Beauty is nature's brag, and must be shown

In courts, in feasts, and high solemnities,
Where most may wonder at the workmanship;
It is for homely features to keep home,

They had their name thence; coarse complexions

1

745. Beauty is nature's brag, and must be shewn

In courts, in feasts, and high solemnities, &c.]

So Fletcher, Faith. Sheph. a. i. s. 1. vol. iii. p. 124.

Give not yourself to loneness, and those graces

Hide from the eyes of men, that were intended

To live among us swains.

But this argument is pursued more at large in Drayton's Epistle above quoted. I will give some of the more palpable resemblances.

Fie, peevish girl, ungratefull unto nature,

Did she to this end frame thee such

a creature,

That thou her glory should increase

thereby,

And thou alone should'st scorne society?

Why, heaven made beauty, like herself, to view,

Not to be shut up in a smoakie mew. A rosy-tinctur'd feature is heaven's gold,

Which all men joy to touch, and to behold, &c.

Here we have at least our author's "What need a vermeil"tinctured lip for that?" And again,

All things that faire, that pure, that glorious beene,

745

ކ

750

And cheeks of sorry grain will serve to ply
The sampler, and to tease the huswife's wool.
What need a vermeil-tinctur'd lip for that,
Love-darting eyes, or tresses like the morn?
There was another meaning in these gifts,
Think what, and be advis'd, you are but young yet.
LADY.

I had not thought to have unlock'd my lips
In this unhallow'd air, but that this juggler
Would think to charm my judgment, as mine eyes,
Obtruding false rules prank'd in reason's garb.
I hate when vice can bolt her arguments,

751. The sampler, and to tease
&c.] In the Manuscript it is

The sample, or to tease the huswife's
wool.

The word tease is commonly
used in a metaphorical sense,
but here we have it in its
proper
and original signification, carpere,
vellere. See Skinner, Junius, &c.
752.-Vermeil-tinctur'd] Ed-
ward Bendlowes has this epithet
to cheek in his Theophila, cant.
i. st. 21. Lond. 1652. We have
love-darting in Sylvester's Du
Bartas, p. 399. ed. fol.

Whoso beholds her sweet love-
darting eyn.

T. Warton.
755. Think what, and be
advis'd, you are but young yet.]
He had written at first,

Think what, and look upon this
cordial julep,

and then followed the verses
which are inserted from ver.
672 to 705.

756. I had not thought &c.]
The six following lines.
spoken aside. Sympson.

754

760

759.-prank'd in reason's garb.] Dressed, clad. So Shakespeare,

-your high self,

The gracious mark o' th' land, you
have obscur'd

With a swain's wearing, and me,
poor lowly maid,
Most Goddess-like prankt up.
Winter's Tale. Peck.

fected
Heroic. Epist. vol. i.

Prank implies a false or af- N
decoration. Drayton,
p. 335.

To prank old wrinkles up in new
attire.
T. Warton.
760. I hate when vice can bolt
her arguments,] That is, sift. So
Chaucer,

But I ne cannot boulte it to the brenne.

Warburton.

In the construction of a mill, a part of the machine is called the boulting-mill, which separates the flour from the bran. Chaucer, Nonnes Pr. T. 1355.

But I ne cannot bolt it to the brenne, As can that holy doctor saint Austen. That is, "I cannot argue, and

And virtue has no tongue to check her pride.
Impostor, do not charge most innocent Nature,
As if she would her children should be riotous
With her abundance; she good cateress
Means her provision only to the good,

765

That live according to her sober laws,

And holy dictate of spare temperance:

If every just man, that now pines with want,
Had but a moderate and beseeming share
Of that which lewdly-pamper'd luxury
Now heaps upon some few with vast excess,
Nature's full blessings would be well dispens'd
In unsuperfluous even proportion,

And she no whit incumber'd with her store,
And then the giver would be better thank'd,

770

775

reasons are as two grains of "wheat hid in two bushels of "chaff; you shall seek all day

ere you find them, &c." The meaning of the whole context is this, "I am offended when vice

pretends to dispute and reason, "for it always uses sophistry." T. Warton.

understands the word, to darl, to Bp. Newton indeed rather shoot, from the substantive bolt for arrow. And Dr. Johnson explains to bolt, "to blurt out "or throw out precipitantly," citing the passage before us. See his Dictionary. But he has not less than six quotations which exhibit, in fact, the meta

In boulted language, meal and bran phorical sense of the word here

together

He throws without distinction.

It is the same allusion in the
Merch. of Ven. act i. s. 1. "His

contended for by Warburton and Warton, and which tend to confirm their interpretation of it.

E.

His praise due paid; for swinish gluttony
Ne'er looks to Heav'n amidst his gorgeous feast,
But with besotted base ingratitude

Crams, and blasphemes his feeder. Shall I go on?
Or have I said enough? To him that dares
Arm his profane tongue with contemptuous words
Against the sun-clad pow'r of Chastity,
Fain would I something say, yet to what end?
Thou hast nor ear, nor soul to apprehend
The sublime notion, and high mystery,
That must be utter'd to unfold the sage
And serious doctrine of virginity,

780

785

And thou art worthy that thou shouldst not know
More happiness than this thy present lot.

Enjoy your dear wit, and gay rhetoric,

790

That hath so well been taught her dazzling fence,
Thou art not fit to hear thyself convinc'd;

Yet should I try, the uncontrolled worth

Of this pure cause would kindle my rapt spirits
To such a flame of sacred vehemence,

779.- -Shall I go on?] From hence to ver. 806. in Comus's speech, that is twenty-seven verses, are not in the Manuscript, but were added afterwards.

785. The sublime notion, and high mystery, &c.] That Milton's notions about love and chastity were extremely refined and delicate, not only appears from this poem, but also from many passages in his prose-works, particularly in the Apology for Smectymnuus, where he is defending himself against the charge of lewdness which his adversaries had very unjustly laid against him. Thyer.

Compare v. 453. et seq.

795

That dumb things would be mov'd to sympathize,
And the brute earth would lend her nerves, and shake,
Till all thy magic structures rear'd so high,

Were shatter'd into heaps o'er thy false head.
COMUS.

She fables not, I feel that I do fear

800

Her words set off by some superior power;

And though not mortal, yet a cold shudd'ring dew
Dips me all o'er, as when the wrath of Jove

Speaks thunder, and the chains of Erebus
To some of Saturn's crew. I must dissemble,
And try her yet more strongly.
yet more strongly. Come, no more,
This is mere moral babble, and direct

Against the canon laws of our foundation;
I must not suffer this, yet 'tis but the lees

797. And the brute earth, &c.] The unfeeling earth would sympathise and assist. It is Horace's "Bruta tellus," Od. i. xxxiv. 11.

T. Warton.

800. She fables not, &c.] These six lines too are aside. Sympson.

807. This is mere moral babble, &c.] These lines were thus at first in the Manuscript.

This is mere moral stuff, the very lees
And settlings of a melancholy blood:
But this will cure all strait, &c.

808. Against the canon laws of our foundation.] Canon laws, a joke! Warburton.

Here is a ridicule on establishments, and the canon law now greatly encouraged by the church. Perhaps on the Canons of the Church, now rigidly enforced, and at which Milton frequently glances in his prose tracts. He calls Gratian "the "compiler of canon-iniquity."

805

an

Pr. W. i. 211. In his book on
Reformation, he speaks of "
"insulting and only canon-wise
prelate." Pr. W. vol. i. 7. And
his arguments on Divorce, af-
ford frequent opportunities of
exposing what he calls the Igno-
rance and Iniquity of the Canon-
Law. See particularly, ch. iii.
T. Warton.