And praife thee from their loathsome bed, Shall they thy loving kindness tel On whom the grave hath hold? Ibid. v. 65. Thy fierce wrath over me doth flow, Thy threatenings cut me through; All day they round about me go, Like waves they me purfue. T. WARTON, A PARAPHRASE ON PSALM CXIV. * This and the following Pfalm were done by the Author at fifteen years old. WHEN the bleft feed of Terah's faithful fon, After long toil, their liberty had won ; 5 And past from Pharian fields to Canaan land, 10 * This and the following Pfalm are Milton's earliest performances. The first he afterwards translated into Greek. In the laft are fome very poetical expreffions: "The golden-treffed fun, God's thunder-clafping hand, The moon's Spangled fifters bright, and Above the reach of mortal eye." T. WARTON. Ver. S. his froth-becurled head] P. Fletcher, Milton's contemporary, has the "fea's proud white-curled head," Pifc. Ecl. edit. 1633, p. 1. ToрD. Ver. 9, Jordan's clear streams recoil, The As a faint hoft that hath receiv'd the foil.] rhymes are probably from Sylvefter, as Mr. Dunfter alfo notices in his "Confiderations on Milton's early Reading." See Du Bart. p. 337, edit. 1621. "Ay Satan aims our conftant faith to foil, "But God doth feal it, never to recoil." The high huge-bellied mountains skip, like rams Amongst their ewes; the little hills, like lambs. Why fled the ocean? And why skipt the mountains? Why turned Jordan toward his crystal fountains? Foil is defeat, a fubftantive used in the fame fenfe by Harington in his Orl. Furiofo, and by Shakspeare repeatedly. The verb, as in v. 65 of the next Pfalm, is frequent in Spenfer: See Faer. Qu. ii. x. 48, v. xi. 33, vi. 34, &c. And Harington's Orl. Fur. 1607, p. 1, p. 91, &c. The fubftantive, and the verb often, occur in Par. Loft. Sandys, like Milton, thus finely employs recoil, Pfalm lxxvii. "The Deeps were troubled at thy fight, TODD. Ver. 11. The high huge-bellied mountains] There is a fimilar compound in the first line of Fuimus Troes, which however was not published till long after Milton's tranflation was written, viz, in 1633. "As in the vaults of this big-bellied earth." But perhaps the following extravagant imagery in Sylvester, p. 9, might fuggeft, to the young poet, the epithet huge-bellied: "the lowly fields, "Puft up, fhall fwell to huge and mighty hils." Lifle, in his tranflation of Part of Du Bartas, debafes a poetical paffage, where he defcribes the Almighty hearkening to the prayers of Noah and bidding the Flood to ceafe, by a piece of fimilar bombaft, edit. 1625, p. 31. “Th' Eternall heard their voice, and bid his Triton found "Retreate vnto the flood: then, waue by waue, to bound "The waters haft away; all riuers know their bankes, "And feas their wonted thore; hils grow with swelling flanks." TODD. Ver, 13. Why fled the ocean? &c.] The original is weakened. The question thould have been afked by an addrefs, or an appeal, to the fea and mountains. T. WARTON. Shake, Earth; and at the prefence be aghaft 15 Of Him that ever was, and fhall laft; aye That glaffy floods from rugged rocks can crush, And make foft rills from fiery flint-ftones gush! Ver. 15. Shake, Earth; and at the prefence be aghaft Of Him that ever was, and aye shall laft ;] He was now only fifteen! T. WARTON. The reader will fcarcely forbear to notice the emphatick comprehenfion of Mr. Warton's eulogium. This paffage indeed well deferves the most cordial tribute of admiration. noble germ of poetick genius. DUNSTER. It is a Ver. 16. that ever was, and aye shall laft ;] Thẻ reduplication of aye for ever, Mr. Dunfter obferves, is in the very opening of Sylvefter's Du Bartas; in which aye for ever is indeed most frequent.—But this was the common phraseólogy of the time. Spenfer, Drummond, Harington, and many other poets, afford innumerable inftances. I will cite an example of the reduplication from Groue's Songs and Sonnettes, 1587. bl. 1. "Then aye perfift in ftedfaft faith "For euer to endure." Milton retains the form of aye in one of his latest published poetical performances, as given in his Hift. of England, 1670, See p. 104 of this volume. TODD. Prior has Ver. 17. That glaffy floods] See Comus, v. 861. copied "the glafly floods," in his Solomon, B. ii. 683. Donne has "the glafie deep," Poems, edit. 1633, p. 14. Our poets borrowed from Virgil. Whence alfo Buchanan, Jephthes, Chor. "Jordanis vitreo gurgite &c." And Grotius, Silv. lib. ii. “Et vitreis Solvæus aquis." TODD. Ibid. That glafly floods from rugged rocks can crush, And make foft rills from fiery flint-ftones gufh!] The rhymes, as Mr. Dunfter remarks, are Sylvefter's, Du Bart. p. 30, of rain: "And so one humour doth another crush, "Till to the ground their liquid pearls do gufh." The gushing rill, I apprehend, was dictated by the account of the miracle recorded in Scripture, Pf. cv. 41, Ifaiah xlviii. 21; perhaps without any obligation to Sylvefter's use of gush, or to Spenfer's, Faer. Qu. vi. iii. 50. i. viii. 10, v. vi. 31, &c. Sandys, in paraphrafing the miracle of Mofes, agrees with Milton: "Even from their barren fides the waters gufh'd, "And down in rivers through the vallies rush'd." PSALM CXXXVI. LET us, with a gladfome mind, O, let us his praises tell, Who doth the wrathful tyrants quell. For his fc. Who, with his miracles, doth make Amazed Heaven and Earth to shake. For his &c. 15 Ver. 5. Let us blaze his name abroad,] So Spenfer, of his knights and ladies, Faer. Qu. i. i. 1. "Whofe praifes hauing flept in filence long, "To blazon broad amongst her learned throng." See alfo blaze abroad in Milton's 86th Pf. v. 43. And Barret's Alvearie, 1580, in voc. blofe abroad. TODD. |