No sooner was the Frenchman's cause embraced,
Than the light Monsieur the grave Don outweighed.—St. XXIII. [p. 12.]
In 1655, Cromwell allied himself with the rising power of France against the declining monarchy of Spain; less guided, probably, by any general views of political expedience, than by the consideration, that the American and West India settlements of the latter power lay open to assault from the English fleet; while, had he embraced the other side, his own dominions were exposed to an invasion from the exiled king, with French auxiliaries. The splendid triumphs of Blake gave some ground for the poetical flourishes in the text.
And, as the confident of Nature, saw
How she complexions did divide and brew.—St. XXV. [p. 12.]
It was still fashionable, in the seventeenth century, to impute the distinguishing shades of human character to the influence of complexion. The doctrine is concisely summed up in the following lines, which occur in an old MS. in the British Museum:
With a red man rede thy rede,
With a brown man break thy bread,