Diis superis, poterit magno favisse poetæ.
Hinc longæva tibi lento sub flore senectus
Vernat, et Æsonios lucratur vivida fusos;

75
Nondum deciduos servans tibi frontis honores,
Ingeniumque vigens, et adultum mentis acumen.
O mihi si mea sors talem concedat amicum,
Phoebæos decorasse viros qui tam bene norit,
Siquando indigenas revocabo in carmina reges, 80
Arturumque etiam sub terris bella moventem!
Aut dicam invictæ sociali fædere mensæ
Magnanimos heroas; et, O modo spiritus adsit,
De Id. Platon. Note on v. 27. he was to return into Britain, to
Mercury is the god of eloquence. renew the Round Table, conquer

73. –magno favisse poetæ.) all his old enemies, and reestaThe great poet Tasso. Or a blish his throne. He was, theregreat poet like your friend Tasso. fore, etiam movens bella sub terris, Either sense shews Milton's high still meditating wars under the idea of the author of the Geru- earth. The impulse of his atsalemme.

tachment to this subject was not 74. -lento sub flore senectus entirely suppressed : it produced Vernat, &c.]

his History of Britain. By the There is much elegance in lento expression, revocabo in carmina, sub flore. I venture to object to the poet means, that these anvernat senectus.

cient kings, which were once the 79. Phoebæos decorasse viros, themes of the British bards, &c.] Phæbæos is intirely an Ovi- should now again be celebrated dian epithet. Epist. Heroid. xvi. in verse. 180. Metam. iii. 130. And in Milton in his Church Governnumerous other places.

ment, written 1641, says, that 80. Siquando indigenas revo- after the example of Tasso, " it

cabo in carmina reges, "haply would be no rashness, Arturumque etiam sub terris “ from an equal diligence and

bella moventem! &c.] " inclination, to present the like The indigenæ reges are the ancient "1 offer in one of our own ancient kings of Britain. This was the " stories." Prose Works, i. 60. subject for an epic poem that It is possible that the advice of first occupied the mind of Mil- Manso, the friend of Tasso, ton. See the same idea repeated might determine our poet to a in Epitaph. Damon. v. 162. design of this kind. King Arthur, after his death, 82.-sociali fædere mensæ, &c.] was supposed to be carried into The knights, or associated chamthe subterraneous land of Faerie pions, of King Arthur's Round or of Spirits, where he still Table. reigned as a king, and whence

85

Frangam Saxonicas Britonum sub Marte phalanges!
Tandem ubi non tacitæ permensus tempora vitæ,
Annorumque satur, cineri sua jura relinquam,
Ille mihi lecto madidis astaret ocellis,
Astanti sat erit si dicam, sim tibi curæ;
Ille meos artus, liventi morte solutos,
Curaret parva componi molliter urna:

90 Forsitan et nostros ducat de marmore vultus, Nectens aut Paphia myrti aut Parnasside lauri

a

84. The fabulous exploits of Oliver Cromwell was married. the British Arthur against the Coll. MSS. vol. 143. p. 155. In Saxons.

the Surveys of London, published 86. Annorumque satur, &c. &c.] about the beginning of the preMr. Steevensthinks, that the sent century, and later, Milton context is amplified from a beau- is said to be buried in the chantiful passage in the Medea of cel of this church, but without Euripides, v. 1032. Medea speaks any monument. The spot of his to her sons.

interment has within these few -Ειχον ελπιδας

years been exactly ascertained. Πολλας εν υμιν γηροβοσκηζειν τ' εμε, In 1777, Mr. Baskerville, an atΚαι κατθανουσαν χερσιν εύ περιστελειν torney of Crosby-square in BiΖηλωτον ανθρωποισι.

shopsgate street, an enthusiastic 90. – purva componi molliter admirer of Milton, wished on his urna :] Í take this opportunity death-bed to be buried by Milof observing, that Milton's bio- ton's side. Accordingly, on his graphers have given no clear or death, the proper search was authentic account of the place made in Cripplegate church; and of his interment. His burial is it; was found, that Milton was thus entered in the Register of buried near the Pulpit, on the Saint Giles's Cripplegate," John right hand side at the upper end “ Melton, gentleman. Consump- of the middle aisle. Milton's « tion, Chancel. 12 Nov. 1674." coffin was of lead, and appeared I learn from Aubrey's manu- to be in good preservation. script, 6. He was buried at the 90. A body supposed to be

upper end in S. Gyles Cripple- that of Milton was disinterred, gate chancell

. Mem. His Stone and exposed, to the curiosity of " is now, 1681, removed; for the public, in 1790. But there “ about two years since, the two. seems good reason to conclude

95

Fronde comas, at ego secura pace quiescam. Tum quoque, si qua fides, si præmia certa bonorum, ,

, Ipse ego cælicolum semotus in æthera divum, Quo labor et mens pura vehunt, atque ignea virtus, Secreti hæc aliqua mundi de parte videbo, Quantum fata sinunt: et tota mente serenum Ridens, purpureo suffundar lumine vultus, Et simul æthereo plaudam mihi lætus Olympo.

100

EPITAPHIUM DAMONIS.

ARGUMENTUM. Thyrsis et Damon ejusdem viciniæ pastores, eadem studia

sequuti, a pueritia amici erant, ut qui plurimum. Thyrsis animi causa profectus peregre de obitu Damonis nuncium accepit. Domum postea reversus, et rem ita esse comperto, se, suamque solitudinem hoc carmine deplorat. Damonis autem sub persona hic intelligitur CAROLUS DEODATUS ex urbe Hetruriæ Luca paterno genere oriundus, cætera Anglus; ingenio, doctrina, clarissimisque cæteris virtutibus, dum viveret, juvenis egregius.*

umbræ.

vinctus.

Et nemoris laureta sacri Parnassides good birth and fortune. He

was a Doctor in Physic; and, in Ovid, Metam. xi. 165.

1609, appears to have been Ille caput flavum lauro Parnasside physician to Prince Henry, and

the Princess Elizabeth, afterVirgil's epithet is Parnassius. In wards Queen of Bohemia. Fuithe text he joins the Myrtle and ler's Worthies, Middlesex, p. the Laurel, as in Lycidas, v. 1.

1

186. He lived then at BrentYet once more, O ye Laurels, once

ford, where he performed a

wonderful cure by phlebotomy; Ye Myrtles brown, &c. ..

as appears by his own narrative

of the case, in a Letter dated * See notes on El. i. Charles 1629, printed by Hakewill at Deodate's father, Theodore, was the end of his Apologie, Lond. born at Geneva, of an Italian 1630. Signat. Y y 4. One of family, in 1574. He came his descendants, Mons. Apton. young into England, where he Josuè Diodati, who has honourmarried an English Lady of ed with some of these

more,

me

HIMERIDES nymphæ (nam vos et Daphnin et

Hylan,
Et plorata diu meministis fata Bionis)
Dicite Sicelicum Thamesina per oppida carmen:
Quas miser effudit voces, quæ murmura Thyrsis,
Et quibus assiduis exercuit antra querelis,

5

notices, is now the learned hierarchy, but wished it might Librarian of the Republic of he received under some restricGeneva.

tions at Geneva; that he was Theodore's brother, Giovanni a learned man,

a celebrated Deodati, was an eminent theoloa preacher, and an excellent comgist of Geneva; with whom panion. The family left Italy Milton, in consequence of his on account of religion. Compare connection with Charles, con- Archbishop Usher's Letters, , tracted a friendship during his Lond. 1686. ad calc. Lett. xii. p. abode at Geneva, and whose 14. annotations on the Bible, were 1. Himerides nymphæ] Himera translated into English by the is the famous bucolic river of puritans. The original is in Theocritus, who sung the death French, and was printed at Ge- of Daphnis, and the loss of Hyneva, 1638. He also published, las. Bion, in the next line, was “ Theses Lx de Peccato in Genere lamented by Moschus. In the

et specie, Genev. 1620."-"I Argument of this Pastoral, “sacri Salmi, messi in rime Ita- “ Rem ita esse comperto," Tickell “ liane da Giovani Diodati, 1631. bas ignorantly and arbitrarily “ 12mo."-“ An Italian Trans- altered comperto to comperiens. "lation of the Bible, 1607."- He is followed, as usual, by And “ An Answer sent to the Fenton. « Ecclesiastical Assembly at 1. The first syllable of Hylas “ London, with marginal ob- is unquestionably short. This, “servations by King Charles the however, was only a slip of Mil• First. Newcastle, 1647." But ton's pen ; in his seventh Elegy this last is a translation into the quantity of Hylas is right. English, by one of the puritans. Himera is only twice mentioned Perhaps the only genuine copy by Theocritus. But according of it, for there were inany to some he was born at Syspurious editions, is now to be racuse; which, however, is only seen in the Bodleian library. connected with the Himera as it See Lord Orrery's Memoirs by is in Sicily. Symmons. T. Morrice, prefixed to State 5. The structure of Milton's Papers, ch. i. In which it is hexameters in this poem is, for said by Lord Orrery, who lived the most part, of that approa year in his house, that G. priate kind which, according Deodati was not unfavourably to Terentianus Maurus, is called disposed towards the English the bucolic as distinguished

15

Fluminaque, fontesque vagos, nemorumque recessus;
Dum sibi præreptum queritur Damona, neque altam
Luctibus exemit noctem, loca sola pererrans.
Et jam bis viridi surgebat culmus arista,
Et totidem flavas numerabant horrea messes,

10 Ex

quo summa dies tulerat Damona sub umbras,
Nec dum aderat Thyrsis; pastorent scilicet illum
Dulcis amor Musæ Thusca retinebat in urbe:
Ast ubi mens expleta domum, pecorisque relicti
Cura vocat, simul assueta seditque sub ulmo,
Tum vero amissum tum denique sentit amicum,
Cæpit et immensum sic exonerare dolorem.

Ite domum impasti, domino jam non vacat, agni.
Hei mihi! quæ terris, quæ dicam numina coelo,
Postquam te immiti rapuerunt funere, Damon!
Siccine nos linquis, tua sic sine nomine virtus
Ibit, et obscuris numero sociabitur umbris?
At non ille, animas virga qui dividit aurea,
Ista velit, dignumque tui te ducat in agmen,
Ignavumque procul pecus arceat omne silentum.

Ite domum impasti, domino jam non vacat, agni.
Quicquid erit, certe nisi me lupus ante videbit,
Indeplorato non comminuere sepulchro,

20

25

from the epic. The proper that he gives this name to the structure of the bucolic verse, Spirit, assuming the habit of a observed more by Theocritus shepherd, in Comus. than by Virgil, is where the 15. —assueta seditque sub first four feet are not as in this ulmo,] Il Pens. v. 60. line linked by a syllable to the

Gently o’er th' accustom'd oak. fifth, but left distinct, as verum Ægonis; nuper

28. Indeplorato non comminuere mihi | tradidit Ægon.

sepulchro,] Ovid, Trist. iii. iii. Symmons. 45.

Sed sine funeribus caput hoc, sine 13. Thyrsis, or Milton, was honore sepulchri, now at Florence. It is observable, Indeploratum barbara terra teget?

Non;