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Tow'red cities please us then,

And the busy hum of men,

Where throngs of knights and barons bold
In weeds of peace high triumphs hold,
With store of ladies, whose bright eyes
Rain influence, and judge the prize
Of wit, or arms, while both contend
To win her grace, whom all commend.
There let Hymen oft appear
In saffron robe, with taper clear,

119 Where throngs of knights and barons bold &c.] It may perhaps be objected that this is a little unnatural, since tilts and tourneaments were disused when Milton wrote this poem: but when one considers how short a time they had been laid aside, and what a considerable figure these make in Milton's favourite authors, his introducing them here is easily accounted for, and I think as easily to be excused. Thyer.

120. triumphs] Triumphs. are shews, such as masks, revels, &c. See note on Sams. Agon. 1312. Pomp also had a technical sense in masques, train, retinue, procession. See notes on P. L. viii. 60. and Sams. Agon. 449 and 1312. T. Warton.

121. With store of ladies,] An expression probably taken from Sydney's Astrophel and Stella,

st. 106.

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elles sont toutes les pronesses faietes, et par elles en "doit estre le pris donne." See also c. cxxvii. and the articles of the Justes at Westminster, 1509. Hardyng's Chron. c. xlv. Robert of Gloucester, vol. i. 190. and Geoff. Monm. b. ix. c. xiv. T. Warton.

125. There let Hymen oft ap

pear In saffron robe, with taper clear, &c.] For, according to Shakespeare, Love's Lab. Lost, act iv. s. 3.

For revels, dances, masks, and merry hours

Fore-run fair love, strewing her way with flowers.

In these pageantries, exhibited with great splendour, and a waste of allegoric invention, at the nuptials of noble personages, the classical Hymen was of course introduced as an actor, with his proper habit and symbols. Thus in Jonson's " Hymenai, or the "solemnities of Masque and Bar"riers at a Marriage," is this stage-direction: "On the other

And pomp, and feast, and revelry,
With mask, and antique pageantry,
Such sights as youthful poets dream
On summer eves by haunted stream.
Then to the well-trod stage anon,
If Jonson's learned sock be on,
Or sweetest Shakespeare, fancy's child,
Warble his native wood-notes wild.
And ever against eating cares,
Lap me in soft Lydian airs,

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"hand entered Hymen, in a saf"fron-coloured robe, his under"vestures white, his sockes yellow, a yellow veile of silke on "his left arm, his head crowned "with roses and marjoram, in "his right hand a torch." Works, ed. 1616. Masques, p. 912. see also ibid. p. 939. See also Spenser's Epithalamion, st. ii. and the Poeticall Miscellanies of Ph. Fletcher. Cambr. 1613. 4to. p. 58. T. Warton.

132. If Jonson's &c.] We see by this, that Milton's favourite dramatic entertainments were Jonson's Comedies, and Shakespeare's Plays: and in a few words he touches the distinguishing characteristics of these two famous poets, the art of Jonson and nature of Shakespeare, the learning of the one and the genius of the other: and there is this farther propriety in his praising of Shakespeare, that while he commends, he imitates him. Love's Labour's Lost, act i. sc. 1. This child of fancy, that Armado hight.

134. Warble his native woodnotes wild.] Milton shews his judgment here, in celebrating

130

135

Shakespeare's Comedies, rather than his Tragedies. For models of the latter, he refers us rightly, in his Penseroso, to the Grecian scene, v. 97. Hurd.

There is good reason to suppose that Milton threw many additions and corrections into the Theatrum Poetarum, a book published by his nephew, Edward Philips, in 1675. It contains criticisms far above the taste of that period: among these is the following judgment on Shakespeare, which was not then, I believe, the general opinion, and which perfectly coincides both with the sentiment and words of the text. " In "tragedy, never any expressed a more lofty and tragic height, never any represented nature "more purely to the life: and "where the polishments of art

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Married to immortal verse,

Such as the meeting soul may pierce

In notes, with many a winding bout
Of linked sweetness long drawn out,
With wanton heed, and giddy cunning,

The melting voice through mazes running,
Untwisting all the chains that tie

The hidden soul of harmony;

That Orpheus self may heave his head
From golden slumber on a bed

140

145

So also in the Mask, speaking of berton, on Leonidas, considers Circe and the Sirens,

Who as they sung, would take the

prison'd soul,

And lap it in ElysiumIt may be observed, that Milton's imagination glows with a particular brightness not only in this charming passage, but in every other where he has occasion to describe the power of music, which shews how fond he was of it, and finely exemplifies Horace's maxim,

Verbaque provisam rem non invita

sequentur.

Thyer.

The Lydian music was very soft
and sweet, and according to Cas-
siodorus, (Varior. lib. ii. ep. 40.
ad Boethium,) contra nimias cu-
ras, animæque tædia reperta, re-
missione reparabat et oblecta-
tione animos corroborabat. And
so Dryden, in his excellent Ode
on St. Cecilia's day,

Softly sweet, in Lydian measures,
Soon he sooth'd his soul to pleasures.

136. Lap me in soft Lydian airs.] An acute critic, Dr. Pem

the uncertain mixture of iambic and trochaic verses, of which we have here an example, as a blemish in our poet's versification. I own, I think this mixture has a good effect in the passage before us, and in many others. As in Il Penseroso, v.

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Of heap'd Elysian flow'rs, and hear

Such strains as would have won the ear

Of Pluto, to have quite set free

His half regain'd Eurydice.

These delights if thou canst give,
Mirth, with thee I mean to live.

XIV.

Il Penseroso*.

HENCE vain deluding joys,

The brood of folly without father bred, How little you bestead,

Or fill the fixed mind with all your toys?

from that of most other poets, that it is marked with a degree of dignity. T. Warton.

151. These delights if thou canst give,

Mirth, with thee I mean to live.] The concluding turn of this and the following poem is borrowed from the conclusion of two beautiful little pieces of Shakespeare, entitled, The Passionate Shepherd to his Love, and the Nymph's Reply to the Shepherd;

If these delights thy mind may move, Then live with me, and be my love. These two poems are printed at length in the notes upon the third act of the Merry Wives of Windsor, in Mr. Warburton's edition.

* Il Penseroso is the thoughtful melancholy man; and Mr. Thyer concurred with me in ob

150

serving, that this poem, both in its model and principal circumstances, is taken from a song in praise of melancholy in Fletcher's comedy called The Nice Valor, or Passionate Madman. The reader will not be displeased to see it here, as it is well worth transcribing.

Hence all you vain delights,
As short as are the nights

Wherein you spend your folly;
There's nought in this life sweet,
If man were wise to see❜t,
But only Melancholy,

Oh sweetest Melancholy.
Welcome folded arms, and fix'd eyes,
A sigh that piercing mortifies,
A look that's fasten'd to the ground,
A tongue chain'd up without a sound.
Fountain heads, and pathless groves,
Places which pale passion loves;
Moon-light walks, when all the fowls
Are warmly hous'd, save bats and
owls;

A midnight bell, a parting groan,
These are the sounds we feed upon;

Dwell in some idle brain,

And fancies fond with gaudy shapes possess, As thick and numberless

As the gay motes that people the sun-beams, Or likest hovering dreams

The fickle pensioners of Morpheus' train.

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10

Then stretch our bones in a still forth without a father. Theog.

gloomy valley, Nothing's so dainty sweet, as lovely Melancholy.

1. Hence vain deluding joys, &c.] From a distich, as Mr. Bowle observes, in Sylvester, the translator of Du Bartas, Workes, ed. fol. 1621.

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1084.

p. Hence, hence, false pleasures, momentary joyes," Mocke us no more with your illuding toyes!

The imagery which follows, v. 5. and seq. is immediately from his Cave of Sleep in Du Bartas, p. 316. ed. fol. 1621. (See note on L'Allegro, v. 10.) He there mentions Morpheus, and his fantasticke swarme of dreames green, red,

66

"that hovered"—"

" and yellow, tawny, black, and " and yellow, tawny, black, and

"blew"-and these resemble

Th' unnumbered motes which in the sun do play.

And afterwards he calls the gawdy swarme of dreames." Hence Milton's fancies fond, gaudy shapes, numberless gay motes in the sun-beams, and the hovering dreams of Morpheus. T. Warton.

2. The brood of folly without father bred,] He assigns the same kind of origin to these fantastic joys, as Hesiod does to dreams, which he says the Night brings

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As thik as motis in the sunné beme.

7. But it was now a common illustration. See Drayton, Mus. Elys. Nymph. vi. vol. iv. p. 1494. Randolph's Poems, ed. 1640. p. 97. Caxton's Golden Legend, ed. 1483. fol. 306. b. Sylvester certainly suggested the idea. T. Warton.

10. The fickle pensioners of Morpheus' train.] Fickle is transitory, perpetually shifting, as in Shakespeare's Sonnet cxxvi."Time's fickle glass."-Pensioners became a common appellation in our poetry for train, attendants, retinue, &c. As in the Mids. N. Dr. act ii. s. 1. of the faery queen,

The cowslips tall her pensioners be.

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