Help us to save free conscience from the paw
Of hireling wolves, whose gospel is their maw."
Here, in the method of separating the stanzas by wider spaces in printing, the phrase "new foes arise" would have been separated from the line which follows, with which it is so intimately connected,—the head line of the last triplet.
The author may here be allowed to say, that in his judgment in the whole compass of English poetry there are no sonnets equal to a few of Milton's, numbered 8, 9, 14, 15, 18, 19, 22 and 23. If any one would know, whether Milton's meditations brought out sentiments worthy of utterance, and whether he knew how to utter them with the melody of rhyme and at the same time with the unshackled freedom and energy of blank verse, I leave with him for his refreshment the following lines from his sonnet on his own Blindness:—
"Doth God exact day-labor, light denied?"
I fondly ask: But Patience, to prevent
That murmur, soon replies, "God doth not need
Either man's work, or his own gifts; who best
Bear his mild yoke, they serve him best: his state