And in the original draught of the spirit's prologue to Comus, he had painted these delicious islands with the utmost luxuriance of fancy.

In Lycidas,

WEEP NO MORE, wofull fhepherds, WEEP NO MORE,
For Lycidas, your forrow, is not dead.

Lycidas funk low, but mounted high,

Where other groves, and other ftreams along,
With nectar pure his oozy locks he laves,
And hears the UNEXPRESSIVE NUPTIAL SONGS
In the BLEST KINGDOMS meek of joy and love,
There entertain him all the SAINTS above,
In folemn troops, and fweet focieties,
Who SING, and finging in their glory move.

Henceforth thou art the GENIUS OF THE SHORE.

The fame caft of thought dictated fimilar fentiments on a fimilar occafion.

Par. Loft. 4. 520.

† Ibid. 8. 631.

E 2

Nec

Nec te Lethæo fas quafiviffe fub Orco,

Nec tibi conveniunt lacrymæ, NEC FLEBIMUS ULTRA,
Ite procul lacrymæ, PURUM COLIT ÆTHERA Damon,
HEROUMQUE ANIMAS inter, DIVOSQUE perennes,
Ethereos haurit latices.

Quin tu cæli poft jura recepta

DEXTER ades, PLACIDUSQUE FAVE QUICUNQUE

VOCARIS,

Seu tu nofter eris Damon, five AQUIOR AUDIS
Diodotus, quo te divino nomine cuncti

Calicola norint, SYLVISQUE VOCABERE DAMON.

En etiam tibi VIRGINEI fervantur HONORES;
Ipfe caput nitidum cinctus rutilante corona,
Lataque frondentis geftans umbracula palmæ,
Eternum perages IMMORTALES HYMENÆOS;
CANTUS ubi, choreisque furit lyra misla beatis *.

The notion of the spirit being present at the celestial fymphony, the UNEXPRESSIVE SONG, is again defcribed in the latin poem ad Patrem.

Spiritus æthereos qui circinat aureus orbes,

Nunc quoque fydereis intercinit ipfe choreis,
IMMORTALE melos, et INENARRABILE carmen.

Epitaphium Damonis.

In Comus.

How charming is divine philosophy!

Not harsh and crabbed, as dull fools fuppofe,

But mufical as is Apollo's lute.

So in Paradife Regained,

Hard are the ways of truth, and rough to walk,
Smooth on the tongue difcours'd, pleafing to th' ear,
And tuneable as fylvan pipe or fong*.

So alfo in the Tractate of Education. "I fhall not detain you longer in the demonftration of what we fhould not do; but ftrait conduct you to a hill-fide, where I will point ye out the right path of a virtuous and noble education, laborious indeed at the first ascent, but also fo fmooth, fo green, fo full of goodly prospect, and melodious founds, that the harp of Orpheus was not more charming +."

It may not be difagreeable, to give a sketch of the analogy between fome paffages in Milton's poetical and profe works, hitherto not compared. The following is a most beautiful fimile in Paradise Loft.

As when a fcout,

Through dark and defert ways with peril gone,

* B. 1. v. 478,

Edit. Lond, 1725, 12mo. pag. 344.

All

All night, at laft by break of chearfull dawn,
Obtains the brow of some high-climbing hill,
Which to his eye difcovers unaware

The goodly profpect of fome foreign land,
First feen, or fome renown'd metropolis,
With gliftering fpires, and pinnacles adorn'd,
Which now the rifing fun gilds with his beams*.

Its ground-work is laid in the following paffage from his Hiftory. "By this time, like one who had fet out on his way by night, and travelled through a region of smooth or idle dreams, our history now arrives on the confines where daylight and truth meet us with a clear dawn, representing to our view, though at a far distance, true colours and shapes †.”

In L' Allegro.

Where the great fun begins his ftate,
Robed in flames and amber light

The clouds in thousand liveries dight.

So in a very puerile description of the morning, in one of his Prolufions, " Ipfa quoque tellus, in adventum folis, cultiori fe induit vestitu, nubesque juxta variis CHLAMYDATÆ coloribus, &c ‡.”

Birch's Edit. Milton's Profe Works. vol.

#B.
3. v. 543.

Ibid, vol. 2. pag. 586.

2. pag. 12.

In the poem, At a vacation exercife in the College, &c.

The deep transported mind may foar

-The

Above the wheeling poles, and at heav'ns door
Look in.

Then paffing through the fphears of watchfull fire
And mifty regions of wide air next under,
And hills of fnow, and lofts of piled thunder.

So in another Prolufion, written perhaps about the fame time. "Nec dubitatis, auditores, etiam in cælos volare, ibique illa multiformia nubium fpectra, niviumque coacervatam vim contemplemini..... Grandinifque exinde loculos infpicite, et armamenta fulminum perfcrutemini *."

In Arcades, the genius thus divinely speaks of the mufic of the spheres.

Liften I

To the celeftial fyrens harmony,

That fit upon the nine-enfolded spheres.
And fing to those that hold the vital fheares,
And turn the adamantine spindle round,

On which the fate of gods and men is wound.
Such fweet compulfion doth in mufick lie,
To lull the daughters of neceffity,

Birch's edit. vol. 2. pag. 591.

And