And the busy hum of men, Where throngs of knights, and barons bold, 120 66 ale," v. 100. Afterwards, we have another THEN, with the fame fense and reference, "THEN to the well-trod ftage, &c." v. 131. Here too is a transition from mirth in the country to mirth in the city. 118. And the bufy bum of men.] Shakespeare, HINR. V. A. iii. CHOR. -Through the foul womb of night The HUM of either army ftilly founds. A Full Change, as Mr. Bowle obferves, is the best comment on this line. "Hideous HUM" occurs in the Ode on the NATIVITY, ft. xix. "HUMMING tide" was the orignal reading in LYCIDAS, V. 157. 119. Where throngs of knights, and barons bold, 66 In weeds of peace bigh triumphs bold.] By TRIUMPHS we are to understand, Shews, fuch as mafks, revels, &c. And here, that is in these exhibitions, there was a rich difplay of the moft fplendid dreffes, of the WEEDS OF PEACE. Burton fays, in the ANATOMIE OF MELANCHOLY, "Now come tidings of weddings, mafkings, mummeries, "entertainments, trophies, TRIUMPHES, revels, sports, playes." PREF. p. 3. Bacon has an Effay, "Of Mafques and Triumphs." Ess. xxxvii. And in his Effay Of Buildings, he directs a fide of the house "for the Banquet, and a fide for the Houfhold: the one for feafts and TRIUMPHS, and the other for dwelling, &c." Again, "I would have "on the fide of the Banquet, in front, one only Goodly roome, aboue "ftaires, of fome fourtie foot high and vnder it a roome, for a dreffing or preparing place, at TIMES OF TRIUMPHES." Ess. xlv. And in bishop Fyfher's funeral or commemorative Sermon on Margaret countefs of Richmond, edit. Baker, 1708. p. 29. "For when the "kynge her fon was crowned, in all that great TRYUMPHE [show] "and glorye, fhe wept merveyloufly; and lykewyfe at the grete TRYUMPHE of the marryage of prynce Arthur, &c." In the fame fense we are to interpret Drayton, in the Epistle from king Edward to Jane Shore, vol. i. p. 331. ¢་ Where thou shalt fit, and from thy state shall fee The tilts and TRIUMPHS that are done for thee. In B. and Fletcher's CORONATION, A. ii. S. i. vol. ix. p. 29. Let other princes boaft their gaudy TILTING ร With store of ladies, whofe bright eyes In Marlow's EDWARD THE SECOND, 1598. Reed's OLD PLAYS, ii.350. And prodigal gifts bestow'd on Gaveston. So alfo Jonfon, fpeaking of court-follies to be exhibited in a Mask. Holding true intelligence what follies Had crept into her palace, thee refolv'd, Of SPORTS and TRIUMPHS under the pretext, To have them mufter'd in their pomp and fulneffe. And Shakespeare, K. RICHARD ii. A. v. S. ii. What news from Oxford? Hold those jufts and TRIUMPHS? Again, MIDS. N. Dr. A. i. S. i. But I will wed thee in another key, With pomp, with TRIUMPH, and with revelling. Again, where a paraphrastic explanation of the word is added, THIRD And now what refts, but that we spend the time With ftately TRIUMPHS, mirthful comick shows, Such as befit the pleasures of the court. And thus we perceive the precise meaning of Falstaffe's humour to Bardolph. "O, thou art a perpetual TRIUMPH, an everlasting bonfirelight." FIRST P. HENR. iv. A. iii. S. iii. And thus we are to understand our author in SAMS. AGON. V. 1312. This day to Dagon is a folemn feat, With facrifices, TRIUMPH, pomp, and games. See Note on v. 127. Jonfon, in the title of his Masque called Love's TRIUMPH THROUGH CALLIPOLIS means a grand proceffion: and in one of the ftage-directions, it is faid, "the TRIUMPH is feen far off.” 121. With flore of ladies.] An expreffion probably catched from Sydney's ASTROPHEL AND STELLA, ft. 106. But here I doc STORE of faire LADIES meete. 122. Here Mr. Bowle points out a pertinent paffage from PERCEFOREST, V. 1. C. xii. fol. 109. "PRIS ne doit ne peult eftre donne, fans les DAMES: car pour elles font toutes les proueffes faictes, et "par elles en doit eftre le PRIS DONNE." See alfo, C. cxxviii. Among the articles of the JUSTES at Westminster, 1509, is the following. "kem, yf yt is the pleasure of the Kynge, the Queenes Grace and the H "Ladies, Of wit, or arms, while both contend To win her grace, whom all commend. 125 In faffron robe, with taper clear, Ladies, with the advice of the noble and dyfcret juges, to give profes, "after their defervings vnto both the parties." The Antiquarian Society have given a print of this ceremony from a Roll in the College of Arms. See Hardyng's CHRON. C. clv. And Robert of Gloufter, of the tournaments at K. Arthur's Coronation. vol. i. 190. Upe the alures of the caftles the LADYES thare ftode, And byhulde thys noble game, and wyche knyzts were gode, &c. The whole description is literally from Geoff. Monm. B. ix. c. xiv. 125. There let Hymen oft appear In faffron robe, with taper clear, &c.] For, according to Shakespeare, LovE's LAB. LOST, A. iv. S. iii. For revels, dances, masks, and merry hours, Forerun fair love, ftrewing her way with flowers. Among thefe TRIUMPHS, were the masks, pageantries, spectacles, and revelries, exhibited with great splendour, and a waste of allegoric invention, at the nuptials of noble perfonages. Here, of course, the claffical HYMEN was introduced as an actor, properly habited and diftinguished by his characteristic fymbols. Thus in Jonfon's "HYMENEI, or the Solemnities of Mafque and Barriers at a Marriage," there is this ftage-direction. "On the other hand entred HYMEN the god of marriage, in a SAFFRON-COLOURED robe, his underveftures "white, his fockes yellow, a yellow veile of filke on his left arme, "his head crowned with rofes and marjoram, in his right hand a "WORKS, edit. 1616. MASQUES, p. 912. See alfo "The "Defcription of the Mafque with the Nuptiall Songs, At the Lord "Vicount Hadington's Marriage at court on the fhrovetuesday at "night, 1608." Ibid. p. 939. We have the fame representation of HYMEN in an Epitalamium, the ufual indifpenfable accompaniment of a wedding, and often a part of the nuptial mask, in the POETICALL MISCELLANIES of Phineas Fletcher, Cambr. 1633. 4to. p. 58. "TORCH. See where he goes how all the troop he cheereth, And in Spenfer's EPITHALAMION, where HYMEN'S MASK is alfo men- Hymen is awake, And long fince ready, forth his MASKE to moue, With his bright TRADE, that flames with many a flake. See And pomp, and feast, and revelry, 130 See also Beaumont and Fletcher's PHILASTER, A.V. S. i. vol.i. p.158. 159. edit. ut fupr. I'll provide a MASQUE shall make Your HYMEN turn his SAFFRON into a fullen coat. And HYMEN'S MASK in the beginning of the rwO NOBLE KINSMEN of Fletcher, A. i. S. i. p. 5. vol. x. And our author's EL. v. 107. 127. And pomp, and feaft, and revelry, &c.] POMP had a peculiar fignification in thefe pageantries, now not known, as appears from the citations in the Note on v. 119. 131. Then to the well-trod ftage anon.] Milton had not yet gone fuch extravagant lengths in puritanism, as to join with his reforming brethren in condemning the ftage. Yet we find him very early leaning towards religious fubjects for plays, and wishing to turn the drama into the fcriptural channel. In 1641, he tempers his praise of Sopholes and Euripides with recommending SOLOMON'S SONG: and adds, that the "APOCALYPSE of Saint John is the majeftick image of a high "and stately tragedy, shutting up and intermingling her folemn scenes "and acts with a fevenfold chorus of hallelujahs and harping fym"phonies." REASON OF CH. Gov. AGAINT PREL. See PROSEWORKS, ut fupr. vol. i. 61. He severely cenfured the fashionable prac tice of acting plays in our colleges, as inconfiftent with a religious education. At length he wrote a tragedy, but it was on the story of Samfon. And even before a play on fuch a fubject, he apologises for what he had done, by telling his readers, that fome of the primitivą Fathers did not think it unbecoming their fanctity to compofe trage dies, and that Saint Paul had quoted a line of Euripides. When he wrote the PARADISE REGAINED, which was published with SAMSON in 1671, he appears to have imbibed fo ftrong a tincture of fanaticifm, as to decry all human compofitions and profane fubjects. In his profe piece juft cited, he prefers the songs of scripture to "the magnifick "odes and hymns, wherein Pindarus and Callimachus are in most "things worthy, and in their frame judicious, &c." Ibid. But in PARADISE REGAINED, he fpeaks with abfolute contempt and a general disapprobation of the Greek odes, B. iv. 343* Remove their fwelling epithets, thick laid As varnish on a harlot's cheek, the rest H2 Thin If Jonfon's learned fock be on, Or sweetest Shakespeare, fancy's child, And ever against eating cares, Lap me in foft Lydian airs Thin fown with aught of profit or delight, Where God is prais'd aright and godlike men. 135 That is, the odes of Pindar and Callimachus are overlaid with the falfe glare of pompous epithets, do not tend to edification, afford no fpiritual delight, nor are confined, like Sion's panegyrics, to the due praise of God and his faints. 132. If Jonson's learned jock be on.] This expreffion occurs in Jonfon's recommendatory verfes, prefixed to the first folio edition of Shakespeare's plays in 1623. Or when thy sOCKS Were ON. 134. Or fweeteft Shakespeare, fancy's child, Warble his native wood-notes wild.] Mr. Bowle adds to the obvious parallel from Shakespeare, "This CHILD of FANCY, that Ar"mado hight," the following line from JUL. CES. A. v. S. iii. Oh hateful Errour, Melancholy's CHILD! 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 criticifms far above the taste of that period: among thefe is the following judgment on Shakespeare, which was not then, I believe, the general opinion, and which perfectly coincides both with the fentiment and words of the text. "In tragedy, never any expressed a more lofty "and tragic heighth, never any reprefented nature more purely to "the life and where the polifhments of art are most wanting, as probably his learning was not extraordinary, he pleases with a cer"tain WILD and NATIVE elegance, &c." MOD. P. p. 194. 136. Lap me in foft Lydian airs.] An acute critic, Dr. Pemberton on LEONIDAS, confiders the uncertain mixture of iambic and trochaic verfes, of which we have here an example, as a blemish in our poet's verfification, I own I think this mixture has a good effect in the pasfage before us, and in many others. As in IL PENSEROSO, V. 143. That at her flowery work doth fing. |