax,  at  the
siege  of  Colchester,  written  in  1648,  is  again  a  manifesto
of  the  writer's  political  feelings,  nobly  uttered,  and  invest-
ing party  with  a  patriotic  dignity  not  unworthy  of  the
man,  Milton.  It  is  a  hortatory  lyric,  a  trumpet-call  to  his
party  in  the  moment  of  victory  to  remember  the  duties
which  that  victory  imposed  upon  them.  It  is  not  with-
out the  splendid  resonance  of  the  Italian  canzone.  But
it  can  scarcely  be  called  poetry,  expressing,  as  it  does,
facts  directly,  and  not  indirectly  through  their  imaginative
equivalents.  Fairfax  was,  doubtless,  well  worthy  that
Milton  should  have  commemorated  him  in  a  higher  strain.
