Which are not very unlike those which we make use of in reading the above english alexandrine (or iambic) verse,

The gentle Eve-awakes-refresh-full airs-around.

It may be obferved, that a latin hexameter is effentially diftinguished from a profe fentence, only by being terminated with a dactyle preceding a spondee; upon which account our manner of reading the endings of fuch hexameters as thefe,

Procumbit humi bos,

—oceano nox,—amica luto fus, &c.

is probably wrong *; for according to the modern fashion of pronouncing them, the whole verse doth not differ in found from an oratio profaica; in contradiction therefore to the reigning practice, we should take care to exprefs the dactyle and fpondee thusocean-o nox; and fo of the reft. And that this was the practice of the antients, may be farther inferred from these words of Quintilian, on reading verses, "Sit lectio virilis, et cum feveritate quadam gravis; et non quidem Profæ fimilis, quia Carmen eft †.

*This fuppofition will be more readily allowed, fince Mr. Johnson has indifputably proved, that fuch monofyllabic terminations were not always intended by their authors as mechanical echoes to the fenfe, according to an opinion equally chimerical and inveterate.

Inftit. Orat. 1. 1. c. S.

B. iii.

B. iii. c. i. f. Ivi.

And every knight, and every gentle squire
Gan chufe his dame with bafcio mani gay.

With bafcio mani, ital. with kiffing her hands: a phrase, perhaps common in our author's age, when italian manners were univerfally affected.

B. iii. c. i. f. lxii.

Out of her FILED bed.

"Out of her DEFILED bed."

Shakespeare.

For Bancho's iffue have I fil'd my mind*.

B. iii. c. ii. f. xxv.

He bore a crowned little ermilin,

That deckt the azure field with her faire POULDRED fkin.

That is, with her skin spotted, or variegated; in its primary sense, besprinkled: this is the genuine spelling of powdered, according to the etymology to which Skinner conjectures it to belong, viz. a pulvere, conSpergo pulvere. We find the fubftantive POWDER generally spelled thus in old authors.

*Macbeth, act 3. fc, 2.

Thus

Thus B. Jonfon,

And of the POULDER-plot they will talk yet*.

Spenser again uses the verb in its sense, besprinkle,

A crowne

POWDRED with pearle and ftone.

5. 10. 31.

Thus Sir Philip Sydney, in Astrophell and Stella†,

Some one his fong in Jove, and Jove's strange tales attires,

Border'd with buls and fwans, POWDRED with golden

raine.

Thus Harrington,

A horfe of dainty hew

His collour py'd, POWDRED with many a spot ‡.

Again, where it may be interpreted, embroider.

She dreamt the bases of her loved knight,
Which the embroidred blacke the other day,
With spots of red were POWDRED all in fight §.

Thus alfo Chaucer,

Full gay was all the ground, and queint,
And POWDRED as men had it peint ||.

The grounde was grene, YPOUDRED with daisye*.

And, in the following example, it feems to be literally used for embroidering.

Aftir a forte the collir and the vente
Lyke as armine is made in purfilinge,
With grete perlis ful fine and orient,
They were couchid all aftir one worching,

With diamondes inftede of POUDIRING †.

I had not collected all thefe inftances, but with a defign of placing an expreffion of Milton in a proper light.

The Galaxy, that milky way,

Which nightly as a circling zone thou seeft

POWDRED with ftars .

-

That is, "The milky way, which every night ap

pears to you, like a circling zone or belt, besprinkled "or embroidered with ftars." To the majority of readers, I am perfuaded, powdred with stars has ever appeared a very mean, or rather ridiculous metaphor. It occurs in Sackville's Induction to the MIRROR OF MAGISTRATES.

Then looking upwards to the heaven's leames,
With night's bright STARRES

every where.

THICK POWDRED

* Cuckow and Night. v. 63. † Ass. 1. 526.

Par. Loft. 7. 579.
That

That is, thick-befprinkled, or variegated.

Sandys, in his notes to the CHRISTUS PATIENS of Grotius, fpeaking of the veil in Solomon's Temple, fays, that," it was POWDRED with cherubims *.” It is an expreffion of heraldry.

B. iii. c. ii. f. xli.

Sweet love fuch lewdnefs bands from his faire company.

To BAND properly fignifies to join together in a company, to affemble; as in The Acts, " And when it was "day, certain of the Jews banded together +." Spenfer therefore, either for the convenience of the verse, ufed BANDS for difbands; or, what is most probable, the word was written in his copy BANNS, which, according to Junius, is to forbid by profcription, interdicere; and from whence the verb to BANISH is derived:

Sweet love fuch lewdnefs BANNS from his faire company.

B. iii. c. ii. f. xlviii.

For the faire damfell from the holy HERSE
Her love-ficke heart to other thoughts did steale.

From the holy herfe, is, I fuppofe, the fame as if he had faid, from the holy HERSAL, which is used afterwards.

* A&t. 4. ver. 296.

VOL. II.

† Ch. 23. ver. 12.

Y

Sad