The Wyandot pioneer. (Upper Sandusky, Ohio) 1853-1868, 1853-08-18
Milton.

Dllnd Milton approaches nearly TO that
true conception of right-minded hero
which must ever be esteemed. What a
picture have we of that sublime old man,
as sic k, poor, blind, and abandoned of all
his friends, he still held fast his heroic in
tegrity-rebuking, with his unbending re-
publicanism, the treachery, cowardice,
and servility of his old associates. He
had outlived the hopes and beatifc visions
of his youth-he had seen the loud mouth
ed advocates of liberty throwing down a
nations freedom at the foot of the shame
less debauched, and perjured Charles II.
|-crouching to the harlot-thronged court
of the tyrant, and forswearing at once
their religion and their republicanism.
The executioner's axe had been busy
among his friends: Vane and Hampden
| slept in their bloody graves; Cromwell's S
ashes had been dragged from their resting
place, for, even in death, the effeminate
monarch hated and feared the conqueror
of Naseby and Marston moor. He was
left alone in age and penury and blind
ness, oppressed with the knowledge that
all which his free soul abhorred had re-
turned upon his beloved country. Yet
the spirit of the stern old republican re-
manned to the last unbroken, realising the
truth of his own Samson Agonistes::'
Patience is the exercise
Of saints, the trials of their fortitude,
Making them each their own deliverer,
And victor over all
That tyranny of fortune can infict.'
True, the overwhelming curse had gone
over his country; harlotry and atheism sa
in the high places, and the curses of wan
tons and the jests Of buffoons regulated The
measures ola government, which had JUS
ability enough to deceive, just religion
enough to persecute. But, while Miltol
mourned over this disastrous change, n
self-reproach mingled with his SORROW
To the last he had striven against the op
pressor, and, when confined to his narro,
alley, prisoner in his own mean dwelling
like another Prometheus on his rock, b
still exhibited an unsubdued defiance
Who that has read his powerful appeal
his country, even when it was on the ev
of welcoming back the tyranny and mis-
: rule which, at the expense of so muc
blood and treasure, had been thrown of
e can ever forgetit? How nobly does libel
ty speak through him! If, said he, y
L welcome back monarchy, it will be tn
triumph Of all tyrants hereafter over an
people who shall resist oppression, an
: their song shall then be, to others. 'Ho,
t sped the rebellious English?' but to ou
q posterity. How sped the rebels you
fathers?' How solemn and awful is hi
;. closing paragraph:-'What I have spoke
S is the language of that which is not calle
: amiss sThe Good Old Cause If it see,
strange to any, it will not, [ hope, seer
v more strange than convincing to backsl
: ders. This much l should have sait
though were sure | should have spoke
y only to trees and stones, and had none t
k cry to but with the prophet, 'oh, eartl
earth, earth!' to tell the very soil itse
l. what its perverse inhabitants are deaf
$ nay, though what I have spoken shoul
prove to be the last words of our expirin
liberties-which Thou suffer not who did
) make mankind free, nor Thou next WI
/ didst redeem us from being servants
/ sinl