Where Milton copies Jonfon, in a MASKE at Wel beck, 1633. When was old Sherwood's head more QUEINTLY CURLD? The fame poet has likewise drawn one or two more ftrokes in the Arcades, from a Masque of Jonfon. In fong 1. he thus breaks forth, This, this is fhe, To whom our vows, and wishes, &c. So Jonfon, in An Entertainment at Althrope, 1603. This is thee, This is thee. Milton in Song 3. pays this compliment to the countess of Derby, Though Syrinx your Pan's mistress were, Yet Syrinx well might wait on her. Thus Jonfon in the fame Entertainment, And the dame has Syrinx' grace. These little traits of likeness juft lead us to conclude, that Milton, before he began to write his Arcades, had recourfe to Jonfon, who was the most VOL. II. * Ver. 15. L1 eminent eminent mafque-writer then extant, for the manner proper to this fpecies of compofition; or that in the courfe of writing it, he imperceptibly fell upon fome of Jonfon's expreffions. It was happily reserved for the taste and genius of Milton, to temper the fantaftic extravagance of the MASQUE, which chiefly confifted in external decoration, with the rational graces of poetry, and to give it the form and fubftance of a legitimate drama. B. vi. c. ix. f. xxix. In vaine, faid then old Melibee, doe men As they do know each can moft aptly use. For not that which men covet moft is beft, Nor that thing worft which men do most refuse: With that they hold: each has his fortune in his breast. XXX. It is the mind that maketh good or ill. In thefe lines he plainly feems to have had his eye on thofe exalted Socratic fentiments, which Juvenal has given us in the clofe of his tenth fatire. The laft-cited laft-cited lines, in particular, point out to us the fenfe in which Spenfer understood the two final controverted verses of that fatire. Nullum numen [abeft] habes, fi fit prudentia; fed TE B. iv. c. viii. f. xxxvii. With easy steps fo foft as foot could STRIDE. Probably we should read fide for STRIDE; though STRIDE occurs in the old quarto. B. v. c. i. f. viii, When fo he lift in wrath uplift his steely brand. Concerning the word BRAND, frequently used by Spenfer, for fword, take the following explication of Hickes. "In the fecond part of the EDDA Islandica, among other appellations, a fword is denominated "BRAND; and glad, or glod, that is, titio, torris, pruna ignita; and the hall of the Odin is faid to be "illuminated by drawn fwords only. A writer of no "lefs learning than penetration, N. Salanus Weft"mannus, in his Differtation, entitled, GLADIUS "SCYTHICUS, pag. 6, 7, obferves, that the anti"ents formed their fwords in imitation of a flaming «fire; and thus, from BRAND a fword, came our ❝ english L1 2 english phrase, to brandish a fword, gladium ftri&tum "vibrando corufcare facere *." B. i. c. ii. f. iv. The penance here mentioned, I fuppose, our author drew from tradition, or romance. From one of these fources, Milton feems to have derived, and applied his annual penance of the devils. Thus were they plagu❜d, And worn with famin, long and ceaseless hiss, This ANNUAL HUMBLING certain number'd days †. Before I close this Supplement, I will hope for the reader's pardon once more, while I lengthen out this digreffion, in order to illuftrate another paffage in Milton. Leviathan, Him haply flumbring on the Norway foam Ling. Vet. Sept. Thefaur. cap. 23. pag. 193. On On the words, as fea-men tell, fays Hume*, " Words "well added to obviate the incredibility of cafting "anchor in this manner." It is likely that Milton never heard this improbable circumftance, of mistaking the whale for an island, from the fea-men; but that he drew it from that paffage in his favorite Ariofto, where Aftolpho, Dudon, and Renaldo are faid to have feen fo large a whale in the fea, near Alcyna's caftle, that they took it for an ifland t. B. iv. c. vi. f. xiv. Like as the lightning brond from riven skie, Not many years before the FAIRY QUEEN Was written, viz. 1561, the fteeple of St. Paul's church was ftruck with lightening, by which means not only the fteeple itself, but the entire roof of the church was confumed. The defcription in this fimile was probably suggested to our author's imagination by this remarkable accident. *NOTE in loc. † C. 6. f. 37. Stow's Survey of London, p. 357. edit. 1633. POSTSCRIPT. |
