Thee bright-hair'd Vesta long of yore His daughter fhe, in Saturn's reign, Such mixture was not held a ftain : Of woody Ida's inmost grove, And fable stole of Cyprus lawn, 25 30 35 25. Mr. Bowle thinks, that this genealogy, but without the poetry, is from Gower's Song, in PERICLES PRINCE OF TYRE. More efpecially as the verses immediately follow thofe quoted from the fame Song, L'ALLEGR. v. 23. See edit. Malone, SUPPL. Sh. vol. ii. 7. With whom the father liking took, And her to inceft did provoke, &c. The meaning of Milton's allegory is, that Melancholy is the daughter of Genius, which is typified by the bright-haired goddess of the eternal fire. Saturn, the father, is the god of Saturnine difpofitions, of penfive and gloomy minds. 30. Before Saturn was driven from his antient kingdom by his fon Jupiter, nursed on mount Ida. 32. Sober, stedfaft, and demure.] Two of thefe epithets occur together, to exprefs chastity, in Skelton's PHILIP SPARROW, edit. 1736. p. 249. Goodly maiftres Jane, SOBER, DEMURE, Diane! 35 And fable frole, &c.] Here is a character and propriety in the ufe of the STOLE, which, in the poetical phrafeology of the prefent day, is not only perpetually misapplied, but mifreprefented. It was a Over thy decent shoulders drawn. veil which covered the head and shoulders; and, as Mr. Bowle obferves, was worn only by such of the Roman matrons, as were dif tinguished for the ftrictness of their modefty. He refers us to the Le IMAGINI delle DONNE, di ENEA VICO. In Vinegia, 1557. P. 77. 4to. See alfo Albert Durer's MELANCOLIA, where this defcription is exactly answered. Ibid. Of cyprus lawn.] Undoubtedly CYPRUS is the true fpelling. "Quinque aurifrigia, quorum tria funt OPERE CYPRENSI no"biliffime, et unum eft de opere Anglicano." Lib. Anniv. BASILIC. VATICAN. apud Rubeum in Vit. Bonifacii viii. P. P. p. 345. See alfo Charpentier, SUPPL. GLOSS. Cang. tom. i. col. 391. "Unum "pluviale de canceo rubeo, cum aurifrigio de opere CYPRENSI." See LIFE of SIR T. POPE, p. 343. edit. 2. It is a thin transparent texture. So Shakespeare, TWELFTH NIGHT, A. iii. S. i. A CYPRUS, not a bosom, Hides my poor heart. And, what is more immediately to our purpose, in Autolycus's Song And Donne, POEMS, edit. 4to. 1634. p. 130. And, in Jonfon's EPIGRAMS, lxxiii. Your partie-per-pale picture, one half-drawn Dryden, by a moft ridiculous misapprehenfion, in his tranflation of the firft Georgic, has "fbroud-like cypress," v. 25. Here fays Milbourne, "Did not Mr. D. think of that kind of Cypress used often for "scarfs and hatbands at funerals formerly, or for WIDOW'S VAILS?" The last sense seems to explain Milton. See the PURITAN, Stagedirection, A. i. S. i. What has been faid, illuftrates a paffage in TWELFTH NIGHT, perhaps misunderstood, which also reflects light on our text. A. ii. S. iv. Come away, come away, Death, And in SAD CYPRESS let me be laid. That is, in a shroud, not in a coffin of cypress-wood, See And looks commercing with the skies, Thy rapt foul fitting in thine eyes : See alfo Drummond's Sonnets, Edingb. 1616. P. i. Sign. B. The Latmian fhepherd in a trance defcries. 37. Come, but keep thy wonted ftate, 40 With even step, and mufing gate.] So Drayton, evidently one of Milton's favourites, in the MUSES ELYSIUM, Nymph. vii. vol. iv. p. 1466. So goddefs-like a gate, Each step fo full of majesty and flate. And Jonfon in CYNTHIA'S REVELS, A. v. S. vi. It STATE in WONTED manner KEEP. may be obferved, that to KEEP STATE feems to have been antiently a familiar phrafe and combination. As in ALBUMAZAR, 1614. Reed's OLD PL. vii. 239. They come. KEEP STATE, KEEP STATE, or all's discover'd. Again, in B. and Fletcher's WILD-GOOSE CHASE, A. v. S. vi. vol. v. P. 259. What a STATE fhe KEEPS! How far off they fit from her! Jonfon in his verfes to Selden, "The Monarch of Letters," UNDERW. Vol. vi. 366. I first falute thee fo, and gratulate With that thy ftile, and KEEPING of thy STATE. And Jonfon has "But kept an EVEN gait." Vol. vii. 32. 40. Tby rapt foul fitting in thine eyes.] Thy RAVISHED foul. So in COMUS, V.794. "Kindle my RAPT fpirits." And in many other paffages of our author. Browne, in his PASTORALS, has RAPE, a verb, often. And Drayton, EcL. v. vol. iv. p. 1407. TO RAPE the field with touches of his ftring. Jonfon has RAP. MASQUES, vol. v. p. 28. And did fo lately rap From forth the mother's lap. RAPT is sometimes, but lefs frequently, found in its literal fenfe. As in Drayton, LEGEND of P. Gavefton, vol. ii. p. 569. Like Sportfull Jove with his RAPT Phrygian page. And in our author, PARAD. L. B iii. 522. RAPT in a chariot drawn by fiery fteeds. And There held in holy paffion ftill, Forget thyself to marble, till With a fad leaden downward caft Thou fix them on the earth as fast: And join with thee calm Peace, and Quiet, Ay round about Jove's altar fing: And in PARAD. REG. B. ii. 40. What accident Hath RAPT him from us? 45 Perhaps in the two following paffages, if not in the preceding inftance, from the PARADISE LOST, the literal and metaphorical fenfes are blended. B. xi. 706. Him the moft High RAPT in a balmy cloud with winged fteeds And B. vii. 23. Standing on earth, not RAPT above the pole. As in Pope's MESSIAH, V. 7. RAPT into future times the bard begun. Compare Spenfer, F. Q. iv. ix. 6. That with the fweetneffe of her rare delight The prince half RAPT. ————— And Berni, ORL. INAM. L. i. C. xxv. 42. "Rapito in paradifo." 41. There held in holy paffion fill, Forget thyself to marble.-] It is the fame fort of petrifaction in our author's EPITAPH on Shakespeare. There thou our fancy of itself bereaving, Doft make us MARBLE BY TOO MUCH CONCEIVING. In both inftances, excefs of thought is the cause. 47. And bears the Mufes in a ring Ay round about Jove's altar fing.] From the Greek poets. He had given almost the fame mythology before, in one of his Prolufions. And add to these retired Leifure, That in trim gardens takes his pleasure; 50 "Hinc quoque Mufarum, circa Jovis altaria dies noctefque faltantium, "ab ultima rerum origine increbruit fabula." PROSE-WORKS, ii. 588. 50. That in trim gardens takes his pleasure.] Affectation and falfe elegance were now carried to the most elaborate and abfurd excess in gardening. Lauremburgius, a phyfician of Roftoch in Germany, has defcribed fome monuments, as they may be called, of this extravagance. He fays, that at Chartres in France there was a garden, where the Seven Wife Men of Greece, the Twelve Labours of Hercules, with clipped explanatory verfes to each Labour, the Three Graces, the Feast of the Gods, and the Accubitus Romanorum, were all flourish. ing in immortal box. He adds, that the gardens of Italy abounded in a wonderful variety of these verdant fculptures. He then comes to the gardens of England. "Eodem artificio commendabiles funt multi "Angliæ horti interque illos, is qui est Hamptenkurti, in quo e liguftro effigiata funt animalia varia, infignia Regum Angliæ, plurimaque alia." That is, "Many gardens of England are to be "praised for the fame curious devices: and, among others, the Gar"den at Hampton-Court, where in privet are figured various animals, "the royal Arms of England, and many other things." HORTICUL TURA, Lib. i. cap. 29. §. iii. p. 125. Francof. ad Mon. 1631. 4to. The pedantry of vegetation has not yet expired in fome of our remote counties. 66 Milton, I fear, alludes to the TRIM Garden in ARCADES, V. 46. Where the Genius fays, that it was one of his employments, To curl the grove In ringlets quaint, and wanton windings wove. This was furely to derogate from the dignity of the high office and character of his Genius, who is degraded to a friffeur. And in CoMUS, in his defcription of the Hefperian gardens, I fufpect we have fomething of L'Architecture du Jardinage, in the Spruce fpring, the cedarn allies, the crifped shades and bowers, v. 984. 985. 990. But he had changed his ideas of a garden when he wrote the PARADISE LOST, where the brooks, but not the shades, are crifped. B. iv. 237. I have a scarce black-lettered quarto, printed in the reign of queen Elizabeth called the GARDENER'S LABYRINTH, &c. It has numerous wood-cuts, exhibiting great choice of meanders both for flowers and trees, but too intricate for modern fagacity, with plans and patterns of various inventions for putting both nature and art upon the rack in the formation of a fafhionable garden. But 1 forbear, efpecially in the narrowness of a note, to say more on a subject, which has been recently |