_Milton's Lycidas._--In a Dublin edition of Milton's _Paradise Lost_
(1765), in a memoir prefixed I find the following explanation of than
rather obscure passage in _Lycidas_:--
"Besides what the grim wolf, with privy paw,
Daily devours apace, and nothing said;
But that two-handed engine at the door
Stands ready to smite once, and smite no more."
"This poem is not all made up of sorrow and tenderness, there is
a mixture of satire and indignation: for in part of it, the poet
taketh occasion to inveigh against the corruptions of the
clergy, and seemeth to have first discovered his acrimony
against Arb. Laud, and to have threatened him with the loss of
his head, which afterwards happened to him thorough the fury of
his enemies. At least I can think of no sense so proper to be
given to these verses in Lycidas." (p. vii.)
Perhaps some of your numerous correspondents will kindly inform me of
the meaning or meanings usually assigned to this passage.