Yet more; the ftroke of death he must abide, Then lies him meekly down faft by his brethrens'

fide.

IV.

These latest scenes confine my roving verfe;
To this horizon is my Phœbus bound:

His god-like acts, and his temptations fierce,
And former fufferings, other where are found; 25
Loud o'er the reft Cremona's trump doth found;
Me fofter airs befit, and fofter ftrings

Oflute, or viol still, more apt for mournful things.

"that made difguifes

"For the king's fons, and writ in ballad royall
"Daintily well."

But Spenfer was moft probably in Milton's mind. See Faer.
Qu. iii. iii. 52.

"Now this, now that, twixt them they did devize,

"And diverse plots did frame to mask in ftrange disguise."

TODD.

Ver. 22. So edit. 1673. "Thefe later," 1645. T. WARTON. Ver. 26. Loud o'er the reft Cremona's trump] Our poet feems here to be of opinion, that Vida's Chriftiad was the finest Latin poem on a religious subject; but perhaps it is excelled by Sannazarius De Partu Virginis, a poem of more vigour and fire than this work of Vida. Jos. WARTON.

Ver. 28. Of lute, or viol ftill,] Gentle, not noify, not loud, as is the trumpet. It is applied to found in the fame fenfe, I Kings, xix. 12. "A ftill small voice." Hen. V. A. iv. S. i.

"The hum of either army ftilly founds."

And in Il. Penf. v. 127.

"Or ufher'd with a fhower ftill."

And in First P.

This is in oppofition to winds piping loud, in the verfe before.

V.

30

Befriend me, Night, best patronefs of grief;
Over the pole thy thickest mantle throw,
And work flatter'd fancy to belief,
That Heaven and Earth are colour'd with mywoe;
My forrows are too dark for day to know:

my

The leaves fhould all be black whereon I write, And letters, where my tears have wash'd, a wannifh white.

35

Its application is not often to found. Hence ftill-born, of a child born dead. T. WARTON.

Ver. 30. Over the pole thy thickest mantle throw,] So, in Pur. Loft, B. iv. 609.

"And o'er the dark her filver mantle threw.”

As Mr. Steevens fuggefts. And in Buckhurst's Induction, as Mr. Bowle obferves, ft. iv.

"Loe, the night with mistie mantels fpred."

T. WARTON.

See rather Chaucer March. Tale, p. 393. ed. Tyrwhitt. "Night with his mantel, that is derke and rude, "Gan overfprede the hemifpere about." TODD.

Ver. 34. The leaves fhould all be black whereon I write,

And letters, &c.] Conceits were now confined not to words only. Mr. Steevens has a Volume of Elegies, in which the paper is black, and the letters white; that is, in all the titlepages. Every intermediate leaf is alfo black. What a fudden change from this childish idea, to the noble apostrophe, the fublime rapture and imagination of the next stanza.

T. WARTON.

See Heywood's "Confolatory Elegie on James I, alluding to the happy fucceffion of Charles I, &c, 1625."

"Reft followes labour, day fucceedeth night,
"And now my blacke page I will change to white."

VI.

See, fee the chariot, and those rushing wheels,
That whirl'd the Prophet up at Chebar flood;
My fpirit fome tranfporting Cherub feels,
To bear me where the towers of Salem flood,
Once glorious towers, now funk in guiltless
blood;

40

Mr. Dunfter thinks that Milton's allufion is to the black page of Sylvefter's "Lachrymæ Lachrymarum &c.," or Funeral Elegy on Prince Henry, Du Bart, 4to. edit. 1613. He minutely obferves, "There are two title pages, or leaves. The first contains, in a white page, (the back of which is black,) the date of the year and the name of the printer, &c. The fecond leaf is black on both fides; the title-page is of a deeper black than the other black pages; and the letters, in which the title is printed, are now exactly of a wannish white. Some allowance muft be made for time; but I conceive they were never of a clear white.” Confiderations on Milton's early reading, &c. p. 52, 53.

But this was certainly the general fashion of the times. See Crashaw's allufion to it, On the death of Mr. Herrys, Delights of the Muses, edit. 1648, p. 24.

"In the dark volume of our fate,

"Whence each leafe of Life hath date,

"In all the booke if any where

"Such a terme as this, Spare here,

"Could have been found, 'twould have been read
"Writ in white letters o'er his head."

Again, p. 27, At the Funerall of a young Gentleman :

"Deare reliques of a diflodg'd foule, whofe lacke "Makes many a mourning paper put on blacke !” Compare alfo Browne's Brit. Paft. 1616, B. i. p. 87.

My blubbring pen her fable teares lets fall

"In characters right hyrogliphicall,

66

And mixing with my teares are ready turning

My late white paper to a weed of mourning." TODD.

There doth my foul in holy vision fit,

In penfive trance, and anguifh, and ecstatick fit.

VII.

Mine eye hath found that fad fepulchral rock
That was the casket of Heaven's richest store,
And here though grief my feeble hands up lock,
Yet on the foften'd quarry would I fcore
My plaining verfe as lively as before;

46

For fure fo well inftructed are my tears, That they would fitly fall in order'd characters.

Ver. 41. There doth my foul in holy vifion fit,

In penfive trance, and anguish, and ecftatick fit.]

This is to be held in holy pafion, as in Il Penf. v. 41.

T. WARTON.

Compare Sylvefter, Du Bart. 1621, p. 533, where his "foul is rapt up in facred tranfe; as before, p. 466.

"Where, fweetly rapt in facred extafe

"The faithful foule talks with her God immenfe.”

And in p. 178, the foul's "fweet tranfe" is termed a "holy fit."

Ver. 43. Mine eye hath found that fad fepulchral rock

That was the casket of Heaven's richest store,

TODD.

And here though grief my feeble hands up lock,
Yet on the foften'd quarry would I score

My plaining verfe] He feems to have been ftruck with reading Sandys's defcription of the Holy Sepulchre at Jerufalem; and to have catched fympathetically Sandys's fudden impulfe to break forth into a devout fong at the aweful and inspiring fpectacle. "It is a frozen zeal that will not be warmed at the fight thereof. And oh, that I could retaine the effects that it wrought with an unfainting perfeverance! Who then did dictate' this hymne to my redeemer, &c." Travels, p. 167. edit. 1627. The first is, 1615. T. WARTON.

Ver. 48. For fure fo well inftructed are my tears,

That they would fitly fall in order'd characters.]

VIII.

Or fhould I thence hurried on viewless wing 50
Take up a weeping on the mountains wild,

Here is another conceit; as in Crafhaw's Delights, &c., Upon
the death of a Gentleman, p. 19.

66

Eyes are vocall, tears have tongues,

"And there be words not made with lungs ;

"Sententious fhowers; O let them fall:

"Their cadence is rhetoricall."

Again, E. Revett, in an Elegy on Lovelace the poet, Milton's contemporary, thus complains:

"Why should fome rude hand carve thy facred stone, "And there incife a cheap infcription;

"When we can fhed the tribute of our tears

"So long, till the relenting marble wears ?

"Which fhall fuch order in their cadence keep,
"That they a native epitaph shall weep;
"Untill each letter fpelt diftinctly lyes

"Cut by the mystick droppings of our eyes." TODD.

Ver. 50.

hurried on viewlefs wing] See Com.

v. 92. Hurried is used here in an acceptation lefs familiar than at present. And in Par. Loft, B. ii. 937. of Satan's flight.

"fome tumultuous cloud,

"Inftinct with fire and vapour, hurried him

"As many miles aloft."

Again, ibid. 603. The fallen Angels are to pine for ages in froft, "thence hurried back to fire." And, B. v. 778.

"all this hafte

"Of midnight march, and hurried meeting here."

In all these paffages it is applied to preternatural motion, the movements of imaginary beings. T. WARTON.

Ver. 51. Take up a weeping on the mountains wild,] This expreffion is from Jeremiah, ix. 10. "For the mountains will up a weeping and wailing, &c." T. WARTON.