Collaque bis vivi Pelopis quæ brachia vincant, Et quæcunque vagum cepit amica Jovem. Et quot Susa colunt, Memnoniamque Ninon 1 ; Tu nimium felix intra tua moenia claudis Quot tibi, conspicuæ formaque auroque, puellæ Monia quam subito linquere fausta paro; Stat quoque juncosas Cami remeare paludes, Paucaque in alternos verba coacta modos. h Et quot Susa colunt, Memnoniamque Ninon. 60 65 70 75 80 85 90 Xerxes Susa, anciently a capital city of Susiana in Persia, conquered by Cyrus. marched from this city, to enslave Greece. It is now called Souster. Ninos is a city of Assyria, built by Ninus: Memnon, a hero of the Iliad, had a palace there, and was the builder of Susa. Milton is alluding to oriental beauty. In the next couplet, he challenges the ladies of ancient Greece, Troy, and Rome.-T. WARTON. Nec Pompeianas Tarpëia Musa, &c. The poet has a retrospect to a long passage in Ovid, who is here called "Tarpëia Musa," either because he had a house adjoining to the Capitol, or by way of distinction, that he was the Tarpeian, the general Roman Muse.-T. WARTON. The learned Lord Monboddo pronounces this Elegy to be equal to anything of the elegiac kind, to be found in Ovid, or even in Tibullus."-T. WARTON. Ta 15 ecospores baculo fulgente, solebas Tu si jussus eras acies accire togatas, Alipes, ætherea missus ab arce Patris : Et madeant lacrymis nigra feretra tuis°. 13 20 The person here commemorated is Richard Ridding, one of the university-beadles, and a master of arts of St. John's college, Cambridge. He signed a testamentary codicil, September 23, 1626, proved the eighth of November following.-T. WARTON. * It was a custom at Cambridge, lately disused, for one of the beadles to make proclamation of convocations in every college. This is still in use at Oxford.-T. WARTON. 1 Talis, &c. These allusions are proofs of our author's early familiarity with Homer.-T. WARTON. Magna sepulcrorum regina. A sublime poetical appellation for Death; and much in the manner of his English poetry. -T. WARTON. Homer, "Il." xviii. 104.-Jos. WARTON. ■ Pondus inutile terræ. • Et madeant lacrymis nigra feretra tuis. Here seems to be an allusion to the custom of affixing verses on the pall, formerly perhaps more generally observed at Cambridge. "Lacrymis tuis" are the funeral poems, as "tear" is in "Lycidas," v. 14.-TODD. This Elegy, with the next on the death of bishop Andrewes, the Odes on the death of professor Goslyn and bishop Felton, and the poem on the fifth of November, are very correct and manly performances for a boy of seventeen. This was our author's first year at Cambridge. They discover a great fund and command of ancient literature.— T. WARTON. ELEG. III In Obitum Præsulis Wintoniensis P.-ANNO ETATIS 17. Protinus, en subiit funestæ cladis imago, Fecit in Angliaco quam Libitina solo 9; Dum procerum ingressa est splendentes marmore turres Nec metuit satrapum sternere falce greges. Et memini heroum, quos vidit ad æthera raptos, "Mors fera, Tartareo diva secunda Jovi, Et quod in herbosos jus tibi detur agros? Et crocus, et pulchræ Cypridi sacra rosa? 5 10 15 20 23 30 P Lancelot Andrewes, bishop of Winchester, had been originally master of Pembroke. hall in Cambridge; but long before Milton's time. He died at Winchester-house in Southwark, Sept. 21, 1626.-T. WARTON. Fecit in Angliaco quam Libitina solo. A very severe plague now raged in London and the neighbourhood, of which 35,417 persons are said to have died.-T. WARTON. r Tunc memini clarique ducis, &c. I am kindly formed by Sir David Dalrymple,-"The two generals here mentioned, who died in 1626, were the two champions of the Queen of Bohemia; the Duke of Brunswick, and Count Mansfelt: Frater' means a sworn brother in arms, according to the military cant of those days. The next couplet respects the death of Henry Earl of Oxford, who died not long before." Henry, Earl of Oxford, Shakspeare's patron, died at the siege of Breda in 1625.-T. WARTON. Ovid, "Metam." xiv. 416 :-" Presserat occiduus Tartessia littora Phobus." Et Tartessiaco, &c. "Tar 50 53 » Merry, 455 x 46. We are to understand the straits of Juries, & in hande Jean, —T. WARTON. Buen sare to ne Beure amien of 3 cinous, ** Paradise Lost," b. v. 341; b. Clors is Flors, who, wenning to ancient fable, was beloved by Zephyr. Hence our lives a noi, Pure Lost," 3. v. 16 :— Mild as when Zephyrus in Flors breaches-T. WARTON. * Semper zehinc itero, nate, aburs raca Rev. v. 18- Blessed are the lead which die in the Lord from henceforth: Yes, suth ne Spirit; for they rest rom their labours."-Jos. WARTUN Milton, as he grew old in puritanism, must have looked back with disgust and remorse on the panegyric of this performance, as on one of the sins of his youth, inexperience, and orthodoxy: for he had here celebrated, not only a bishop, but a bishop who supported the dignity and constitution of the Church of England in their most extensive latitude; the distinguished favourite of Elizabeth and James, and the defender of regal prerogative.-T. WARTON. ELEG. IV. Ad THOMAM JUNIUM, preceptorem suum, apud mercatores Anglicos, Hamburgæ agentes, pastoris munere fungentem. ANNO ETATIS 18. CURRE per immensum subito, mea litera, pontum ; I, pete Teutonicos læve per æquor agros; Cæruleamque suis comitatam Dorida nymphis, At tu, si poteris, celeres tibi sume jugales, Prasul, Christicolas pascere doctus oves: Ille quidem est animæ plusquam pars altera nostræ ; Dimidio vitæ vivere cogor ego. Hei mihi! quot pelagi, quot montes interjecti, Me faciunt alia parte carere mei! Carior ille mihi, quam tu, doctissime Graium, Cliniadi, pronepos qui Telamonis erat 2; Thomas Young, now pastor of the church of English merchants at Hamburg, was Milton's private preceptor, before he was sent to St. Paul's school. Aubrey, in his manuscript Life, calls him, "a puritan in Essex, who cutt his haire short." Under such an instructor, Milton probably first imbibed the principles of puritanism: but whatever were Young's religious instructions, our author professes to have received from this learned master his first introduction to the study of poetry, v. 29. This Thomas Young, who appears to have returned to England in or before the year 1628, was Dr. Thomas Young, a member of the Assembly of Divines, where he was a constant attendant, and one of the authors of the book called "Smectymnuus," defended by Milton; and who, from a London preachership in Duke's-place, was preferred by the parliament to the mastership of Jesus College in Cambridge: Neale's Hist. Pur." iii. 122, 59. Clarke, a calvinistic biographer, attests that he was "a man of great learning, of much prudence and piety, and of great ability and fidelity in the work of the ministry,' -" Lives," p. 194.-T. WARTON. W 66 "Take the swift car of Medea, in which she fled from her husband."-T. WARTON. * Aut queis Triptolemus, &c. Triptolemus was carried from Eleusis in Greece, into Scythia, and the most uncultivated regions of the globe, on winged serpents, to teach mankind the use of wheat.-T. WARTON. Y Dicitur occiso quæ ducere nomen ab Hama. Krantzius, a Gothic geographer, says, that the city of Hamburg in Saxony took its name from Hama, a puissant Saxon champion, who was killed on the spot where that city stands by Starchater, a Danish giant. The "Cimbrica clava" is the club of the Dane. In describing Hamburg, this romantic tale could not escape Milton.-T. WARTON. z Dearer than Socrates to Alcibiades, who was the son of Clinias, and has this appel |