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On sands, and shores, and desert wildernesses.
These thoughts may startle well, but not astound 210
The virtuous mind, that ever walks attended
By a strong siding champion, Conscience.-
O welcome pure-ey'd Faith, white-handed Hope,
Thou hovering Angel girt with golden wings,
And thou unblemish'd form of Chastity;

I see ye visibly, and now believe

That he, the Supreme Good, t' whom all things ill
Are but as slavish officers of vengeance,
Would send a glist'ring guardian if need were
To keep my life and honour unassail'd.
Was I deceiv'd, or did a sable cloud

"flesh-spell'd characters." T.
Warton.

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214. Thou hovering angel &c.] In the edition of 1637 it was flittering and so was it at first in the Manuscript too, where the following lines were thus writ ten at first, and afterwards corrected.

And thou unspotted form of chastity;
I see ye visibly, and while I see ye
This dusky hollow is a Paradise,
And heav'n gates o'er my head: now
I believe &c.

214. Thus in Shakespeare's Lover's Complaint, Malone's Suppl. i. p. 759.

Which like a cherubim above them kove,'d.

But hovering is here applied with peculiar propriety to the angel Hope. In sight, on the wing; and if not approaching, yet not flying away. Still appearing. Contemplation soars on golden wing, Il Pens. v. 52. Mr. Bowle directs us to Ariosto, Orl. Fur. c. xiv, 80.

-Mosse

215

220

Con maggior fretta le dorate penne. And we have "that golden-winged "host," in the Ode on the Death of an Infunt, st. ix. T. Warton.

215. And thou unblemish'd form of Chastity, &c.] In the same strain, Fletcher's Shepherdess in the soliloquy just cited, ibid. p. 109.

-Then, strongest Chastity,
Be thou my strongest guard, for here
I'll dwell,

In opposition against fate and hell.
T. Warton.

215. unblemish'd form of Chastity.] May, of Rosamond in her virgin state, Henr. Sec. lib. v. edit. Lond. 1633. 12mo.

When that unblemish'd forme, so
much admir'd, &c.
T. Warton.

219. Would send a glist'ring guardian] In the Manuscript it was at first cherub.

221. Was I deceiv'd, or did a sable cloud &c.] This presents us

ما

NO

Turn forth her silver lining on the night?

I did not err, there does a sable cloud
Turn forth her silver lining on the night,
And casts a gleam over this tufted grove.
I cannot halloo to my brothers, but

Such noise as I can make to be heard farthest
I'll venture, for my new enliven'd spirits
Prompt me; and they perhaps are not far off.

SONG.

225

SWEET Echo, sweetest nymph, that liv'st unseen 280
Within thy airy shell,

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By slow Meander's margent green, And in the violet-embroider'd vale,

Where the love-lorn nightingale

Nightly to thee her sad song mourneth well; Canst thou not tell me of a gentle pair

That likest thy Narcissus are?

receive and return its various impulses. Testudo or shell being a name also for a musical instrument, a lyre, which could give no sound but when it was struck upon, the word beautifully alludes to the nature of this vocal nymph;

-quæ nec reticere loquenti, Nec prior ipsa loqui poterat resonabilis Echo.

Ovid. Met. iii. 357. Calton.

I cannot but think shell the better word for the reasons assigned: but yet it may be said to justify Dr. Dalton's alteration, that Milton hath also written cell in the margin of his manuscript.

231. Certainly the true reading is shell, the horizon, which in another place he calls the hollow round of Cynthia's seat, Ode Nativ.

st. x.

Nature that heard such sound
Beneath the hollow round

Of Cynthia's seat the airy region
thrilling.

That is," such sound, piercing "the airy region beneath the "hollow circumference of the "heavens." Hurd.

233.-violet-embroider'd vale,] This is a beautiful compound epithet, and the combination of the two words that compose it, natural and easy. Our poet has, in these his early poems, coined

235

many others, equally happy and significant: such as love-darting eyes, amber-dropping, flowery-kirtled, low-roosted, snaky-headed, fiery-wheeled, white-handed, sinworn, home-felt, rushy-fringed, pure-eyed, tinsel-slippered. Dr. J. Warton.

See Peck for more instances, in Mem. Milt. p. 117. and compare P. L. iv. 700. And Browne's Sheph. Pipe, Egl. iv. Signat. D. 4. edit. 1614.

Methinkes no April showre

Embroider should the ground, &c.'

The allusion is the same in
Lycidas, v. 148.

And every flower that sad embroidery
T. Warton.

wears.

234. Where the love-lorn nightingale] Deprived of her mate. As lass-lorn in the Tempest, act iv. s. 2. T. Warton.

236. Canst thou not tell me of a gentle pair

That likest thy Narcissus are ?] So Fletcher, Faith. Shep. act i. s. 1. p. 117.

-A gentle pair
Have promis'd equal love.

Other petty borrowings of the same kind might be pointed out, which prove Milton's intimate familiarity with Fletcher's play. T. Warton.

O if thou have

Hid them in some flow'ry cave,

Tell me but where,

240

: Sweet queen of parly, daughter of the sphere, So may'st thou be translated to the skies, And give resounding grace to all heav'n's harmonies.

COMUS.

Can any mortal mixture of earth's mould

238. O, if thou have

Hid them in some flow'ry cave.] Here is a seeming inaccuracy for the sake of the rhyme. But the sense being hypothetical and contingent, we will suppose an ellipsis of shouldest before have. A verse in Saint John affords an apposite illustration. "If thou "have born him hence, tell me "where thou hast laid him." xx. 15. We find another instance below, v. 887.

And bridle in thy headlong wave, Till thou our summons answer'd have. In the mean time it must be allowed, that thou and you are absolutely synonimous. And see Bishop Lowth's Grammar, pp. 67, 68. edit. 1775. Mr. Steevens suggests, that part of the Address to the Sun which Southerne has put into the mouth of Oroonoko, is evidently copied from this pas

sage.

Or if thy sister goddess has preferr'd
Her beauty to the skies to be a star,
Oh! tell me where she shines.

T. Warton. 241.-daughter of the sphere,] Milton has given her a much nobler and more poetical original than any of the ancient mythologists. He supposes her to

owe her first existence to the reverberation of the music of the spheres; in consequence of which he had just before called the horizon her airy shell. And from the Gods (like other celestial beings of the classical order) she came down to men. Warburton.

243. And give resounding grace to all heav'n's harmonies.] That is, "The grace of their being "accompanied with an echo."

The goddess Echo was of peculiar service in the machinery of a Mask, and therefore often introduced. Milton has here used her much more rationally than most of his brother mask-writers. She is invoked in a song, but not without the usual tricks of surprising the audience by strange and unexpected repetitions of sound, in Browne's Inner Temple Masque, to which I have supposed our author might have had an eye, p. 136. She often appears in Jonson's masks. This frequent introduction, however, of Echo in the masks of his time, seems to be ridiculed even by Jonson himself in Cynthia's Revells, act i. s. 1. This play was first acted in 1600. T. Warton.

244. Can any mortal mixture

Breathe such divine inchanting ravishment?
Sure something holy lodges in that breast,
And with these raptures moves the vocal air
To testify his hidden residence:

How sweetly did they float upon the wings
Of Silence, through the empty-vaulted night,
At every fall smoothing the raven down
Of darkness till it smil'd! I have oft heard

245

250

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This was plainly personal. The poet availed himself of an opportunity of paying a just compliment to the voice and skill of a real songstress. So the boys are complimented for their beauty and elegance of figure. And, afterwards, the strains that "might create a soul under the "ribs of death," are found to be the voice "of my most honour'd Lady," v. 564. T. Warton. 246. Sure, something holy lodges in that breast,

And with these raptures moves the vocal air

To testify his hidden residence:] That is, "Something holy inhabiting that breast, courts the "air, the vehicle of sound, to

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give it utterance, to discover "the latent source of its resi"dence, by means of these ra"vishing notes.' T. Wurton.

249. How sweetly did they float] That is, "these raptures." The effect for the cause. T. Warton.

249. How sweetly did they float upon the wings

Of Silence,]

This is extremely poetical, and
insinuates this sublime idea and
imagery, that even Silence her-
self was content to convey her
mortal enemy, Sound, on her
wings, so greatly was she
charmed
charmed with its harmony.
Warburton.

251. At every fall smoothing
the raven down

Of darkness till it smil'd!]
The poetical essence of darkness
is to frown.-
But what we

are to suppose afforded this fine
image to Comus, is that sable
cloud, which the Lady says just
at that time turn'd forth her silver
lining on the night. Warburton.

In the Manuscript, and in the edition of 1637, we read,

Of darkness till she smil'd.

252. -I oft have heard
My mother Circe, with the Sirens
three,
Amidst the flow'ry-kirtled Nai-

ades,
Culling their potent herbs and
baleful drugs,
Who, as they sung, would take
the prison'd soul, &c.]

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