To whom our vows and wishes bend;
Here our solemn search hath end.

Fame, that, her high worth to raise,
Seem'd erst so lavish and profuse,
We may justly now accuse
Of detraction from her praise:
Less than half we find express'd;
Envy bid conceal the rest.

Mark, what radiant state she spreads,
In circle round her shining throne,
Shooting her beams like silver threads;
This, this is she alone,

Sitting like a goddess bright,
In the centre of her light.
Might she the wise Latona be,
Or the tower'd Cybele

Mother of a hundred gods?

Juno dares not give her odds."

Who had thought this clime had held

A deity so unparallel'd?

As they come forward, the Genius of the wood appears, and, turning
toward them, speaks:-

Gen. Stay, gentle swains; for, though in this disguise,
I see bright honour sparkle through your eyes:

Of famous Arcady ye are, and sprung

e

Of that renowned flood, so often sung.
Divine Alpheus who by secret sluce
Stole under seas to meet his Arethuse;

And ye, the breathing roses of the wood,

Fair silver-buskin'd nymphs, as great and good;
I know, this quest of yours, and free intent,
Was all in honour and devotion meant

b This, this is she.

Our curiosity is gratified in discovering, even from slight and almost imperceptible traits, that Milton had here been looking back to Jonson, the most eminent maskwriter that had yet appeared, and that he had fallen upon some of his formularies and modes of address. For thus Jonson, in an "Entertaynment at Altrop," 1603, Works, 1616, p. 874:

This is shee,

This is shee,

In whose world of grace, &c.-T. WARTON.

Shooting her beams like silver threads.

See "Par. Lost," b. iv. 555.

But here Milton seems to bear in mind the cloth of state under which queen Elizabeth is seated, and which is represented, "Faer. Qu." v. ix 28.-TODD.

d Give her odds.

Too lightly expressed for the occasion.-HURD.

Virgil," En." iii. 694:

e Divine Alpheus, &c.

Alpheum, fama est, huc Elidis amnem
Occultas egisse vias subter mare, qui nune
Ore, Arethusa, tuo, &c.-NEWTON

To the great mistress of yon princely shrine,
Whom with low reverence I adore as mine;
And, with all helpful service, will comply
To further this night's glad solemnity;
And lead ye, where ye may more near behold
What shallow-searching Fame hath left untold;
Which I full oft, amidst these shades alone,
Have sat to wonder at, and gaze upon :
For know, by lot from Jove I am the power
Of this fair wood, and live in oaken bower,
To nurse the saplings tall, and curl the grove
With ringlets quaint, and wanton windings wove:
And all my plants I save from nightly ill
Of noisome winds, and blasting vapours chill:
And from the boughs brush off the evil dew,5
And heal the harms of thwarting thunder blue,
Or what the cross dire-looking planet smites,
Or hurtful worm with canker'd venom bites.
When evening gray doth rise, I fetch my round
Over the mount, and all this hallow'd ground;
And early, ere the odorous breath of morn
Awakes the slumbering leaves, or tassel'd horn3
Shakes the high thicket, haste I all about,
Number my ranks, and visit every sprout
With puissant words, and murmurs made to bless :
But else, in deep of night, when drowsiness

f And curl the grove.

k

So Drayton, "Polyolb." s. vii. vol. ii. p. 786, of a grove on a hill—

Where she her curled head unto the eye may show.-T. WARTON.

And from the boughs brush off the evil dew.

The expression and idea are Shakspearian, but in a different sense and application. Caliban says, "Tempest," a. i. s. 4:

As wicked dew as e'er my mother brush'd,

With raven's feather, from unwholesome fen, &c.

Compare "Paradise Lost," b. v. 429.

The phrase hung on the mind of Gray :—

Brushing with hasty steps the dew away.-T. WARTON.

h And heal the harms of thwarting thunder blue,
Or what the cross dire-looking planet smites.

Compare Shakspeare, "Julius Cæsar," a. i. s. 3. "King Lear," a. iv. s. 7.-T. WARTON.

i The slumbering leaves.

Ovid, "Met." xi. 600. "Non moti flamine rami.”—TODD.

So the magician Ismeno, when he consigns the enchanted forest to his demons, "Gier. Lib." c. xiii. st. 8. Poets are magicians: what they create they command. The business of one imaginary being is easily transferred to another; from a bad to a good demon.-T. WARTON.

ARCADES.

n

m

Hath lock'd up mortal sense, then listen I
To the celestial sirens' harmony,
That sit upon the nine infolded spheres1
And sing to those that hold the vital shears,
And turn the adamantine spindle round,
On which the fate of gods and men is wound.
Such sweet compulsion doth in music lie,
To lull the daughters of Necessity,
And keep unsteady Nature to her law,
And the low world in measured motion draw
After the heavenly tune, which none can hear
Of human mould, with gross unpurged ear;
And yet such musick worthiest were to blaze
The peerless highth of her immortal praise,
Whose lustre leads us, and for her most fit,
If my inferiour hand or voice could hit
Inimitable sounds: yet, as we go,
Whate'er the skill of lesser gods can show,
I will assay, her worth to celebrate,

And so attend ye toward her glittering state; P

1 Then listen I

To the celestial sirens' harmony,

That sit upon the nine infolded spheres.

695

68

70

75

80

This is Plato's system. Fate, or necessity, holds a spindle of adamant; and, with her three daughters, Lachesis, Clotho, and Atropos, who handle the vital web wound about the spindle, she conducts or turns the heavenly bodies: nine Muses, or sirens, sit on the summit of the spheres, which, in their revolutions, produce the most ravishing musical harmony: to this harmony, the three daughters of Necessity perpetually sing in correspondent tones: in the meantime, the adamantine spindle, which is placed in the lap or on the knees of Necessity, and on which "the fate of men and gods is wound," is also revolved.-T. WARton.

The adamantine spindle.

In a fragment of Sophocles' "Phædra," preserved in Stobæus, the Parcæ have adamantine shuttles, with which they weave the appointed fates of mortals.-Dunster.

Such sweet compulsion, &c.

See "Par. Lost," ix. 474.-TODD.

• After the heavenly tune, which none can hear
Of human mould, with gross unpurged ear.

I do not recollect this reason in Plato, the "Somnium Scipionis," or Macrobius: but our author, in an academic Prolusion on the "Musick of the Spheres," having explained Plato's theory, assigns a similar reason:-"Quod autem nos hanc minime audiamus harmoniam, sane in causa videtur esse furacis Promethei audacia, quæ tot mala hominibus invexit, et simul hanc felicitatem nobis abstulit, qua nec unquam frui licebit, dum sceleribus cooperti belluinis, cupiditatibus obrutescimus: at si pura, si nivea gestaremus pectora, tum quidem suavissima illa stellarum circumeuntium musica personarent aures nostræ et opplerentur."-T. WARTON.

Compare Shakspeare, "Midsummer Night's Dream," a. iii. s. 1:—

And I will purge thy mortal grossness so,
That thou shalt like an airy spirit go.

And see "Comus," v. 997.-T. WARTON.

See also his "Prose Works," edit. 1698, vol. i. 153.-"God purged also our deaf ears, and prepared them to attend his second warning trumpet," &c.-TODD.

P And 80 attend ye toward her glittering state.

A "state" signified, not so much a throne or See Note on "Il Penseroso," v. 37. chair of state, as a canopy: thus Drayton, "Polyolb." s. xxvi. vol. iii. p. 1168, of a royal palace:

Fairfax, in the metrical Dedication of his Tasso to queen Elizabeth, commands his Muse not to approach too boldly, nor to soil "her vesture's hem.”—T. WARTON.

Of branching elm star-proof.

One of Peacham's "Emblems" is the picture of a large and lofty grove, which defies the influence of the moon and stars appearing over it. This grove, in the verses affixed, is said to be "not pierceable to power of any starre."-T. WARTON.

LYCIDAS;

A MONODY.

PRELIMINARY NOTE ON LYCIDAS.

MR. EDWARD KING.

THIS poem first appeared in a Cambridge collection of verses on the death of Mr. Edward King, fellow of Christ's College, printed at Cambridge in a thin quarto, 1638. It consists of three Greek, nineteen Latin, and thirteen English poems. Edward King, the subject of this Monody, was the son of Sir John King, knight secretary for Ireland, under queen Elizabeth, James I., and Charles I. He was sailing from Chester to Ireland, on a visit to his friends and relations in that country: these were, his brother, Sir Robert King, knight; and his sisters, Anne, wife of Sir George Caulfield Lord Clermont, and Margaret, above mentioned, wife of Sir George Loder, chief justice of Ireland; Edward King, bishop of Elphin, by whom he was baptized; and William Chappel, then dean of Cashel, and provost of Dublin College, who had been his tutor at Christ's College, Cambridge, and was afterwards bishop of Cork and Ross, and in this Pastoral is probably the same person that is styled "old Damotas," v. 36, when, in calm weather, not far from the English coast, the ship, a very crazy vessel, "a fatal and perfidious bark," struck on a rock, and suddenly sunk to the bottom with all that were on board, not one escaping, August 10, 1637. King was now only twenty-five years old: he was perhaps a native of Ireland.

At Cambridge he was distinguished for his piety, and proficiency in polite literature: he has no inelegant copy of Latin iambics prefixed to a Latin comedy called "Senile Odium," acted at Queen's College, Cambridge, by the youth of that society, and written by P. Hausted, Cantab. 1633, 12mo. I will not say how far these performances justify Milton's panegyric on his friend's poetry, v. 9.

Who would not sing for Lycidas? He knew
Himself to sing, and build the lofty rhyme.

This poem, as appears by the Trinity manuscript, was written in November, 1637, when Milton was not quite twenty-nine years old.-T. WARTON.

In the Latin poetical paraphrase of "Lycidas" by William Hog (the translator also of "Paradise Lost"), dated 1694, there is an English address to the reader; giving a brief account of the subject of the poem. It is there said, that "Some escaped in the boat; and great endeavours were used in that great consternation to get Mr. King into the boat, which did not prevail, so he and all with him were drowned, except those only that escaped in the boat." And yet, in the monumental inscription prefixed to the Collection of Verses on Mr. King's death, it is related, "Navi in scopulum allisa, et rimis ex ictu fatiscente, dum alii vectores vitæ mortalis frustra satagerent, immortalem anhelans, in genua provolutus oransque, una cum navigio ab aquis absorptus, animam Deo reddidit."

Dr. Newton has observed that "Lycidas" is with great judgment made of the pastoral kind, as both Mr. King and Milton had been designed for holy orders and the pastoral care, which gives a peculiar propriety to several passages in it.-TODD.

(697)