Where shall we sometimes meet, and by the fire
Help waste a sullen day, what may be won
From the hard season gaining? Time will run
On smoother, till Favonius reinspire

The frozen earth, and clothe in fresh attire

The lily and rose, that neither sow'd nor spun.

far from Milton's neighbourhood in Buckinghamshire: for Henry Lawrence's near relation, Willian Lawrence, a writer, and appointed a judge in Scotland by Cromwell, and who was in 1631 a gentleman commoner of Trinity College, Oxford, died at Bedfont near Staines in Middlesex, in 1682. Hence, says Milton, v. 2:

Now that the fields are dank, and ways are mire,
Where shall we sometimes meet, &c.

Milton, in his first "Reply to More," written 1654, recites among the most respectable of his friends, who contributed to form the commonwealth,-"Montacutium, Laurentium, summo ingenio ambos, optimisque artibus expositas," &c. See Milton's "Prose Works." Where by "Montacutium" we are to understand Edward Montague, Earl of Manchester; who, while Lord Kimbolton, was one of the members of the house of comions impeached by the king, and afterwards a leader in the rebellion. I believe they both deserved this panegyric.-T. WARTON.

Mr. Warton is mistaken in saying that "of the 'virtuous son' nothing has transpired." This Henry Lawrence, the "virtuous son," is the author of a work, of which I am in possession, suited to Milton's taste; on the subject of which, I make no doubt, he and the author "by the fire helped to waste many a sullen day." It is entitled, "Of our Communion and Warre with Angels, &c." Printed Anno Dom. 1646, 4to. 189 pages. The dedication is "To my Most deare and Most honoured Mother, the Lady Lawrence." I suppose him also to be the same Henry Lawrence, who printed "A Vindication of the Scriptures and Christian Ordinances," 1649, Lond. 4to.-TODD.

See "Gentleman's Magazine," about 1825, for the Lawrence pedigree, furnished by Sir James Lawrence, then resident at Paris. This lineal descendant of the subject of Milton's panegyric has also communicated to the publisher the following important and interesting information on the same subject:

"Henry Lawrence, of whose family and descent a long account is inserted in the 'Gent. Mag.' for July 1815, was the eldest son of Sir John Lawrence, of St. Ives in Huntingdonshire, by Elizabeth, daughter and heir of Ralph Waller, Esq., of Clerkenwell, of the Beaconsfield family, who took to her second husband Robert Bathurst of Lecklade, and was the mother of Sir Edward Bathurst, created a baronet 1643. He was educated at Emmanuel-college, and represented Westmoreland in the Long Parliament: having retired into Holland, he published at Amsterdam, in 1646, a book, 'Of our Communion and Warre with Angels,' and another book Of Baptism.' Ho afterwards represented Hertfordshire; was a lord of the other house; and after the abdication of Richard Cromwell, continued president of the council of state. He married Ame, daughter of that inveterate antagonist of the house of Stuart, Sir Edward Peyton, of Iselham, in Cambridgeshire, Bart., by whom he had seven sons and six daughters. He died in 1664, and was buried at St. Margaret's Hertfordshire.

"Henry, the eldest, was the 'virtuous son:' for in a political squib, printed 1660, called 'The Receipts and Disbursements of the Committee of Safety,' we find,-' Item, reimbursed to the said Lord Lawrence several sums of money, which his eldest son had squandered away on poets and dedications to his ingenuity, to the value of five hundred pounds more. Item, paid for three great saddles for the Lord Lawrence's son, and for provender for his lofty steeds, ever since the Protector's political death, five hundred pour ds. Item, paid for a pound of May butter made of a cow's milk that fed on HerLon Hill, given to the said Lady Lawrence for pious uses, 871. 168.' Henry died 1679. His son, Sir Edward Lawrence of St. Ives, was created a baronet in January, 1749, and died in May following. Martha, one of the president's daughters, married Richard, Earl of Barrymore, and was married to his successor, Lawrence, Earl of Barrymore; John Lawrence, a younger son, left England with James Bradshaw, a nephew of the judge, and settled in Jamaica, where James Bradshaw, after having been president of the Assembly, died in 1699; and John Lawrence, who died 1690, was great-grandfather to the present Sir James Lawrence, Knight of Malta."

e That neither sow'd nor spun.

Alluding, as Dr. Newton observes, to Mat. vi. 26, 28: "They sow not, neither de hey spin." And compare ver. 30, with the preceding hemistich.-TODD.