Sunk though he be beneath the watry floor; And yet anon repairs his drooping head, And tricks his beams, and with new-fpangled ore waves, Where other groves, and other streams along, 175 172. Through the dear might of him who walk'd the waves.] Of him, over whom the waves of the fea had no power. It is a defignation of our Saviour, by a miracle which bears an immediate reference to the fubject of the poem. 176. —The unexpressive nuptial fong.] So in the Latin poem AD PATREM, V. 37. Immortale melos et INENARRABILE Carmen. 179. In folemn troops, and fweet Societies.] Compare PARAD. L. B. xi. 80. From their blifsfull bowres Of amaranthine fhade, fountain, or fping, In FELLOWSHIPS of JOY, the fons of light Hafted. Milton's angelic fyftem, containing many whimfical notions of the affociations and fubordinations of these fons of light, is to be seen at large in Thomas Aquinas and Peter Lombard. But it was not yet worn out in the common theology of his own times. That fing, and finging in their glory move, eyes. 180 And wipe the tears for ever from his 185 This doctrine, which makes fuch a figure in PARADISE LOST, he very gravely delivers in his CH. GOVERNM. B. i. ch. i. "The Angels "themselves are diftinguished and quaternioned into their celeftial "princedoms and fatrapies." PROSE-WORKS, i. 41. The fame fyftem, which afforded fo commodious a machinery for modern christian poctry, is frequent in the Italian poets. 188. He touch'd the tender tops of various quills.] Some readers are here puzzled with the idea of fuch STOPS as belong to the Organ. By STOPS he here literally means what we now call the HOLES of a flute or any species of pipe. Thus in Browne, BRITAN. PAST. B. ii. S. iii. p. 85. ut fupr. What muficke is there in a fhepherd's quill, If but a STOP or two therein we spie? And in HAMLET, where the Players Enter with Recorders. "Haml. "Govern these ventages with your finger and thumb:- Look you, "these are the STOPS. Guild. You would play upon me: you would "feem to know my STOPS, &c." A. iii. S. ii. And in the INDUCTION to the SECOND P. HENR. iv. Rumour is a pipe Blown by furmifes, jealoufies, conjectures; That is, "fo cafily to be plaid upon." And Drayton, Mus. ELYS. Euterpe, next to thee will we proceed, That firft found'ft out the muficke on the reed; To the fhrill cornet and the fife; Teaching With eager thought warbling his Doric lay: And now the fun had stretch'd out all the hills, And now was dropt into the western bay; At last he rofe, and twitch'd his mantle blue: 191 To morrow to fresh woods, and pastures new*. Teaching every STOP and kay To thofe that on the pipe do play. And our author in Coмus, v. 345. Or found of pastoral reed with oaten STOPS. He mentions the ftops of an organ, but in another manner, in PARAD. L. B. xi. 561. See alfo B. vii. 596. In Drummond, STOP is applied to a Lute, but I think metathețically for note. SONNETS, Edingb. 1616. 4to. Signat. H. 2. Thy pleafing notes be pleafing notes no more, But orphane wailings to the fainting eare; Each STOPPE a figh, each sound draws forth a teare. Unless he means CLOSE, or interval. 189. With eager thought warbling bis Doric lay] See Note on v. 2. This is a DORIC Lay, becaufe Theocritus and Moschus had respectively written a bucolic on the deaths of Daphnis and Bion. And the name LYCIDAS, now firft imported into English paftoral, was adopted, not from Virgil, but from Theocritus, IDYLL. vii. 27. · ΛΥΚΙΛΑ φίλε, φαντὶ τὸ πάντες Ἔμμεν ΣΥΡΙΚΤΑΝ μεγ ̓ ὑπείροχον, ἔντε νομεῦσι Care Lycida, omnes te dicunt Effe eximium fiftulatorem, inter et paftores, This character is afterwards fully juftified in the Song of Lycidas. And he is ftyled "dear to the Mufes," v. 95. And our author's fhepherd Lycidas could "build the lofty rhyme." A Lycidas is again mentioned by Theocritus, IDYLL. xxvii. 41. And a Lycidas fupports a Sicilian dialogue in one of Bion's Bucolics, vii. See EPITAPH, DAMON. V. 132. 193. To morrow to fresh woods, and paftures new.] So Ph. Fletcher, PURPLE ISL. C. vi. ft. 77. p. 84. edit. 1633. 4to. To morrow fhall ye feaft in PASTURES NEW, E t Doctor * Addison says, that He who defires to know whether he has a true tafte for History or not, fhould confider, whether he is pleased with Livy's manner of telling a story; fo, perhaps it may be faid, that He who wishes to know whether he has a true taste for Poetry or not, fhould confider, whether he is highly delighted or not with the perufal of Milton's LYCIDAS. If I might venture to place Milton's Works, according to their degrees of Poetic Excellence, it fhould be perhaps in the following order; PARADISE LOST, COMUS, SAMSON AGONISTES, LYCIDAL, L'ALLEGRO, IL PENSEROSO. The three last are in such an exquifite ftrain, fays Fenton, that though he had left no other monuments of his genius behind him, his name had been immortal. Dr. J. WARTON, Doctor Johnfon obferves, that LYCIDAS is filled with the heathen deities; and a long train of mythological imagery, fuch as a College eafily fupplies. But it is fuch alfo, as even the Court itself could now have cafily fupplied. The public diverfions, and books of all forts and from all forts of writers, more especially compofitions in poetry, were at this time overrun with claffical pedantries. But what writer, of the fame period, has made these obfolete fictions the vehicle of fo much fancy and poetical description? How beautifully has he applied this fort of allufion, to the Druidical rocks of Denbighfhire, to Mona, and the fabulous banks of Deva! It is objected, that its paftoral form is difgusting. But this was the age of paftoral: and yet LYCIDAS has but little of the bucolic cant, now fo fashionable. The Satyrs and Fauns are but just mentioned. If any trite rural topics occur, how are they heightened! Together both, ere the high lawns appear'd Batt'ning our flocks with the fresh dews of night. Here the day-break is defcribed by the faint appearance of the upland lawns under the first gleams of light: the funfet, by the buzzing of the chaffer: and the night sheds her frefb dews on their flocks. We cannot blame paitoral imagery, and paftoral allegory, which carry with them so much natural painting. In this piece there is perhaps more poetry than for row. But let us read it for its poetry. It is true, that paffion plucks no berries from the myrtle and ivy, nor calls upon Arethuse and Mincius, nor tells of rough Satyrs with cloven heel. But poetry does this; and in the hands of Milton, does it with a peculiar and irresistible charm. Subordinate poets exercise no invention, when they tell how a fhepherd has loft his companion, and muft feed his flocks alone without any judge of his skill in piping: but Milton dignifies and adorns these common artificial incidents with unexpected touches of picturesque beauty, with the graces of fentiment, and with the novelties of origimal genius. It is faid "here is no art, for there is nothing new." But this objection will vanish, if we confider the imagery which Milton has raised from local circumstances. Not to repeat the ufe he has made of the mountains of Wales, the isle of Man, and the river Dee, near which Lycidas was shipwrecked; let us recollect the introduction of the romantic fuperftition of Saint Michael's Mount in Cornwall, which overlooks the Irish feas, the fatal fcene of his friend's difafter. But the poetry is not always unconnected with paffion. The poet lavishly defcribes an antient fepulchral rite, but it is made preparatory to a stroke of tenderness. He calls for a variety of flowers to decorate his friend's hearfe, fuppofing that his body was prefent, and forgetting for a while that it was floating far off in the ocean. If he was drowned, it was fome confolation that he was to receive the decencies of burial. This is a pleafing deception: it is natural and pathetic. But the real catastrophe recurs. And this circumstance again opens a new vein of imagination. Our author has been cenfured for mixing religious difputes with pagan and paftoral ideas. But he had the authority of Mantuan and Spenfer, now confidered as models in this way of writing. Let me add, that our poetry was not yet purged from its Gothic combinations; nor had legitimate notions of discrimination and propriety fo far prevailed, as fufficiently to influence the growing improvements of English compofition. These irregularities and incongruities muft not be tried by modern criticism. |