No More Learning

THURLOW. And yet, my lord, you have long reigned.

CROM. Nay, nay!
Power I have 'joyed, in sooth, but not the name.
Thou smilest, Thurlow. Ah, thou little know'st
What hole it is Ambition digs i' th' heart
What end, most seeming empty, is the mark
For which we fret and toil and dare! How hard
With an unrounded fortune to sit down!
Then, what a lustre from most ancient times
Heaven has flung o'er the sacred head of kings!
King--Majesty--what names of power! No king,
And yet the world's high arbiter! The thing
Without the word! no handle to the blade!
Away--the empire and the name are one!
Alack!
thou little dream'st how grievous 'tis,
Emerging from the crowd, and at the top
Arrived, to feel that there is _something_ still
Above our heads; something, nothing! no matter--
That word is everything.

LEITCH RITCHIE.





MILTON'S APPEAL TO CROMWELL.

_("Non! je n'y puis tenir. ")_

[CROMWELL, Act III. sc. iv. ]


Stay! I no longer can contain myself,
But cry you: Look on John, who bares his mind
To Oliver--to Cromwell, Milton speaks!
Despite a kindling eye and marvel deep
A voice is lifted up without your leave;
For I was never placed at council board
To speak _my_ promptings. When awed strangers come
Who've seen Fox-Mazarin wince at the stings
In my epistles--and bring admiring votes
Of learned colleges, they strain to see
My figure in the glare--the usher utters,
"Behold and hearken! that's my Lord Protector's
Cousin--that, his son-in-law--that next"--who cares!
Some perfumed puppet! "Milton?