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Summer drouth, or singed air
Never scorch thy tresses fair,
Nor wet October's torrent flood
Thy molten crystal fill with mud;
May thy billows roll ashore

The beryl, and the golden ore;

May thy lofty head be crown'd

With many a tow'r and terrace round,
And here and there thy banks upon
With groves of myrrh, and cinnamon.

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932. May thy billows roll ashore The beryl, and the golden ore.] This is reasonable as a wish. But surely jewels were out of place here, on the supposition that they were the natural productions of Sabrina's stream. So of the groves of myrrh and cinher banks. A wish more conformable to the real state of things would have been more pleasing, as less unnatural. But we must not too severely try poetry by truth and reality. See above at v. 834, 891. Warton.

namon upon

T.

934. May thy lofty head be
crown'd

With many a tow'r and terrace
round.]

930

935

So of the imperial palace of
Rome, P. R. iv. 54.

-Conspicuous far

Turrets and terraces.

Milton was impressed with this idea from his vicinity to Windsor castle. T. Warton.

936. And here and there thy banks upon &c.] We are all of us apt to grow fond of the authors, whom we particularly study; and therefore Mr. Seward generally prefers (for beauty and delicacy though not for pomp Faithful Shepherdess which Miland majesty) the passages in the ton has imitated to Milton's imitations of them: but here he himself is forced to allow, that this address to Sabrina is better than Amoret's to the God of the river upon a like occasion, and Fletcher has no other advantage but that of writing first, act iii.

For thy kindness to me shown,
Never from thy banks be blown
Any tree, with windy force,
Cross thy streams, to stop thy course:
May no beast that comes to drink,
With his horns cast down thy brink;
May none that for thy fish do look,
Cut thy banks to dam thy brook;
Barefoot may no neighbour wade
In thy cool streams wife nor maid,

NO

Come, Lady, while Heav'n lends us grace,
Let us fly this cursed place,

When the spawn on stones do lie,
To wash their hemp, and spoil the fry.
Mr. Seward farther remarks, that
the construction of the two last
of Milton's lines is a little diffi-
cult. To crown her head with
towers is true imagery; but to
crown her head upon her banks,
will scarcely be allowed to be so.
He would therefore put a colon
instead of a comma at the last
line but two, and then read

And here and there thy banks upon
Be groves of myrrh, and cinnamon.
And after these verses is added
in the Manuscript, Song ends.
936. Mr. Calton says the phrase
is Greek, 66
may thy banks be
"crowned upon, &c." But if there
is any difficulty in these lines, it
would be removed by placing a
comma after there, and another
after upon. In prose upon thy
banks would have followed the
last line. E.

This votive address to Sabrina
was suggested to our author
by that of Amoret. But the
form and subject, rather than
the imagery, is copied. Milton
is more sublime and learned,
Fletcher more natural and easy.

I know not which poet wrote first: but in Browne's Britannia's Pastorals, certainly written not after 1613, and printed in 1616, I find a similar vow, b. i. s. i. p. 28. Milton has some circumstances which are in Browne and not in Fletcher.

-May first,

Quoth Marine, swaines give lambes
to thee:

May all thy floud have seignorie
Of all flouds else, and to thy fame
Meete greater springes, yet keepe thy

name.

May never evet, nor the toade,
Within thy bankes make their abode :
Taking thy journey to the sea,
Maist thou ne'er happen in thy way
On nitre or on brimstone myne,
To spoyle thy taste. This spring of
thyne

Be ever fresh! Let no man dare
To spoyle thy fish, make lock or ware;
But on thy margent still let dwell
Those flowers which have the sweet-

est smell;

And let the dust upon thy strand
Become like Tagus' golden sand.

From a close parallelism of thought and incident, it is clear that either Browne's pastoral imitates Fletcher's play, or the play the pastoral. Most of B. and Fletcher's plays appeared after 1616. But there is unluckily no date to the first edition of the Faithful Shepherdess. It is, however,

mentioned in Davies's Scourge of Folly, 1611.

As Milton is supposed to have taken some hints in Comus from Peel's Old Wives Tale, I may perhaps lengthen this note, by producing a passage from that writer's play, entitled The Love of King David and faire Bethsabe, &c. edit. 1599. 4to.

May that sweet plaine that beares her pleasant weight

Be still enamel'd with discouloured flowers;

The precious fount beare sand of purest gold,

And for the peble, let the silver streames

That pierce earth's bowels to maintaine her force,

Play upon rubies, saphires, chrysolites:

The brims let be embrac'd with golden curles

Of mosse.

Let all the grasse that beautifies her

bower

Lest the sorcerer us entice

With some other new device.

Not a waste, or needless sound,

940

Till we come to holier ground;

I shall be your faithful guide
Through this gloomy covert wide,
And not many furlongs thence
Is your Father's residence,
Where this night are met in state
Many a friend to gratulate
His wish'd presence, and beside
All the swains that near abide,
With jigs, and rural dance resort;
We shall catch them at their sport,
And our sudden coming there

Will double all their mirth and cheer;
Come let us haste, the stars grow high,

But night sits monarch yet in the mid sky.

954

950

955

The Scene changes, presenting Ludlow town and the President's castle; then come in country dancers, after them the attendant Spirit, with the two Brothers and the Lady.

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SONG.

SPIRIT.

Back, Shepherds, back, enough your play,

Till next sun-shine holiday;

Here be without duck or nod

Other trippings to be trod

Of lighter toes, and such court guise
As Mercury did first devise

960. Here be without duck or nod] "Here are." By duck or nod, we are to understand the affectations of obeisance. So in K. Richard III. a. i. s. 3.

960

"ledge in dancing." And Drayton, Polyolb. s. vi.

Those delicater dames so trippingly to tread.

the Midsummer Night's

Duck with French nods and apish Dream, Oberon orders his fairies

courtesy.

Again, in Lear, a. ii. s. 2.
Than twenty silly ducking observants,
That stretch their duties nicely.
Compare Mids. N. Dr. a. iii. s. 1.
Nod to him, elves, and do him
courtesies.

And Timon of Athens, "The
"learned pate ducks to the golden
"fool." a. iv. s. 3. It is the
same word in Othello, a. ii. s. 1.

And let the labouring bark climb
hills of seas
Olympus high, and duck again as low
As hell's from heaven.

T. Warton.
1961. Other trippings to be trod
Of lighter toes, &c.]
To trip on the toe in a dance,
seems to have been technical.
So in L'Allegro, v. 33.

Come and trip it as you go
On the light fantastic toe.

Where see the Notes. Compare
Jonson, Cynth. Rev. a. ii. s. 4.
"Both the swimme and the trip

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are mine: every body will "affirm it, that hath anie know

to dance after his ditty trippingly, a. ii. s. 5. But to trip seems to have been the proper pace of a fairy. As above, v. 118.

Trip the pert faeries and the dapper
elves.

And at a Vacation Exercise, v.
The fairy-ladies,

62.

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With the mincing Dryades

On the lawns, and on the leas.

965

This second Song presents them to their Father and Mother.

Noble Lord, and Lady bright,

I have brought ye new delight,
Here behold so goodly grown
Three fair branches of your own;
Heav'n hath timely tried their youth,

Their faith, their patience, and their truth,
And sent them here through hard assays
With a crown of deathless praise,

964. With the mincing Dryades] So Drayton, of the Lancashire lasses, Polyolb. s. xxvii. vol. iii. p. 1183.

1970

Shepherds they weren of the best, And lived in lowly leas. Shakespeare, Tempest, act iv.

s. 3.

-Ye so mincingly that tread.
Again, ibid. p. 1185, and 1187.
And in his Eclogues, vol. vii.
p. 1417. where the word may Henry V. act v. s. 3.

Ceres, most bounteous Lady, thy
rich leas

Of wheat, rye, barley, fetches, oats, and pease.

hence be understood.

Now Shepherds lay their winter weeds away,

And in neat jackets minsen on the plain.

Jonson and Shakespeare use the word in the same sense. T. War

ton.

964. Isa. iii. 16. The daughters of Zion are haughty, and walk with stretched forth necks, and wanton eyes, walking and mincing as they go, or tripping nicely as in the margin of the Bible. Richard

son.

965. -on the leas.] An old word for pastures or corn-fields. Spenser, Shepherd's Calendar, July.

-her fallow leas

The darnel, hemlock, and rank fu-
mitory
Doth root upon.

971. Their faith, their patience,] The title to this song in the Manuscript is only 2 Song: and here he had written at first patience, and then temperance, and then patience again; and this latter is the better, because of intemperance following.

973. With a crown of deathless praise,] At first he had written,

To a crown of deathless bays.
And in the Manuscript the
stage-direction following is, The
Dæmon sings or says.

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