As thou art wont, my prompted song, else mute; And bear, through highth or depth of Nature's bounds, With prosperous wing full summ'd, to tell of deeds of the Divine Spirit were not merely exordia pro formá.—Indeed his prose works are not without their invocations. Compare also Tasso, Il Mondo Creato, Giorn. prim. e langue "Se non m' inspiri tu, la voce, e 'l suono." DUNSTER. Ver. 12. my prompted song else mute;] Milton's third wife, who survived him many years, related of him, that he used to compose his poetry chiefly in winter; and on his waking in a morning would make her write down sometimes twenty or thirty verses. Being asked, whether he did not often read Homer and Virgil, she understood it as an imputation upon him for stealing from those authors, and answered with eagerness, "he stole from nobody but the Muse who inspired him;" and, being asked by a lady present who the Muse was, replied, "it was God's grace and the Holy Spirit that visited him nightly." Newton's Life of Milton. Mr. Richardson also says, that "Milton would sometimes lie awake whole nights, but not a verse could he make; and on a sudden his poetical fancy would rush upon him with an impetus or œstrum." Johnson's Life of Milton. Else mute might have been suggested by a passage of Horace's most beautiful ode to the Muse, IV. iii. "O testudinis aureæ "Dulcem quæ strepitum, Pieri, temperas ! "O mutis quoque piscibus "Donatura cygni, si libeat, sonum ! Or from Quinctilian; " ipsam igitur orandi majestatem, quâ nihil dii immortales melius homini dederunt, et quâ remotâ muta sunt omnia, et luce præsenti et memoriâ posteritatis carent, toto animo petamus." L. xii. 11. DUNSTER. Ver. 14. With prosperous wing full summ'd,] We have the like expression in Paradise Lost, B. vii. 421. They summ'd their pens;" and it was noted there that it is a term in falconry. Above heroick, though in secret done 15 Now had the great Proclaimer with a voice More awful than the sound of trumpet, cried Repentance, and Heaven's kingdom nigh at hand 20 To all baptiz'd: To his great baptism flock'd With awe the regions round, and with them came From Nazareth the son of Joseph deem'd To the flood Jordan; came, as then obscure, A hawk is said to be full summ'd, when all his feathers are grown, when he wants nothing of the sum of his feathers, "cui nihil de SUMMA pennarum deest, as Skinner says. NEWTON. Milton had perhaps the following passage of Drayton in mind, Polyolbion, Song xi. "The Muse from Cambria comes with pinnions summ'd and sound." TODD. Ibid. to tell of deeds Above heroick,] Thus Milton conceived the subject of Paradise Lost to be of much greater dignity and difficulty than the argument of Homer and Virgil. See Par. L. ix. 13. See also B. i. 13, i. 24, iii. 3, ix. 27, &c. But, as Richardson observes, the poet here confines himself to "Nature's bounds;" not as in the Par. Lost, where he soars "above the visible diurnal sphere." Compare what our author says of subjects for epick poetry, in his Church Government, Pr. W. i. 60. ed. 1698, where a "Christian hero" seems to be his choice; when he was a much younger man, about thirty years old. T. WARTON. Ver. 18. with a voice More awful than the sound of trumpet,] "Lift up thy voice like a trumpet, and shew my people their transgressions." Isaiah lviii. 1. And see Heb. xii. 18, 19. Dunster. Ver. 24. To the flood Jordan; came, &c.] This line is corruptly pointed both by Tickell and Fenton, after Tonson :* Unmark'd, unknown; but him the Baptist soon 25 "To the flood Jordan came, as then obscure," 30 But as Dr. Newton observes, Milton's own pointing is emphatick, and worthy of repetition; "came with them to the flood Jordan," and "came, as then obscure." TODD. Ver. 25. but him the Baptist soon Descried, divinely warn'd,] John the Baptist had notice given him before, that he might certainly know the Messiah by the Holy Ghost descending and abiding upon him, “ And I knew him not, but he that sent me to baptize with water, the same said unto me, Upon whom thou shalt see the Spirit descending and remaining on him, the same is he which baptizeth with the Holy Ghost," John i. 33. But it appears from St. Matthew, that the Baptist knew him, and acknowledged him before he was baptized, and before the Holy Ghost descended upon him, Mat. iii. 14. "I have need to be baptized of thee, and comest thou to me?" To account for which we must admit with Milton, that another divine revelation was made to him at this very time, signifying that this was the person, of whom he had such notice before. NEWTON. Ver. 26. divinely warn'd,] To comprehend the propriety of this word divinely, the reader must have his eye upon the Latin DIVINITUS, from Heaven, since the word divinely in our language scarce ever comes up to this meaning. Milton uses it in much the same sense in Paradise Lost, B. vii. 500. "She heard me thus, and though divinely brought." THYER. That heard the Adversary, who, roving still Ver. 33. who roving still 35 40 About the world,]" And the Lord said unto Satan, whence comest thou? Then Satan answered the Lord, and said, From going to and fro in the earth, and from walking up and down in it." Job i. 7. See also 1 Pet. v. 8. DUNSTER. Ver. 36. the exalted Man, to whom Such high attest was given, &c.] The description how Satan is affected by this divine attestation of Jesus, is admirable. His involuntary admiration is consistent with his knowledge of what is good and amiable; (see ver. 379.) his envy and rage are truly Satanick, and becoming his character of the enemy of all good. DUNSTER. Ver. 41. Within thick clouds and dark ten-fold involv'd,] Milton, in making Satan's residence to be in mid air, within thick clouds and dark, seems to have St. Austin in his eye, who, speaking of the region of clouds, storms, thunder, &c. says—“ ad ista caliginosa, id est, ad hunc aërem, tanquam ad carcerem, damnatus est diabolus, &c." Enarr. in Ps. 148. S. 9. Tom. 5. Edit. Bened. THYER. p. 1677. Satan's residence in mid air is rather in allusion to Ephes. ii. 2. where he is called " the prince of the power of the air." TODD. Ver. 42. A gloomy consistory ;] This is an imitation of Virgil, En. iii. 677; "Cernimus astantes nequicquam lumine torvo "Ætnæos fratres, cœlo capita alta ferentes, With looks aghast and sad, he thus bespake. By the word consistory, I suppose Milton intends to glance at the meeting of the Pope and Cardinals so named, or perhaps at the episcopal tribunal, to all which sorts of courts or assemblies he was an avowed enemy. The phrase concilium horrendum Vida makes use of upon a like occasion of assembling the infernal Powers, Christ. lib. 1. "Protinus acciri diros ad regia fratres 66 Limina, concilium horrendum." And Tasso also, in the very same manner; Gier. Lib. c. iv. st. 2. "Che sia commanda il popol suo raccolto "(Concilio horrendo) entro la regia soglia." THYer. Gloomy consistory is similar to the description of the same infernal council in the Paradise Lost, where Milton terms them a dark divan; "Forth rush'd in haste the great consulting peers, "Rais'd from their dark divan." DUNSTER. Consistory was the usual word in our elder poetry for an assembly; as in Hawes's Pastime of Pleasure, bl. 1. 1554, speaking of Venus's court and temple, cap. xxix. "The temple of her royall consistory And in Browne's Brit. Past. 1616. B. i. S. i. "In Heauen's consistory 'twas decreed." However, see Quodlibets of Religion and State, 1602, written by W. Watson, a secular priest; who, exposing the designs of the Jesuits in regard to the subjugation of England, says, that "their deepe Jesuiticall court of Parliament began at Styx in Phlegeton," and that "the second act enacted, or statute made, in that high infernall CONSISTORIE, was concerning the Church and Abbey lands, &c." pp. 92, 93. It is not improbable, that Phineas Fletcher might hence have taken the idea with which he opens his animated poem, entitled Locustæ vel Pietas Jesuitica, 4to. Cantab. 1627. |