Milton berates the Irish for "rejecting the ingenuity of all other Nations to improve and waxe more civill by a civilizing Conquest." (10) Indeed the "Irish Barbarians" proved themselves "
indocible and averse from all Civility and amendment," and have upheld their own "absurd and savage Customes before the most convincing evidence of reason and demonstration: a testimony of their true Barbarisme and obdurate wilfulnesse" (CPW 3:304).