LY CIDA S.

* This poem first appeared in a Cambridge Collection of verfes on the Death of Mr. Edward King, fellow of Chrift's College, printed at Cambridge in a thin quarto, 1638. It confifts of three Greek, nineteen Latin, and thirteen English poems. The three Greek are written by William Ivefon, John Pots, and Henry More, the great Platonic theologist, and then or foon afterwards a fellow of Chrift's college. The nineteen Latin are by Anonymous, N. Felton, R. Mafon, John Pullen, Jofeph Pearfon, R. Browne, J. B. Charles Mason,

Coke, Stephen Anftie, Jofeph Hoper, R. C. Thomas Farnaby, Mr. King's Schoolmafter, but not the celebrated rhetorician, Henry King, Mr. Edward King's brother, John Hayward chancellor and canon refidentiary of Lincoln, M. Honywood who has two copies, William Brearley, Chriftopher Bainbrigg, and R.Widdrington. The thir teen English, by Henry King abovementioned, J. Beaumont, Anonymous, John Cleveland the Poet, William More, William Hall, Samfon Briggs, Ifaac Olivier, J. H. C. B. R. Brown, T. Norton, and our author John Milton, whofe Monody, entitled LYGIDAS, and fubfcribed with his initials only, ftands laft in the Collection. J. H.'s copy is infcribed, "To the deceafed's vertuous Sifter, the Ladie Margaret Loder." She here appears to have lived near Saint Chad's church at Litchfield, and to have excelled in painting. Cleveland's copy is very witty. But the two concluding lines are hyperboles of

wit.

Our teares fhall feem the Irish feas,
We floating Ilands, living Hebrides.

The contributors were not all of Chrift's College. The Greek and Latin pieces have this title, which indeed ferves for the title to the book, "Jufta EDOVARDO KING naufrago, ab Amicis "mærentibus, amoris et μvéas xe. Si recte calculum ponas, ubique "naufragium eft. Petron. Arb. CANTABRIGIE, Apud Thomam "Buck et Rogerum Daniel, celeberrime Academiæ typographos. "1638." The English are thus intitled, "Obfequies to the memorie "of Mr. Edward King, Anno Dom. 1638. Printed by Th. Buck "and R. Daniel, printers to the Vniverfitie of Cambridge. 1638." To the whole is prefixed a profe inscriptive panegyric on Mr. King, containing fhort notices of his life, family, character, and deplorable catastrophe. This I fufpect to have been compofed either by Milton A

or

In this Monody the author bewails a learned friend, unfortunately drowned in his paffage from Chester on the Irish seas, 1637. And by occafion foretels the ruin of our corrupted clergy, then in their highth.

ET once more, O ye Laurels, and once more

YET

Ye Myrtles brown, with Ivy never fere,

or Henry More, who perhaps were two the most able mafters in Latinity which the college could now produce.

Peck examined this first edition of LYCIDAS, which he borrowed of Baker the antiquary, very fuperficially. And all that Milton's last editor, the learned bishop of Bristol, knew about it, is apparently taken from Peck.

Peck is of opinion, that Milton's poem is placed laft in this Cambridge Collection, on account of his fuppofed quarrel with Chrift's college. A more probable and obvious reafon may be affigned. Without entering at prefent into the ftory of Milton's difpute with his college, I fhall only just observe, that when he wrote LYCIDAS, he had quitted the univerfity about five years, and that he now refided with his father and mother at Horton in Buckinghamshire: he was therefore folicited by his friends whom he had left behind at Christ's college, to afflift on this occafion, and, who certainly could never intend to difgrace what they had asked as a favour. In a collection of this fort, the laft is the place of honour.

V.1. Yet once more, &c.] The best poets imperceptibly adopt phrases and formularies from the writings of their contemporaries or immediate predeceffours. An Elegy on the death of the celebrated Countefs of Pembroke, fir Philip Sydney's fifter, begins thus.

Yet once againe, my Muse.

See SONGES AND SONNETTES OF VNCERTAIN AUCTOURS, added to Surrey's and Wyat's Poems, edit. Tottell, fol. 85.

It is a remark of Peck, which has been filently adopted by doctor Newton, that this exordium, Yet once more, has an allufion to fome of Milton's former poems on fimilar occafions, fuch as, ON THE DEATH

OF

I come to pluck your berries harsh and crude,
And with forc'd fingers rude

OF A FAIR INFANT, EPITAPH ON THE MARCHIONESS OF Win, CHESTER, &c. But why should it have a reftrictive reference, why a retrofpect to his elegiac pieces in particular? It has a reference to his poetical compofitions in general, or rather to his last poem which was COMUS. He would fay, "I am again, in the midst of other "ftudies, unexpectedly and unwillingly called back to poetry, again "compelled to write verfes, in confequence of the recent difaftrous "lofs of my fhipwrecked friend, &c." Neither are the plants here mentioned, as fome have fufpected, appropriated to elegy. They are fymbolical of general poetry. Theocritus, in an Epigram which fhall be cited in the next note, dedicates Myrtles to Apollo. Doctor Newton, however, has fuppofed, that Milton, while he mentions the laurel in the character of a poet as facred to Apollo, adds the myrtle the tree of Venus, to fhew that he was of a proper age for love. It is at least certain, that Milton, whatever hidden meaning he might have in enumerating the Myrtle, was of a proper age for love, being now twenty. eight years old. In the mean time, I would not exclude another probable implication: by plucking the berries and the leaves of laurel, myrtle, and ivy, he might intend to point out the pastoral or rural turn of his poem.

2. Ye myrtles brown.] Brown and Black are claffical epithets for the Myrtle. Theocritus, EPIGR. i. 3.

Ταὶ δὲ ΜΕΛΑΜΦΥΛΛΑΙ ΔΑΦΝΑΙ τὶν, Πύθιε Παίαν.

At nigra filia babentes myrti tibi, Pythie Apollo.

Ovid, ART. AMATOR. Lib. iii. 690.

Ros maris et lauri NIGRAQUE MYRTUS olet.

Horace contrafts the brown myrtle with the green ivy, Op.i.xxxv.17. Læta quod pubes edera virenti

Gaudeat, PULLA magis atque MYRTO.

ibid. With ivy never fere.] A notion has prevailed, that this pasto!ral is written in the Doric dialect, by which in English we are to understand an antiquated ftyle. Doctor Newton obferves, "The rea"der cannot but observe, that there are more antiquated and obfo"lete words in this than in any other of Milton's poems." Of the three or four words in LYCIDAS which even we now call obsolete, almost all are either used in Milton's other poems, or were familiar to readers and writers of verfe in the year 1638, The word sere in the

Shatter your leaves before the mellowing year.
Bitter constraint, and fad occafion dear,
Compels me to disturb your feafon due :
For Lycidas is dead, dead ere his prime,
Young Lycidas, and hath not left his peer:
Who would not fing for Lycidas? he knew
Himself to fing, and build the lofty rhime.

5

ΤΟ

text, one of the most uncommon of thefe words, occurs in PARADISE LOST, B. x. 1071.

With matter SERE foment.

And in our author's PSALMS, ii. 27.

If once his wrath take fire like fuel SERE.

5. Shatter your leaves before the mellowing year.] So in PARAD. L.

B. x.

11.

1066.

To fing, and build the lofty rhyme.] That is, "the lofty verse." This is unquestionably the fenfe of the word rhyme, in PARAD. L. B. i. 16.

Things unattempted yet in profe or rhyme.

From Ariofto, ORL. FUR. C.i. ft. ii.

Cofa non detta in profa mai, ne in RIMA.

Where Harrington for once is a faithful and intelligent tranflator.
A tale in profe ne VERSE yet fung or said.

I cannot however admit bishop Pearce's reasoning, who fays, "Mil"ton appears to have meant a different thing by RHIME here from "RIME in his Preface, where it is fix times mentioned, and always fpelled without an b: whereas in all the Editions, RHIME in this "place of the poem was spelled with an b. Milton probably meant a "difference in the thing, by making fo conftant a difference in the fpelling; and intended that we should here understand by RHIME "not the jingling found of like Endings, but Verfe in general." REVIEW OF THE TEXT of PARAD. L. Lond. 1733. p.5. At leaft in this paffage

of

He must not flote upon his watry bier
Unwept, and welter to the parching wind,
Without the meed of fome melodious tear.
Begin then, Sifters of the facred well,
That from beneath the feat of Jove doth spring,
Begin, and somewhat loudly sweep the string.

15

of LYCIDAS, we have no fuch nicety of fpelling, but RHYME appears in the editions of 1638, 1645, and 1673. Nor are the bishop's proofs of the true meaning of the word at all to the point, from Spenfer's Sonnet to Lord Buckhurft, and the FAERIE QUEENE, i. vi. 13. He rather might have alleged the following inftance from Spenfer's OCTOBER.

Thou kenst not, Percy, how the RIME fhould rage,

O, if my temples were diftaind with wine,

And girt in girlonds of wilde iuie twine,

How should I reare the Mufe on ftately ftage,
And teach her tread aloft in buskin fine,

With queint Bellona in her equipage!

That is, "my poetry fhould then mount to the highest elevations of "the tragic and epic mufe." But Fletcher more literally, in an Ode to his brother Beaumont, on his Imitations of Ovid. ft. ii.

The wanton Ovid whofe enticing RIMES.

It is wonderful that Bentley, with all his Grecian predilections, and his critical knowledge of the precife original meaning of PYOMOΣ, fhould in the paffage from PARADISE LOST, have wished to fubftitute SONG for RHIME. Gray, who ftudied and copied Milton with true penetration and taste, in his Music-ODE, ufes RHYME in Milton's fenfe.

Meek Newton's felf bends from his state fublime,
And nods his hoary head, and liftens to the RHIME.

12. He must not flote upon his watry bier.] So Jonfon, in CYNTHIA'S REVELLS, acted by the boys of queen Elizabeth's Chapel 1600. A.i. S.ii. Sing fome mourning ftraine

Over his WATRIE HEARSE.

13. Unwept, and welter, &c.] Thus in our author's EPITAPHIUM DAMONIS, a Latin poem on the death of another of his friends. v.28. INDEPLORATO non comminuere fepulchro.

17. Begin, and fomewhat loudly sweep the ftring.] Tickell reads louder, in his edition of 1720, against the authority of the early editions, which