verb adore? Bishop Newton, among his many judicious criticisms on the Paradise Loft, gives a different explication. But upon the whole I am inclined to think, that Milton's ear was here impofed upon, orn being one of the terminations of participles: as torn, fhorn, &c. In the fame manner, from the fame cause, we find in our new teftament, lift for lifted, "They lift, [lifted] her up, &c." ft being a termination many preterimperfects; as bereft, left, &c. So alfo is oft, as embost, loft; whence we find inaccurately roast [or roft] meat, for roafted meat. We alfo find caft for cafted*. See whether, Milton's use of the word request, explained above †, might not also be partly explained upon this principle.

of

With regard to adorn, Spenfer uses it as a subftantive, 3. 12. 20.

Without adorne of gold or filver bright.

B. iv. c. x. f. 1.

And next to her fate goodly SHAMEFASTNESS.

Shamefaftness, if I remember right, is introduced as a perfon, in Lidgate's story of Thebes.

* No fuch word is in ufe: but the preter-imperfect of verbs in aft, ought to be fo formed, as lafted.

† Vol. ii, pag. 12.

B. vi. c. xi. f. xxxviii.

And after them the fatal Welland went,
That if old fawes prove true (which god forbid)
Shall drowne all Holland with his excrement,
And fhall fee Stamford, though now homely hid,
Then shine in learning, more than ever did
Cambridge or Oxford, England's goodly beames.

Holland is the maritime part of Lincolnshire, where the river Welland flows. By the old fawes the poet hints at a prophefy of Merlin, mentioned and explained by Twyne *.

Doctrine ftudium quod nunc viget ad VADA BOUM,
Ante finem facli, celebrabitur ad VADA SAXI.

VADA BOUM, i. e. Oxenford, or Oxford; VADA SAXI, i. e. Staneford, or Stamford.

B. iv. c. x. f. xxxiii.

And Mole that like a noufling mole doth make

His way.

In Colin Clouts come Home again, voluptuous men are compared to the noufling mole :

Pleasures waftefull will,

In which, like moldwarps, noufling ftill they lurk.

* Antiq. Acad. Oxon. Apolog. Oxon. 4to. 1698. lib. 2. pag. 150,

et feq.

Dd 2

B. iv.

B. iv. c. xii. f. xvii.

In this fad plight he walked here and there,
And romed round about the rocke in vaine,
As he had loft himfelf, he wift not where;
Oft listening if he mote her hear againe,
And still bemoaning his unworthy paine;
Like as an hynde, whofe calfe is falne unawares
Into fome pit, where fhe him heares complaine,
An hundred times about the pit-fide fares,
Right forrowfully mourning her beareaved cares.

This comparison has great propriety. There is one not much unlike it in Lucretius.

At mater virides faltus orbata peragrans,
Linquit humi pedibus veftigia pressa bifulcis,
Omnia convifens late loca; fi queat unquam
Confpicere amiffum fætum: completque querelis
Frondiferum nemus adfiftens; et crebra revifit
Ad ftabulum, defiderio perfixa juvenci *.

The circumftance of the calf fallen into the pit, from whence the mother can only hear him complain, finely heightens this parental distress, and that of her walking round the pit fo often, I think, exceeds the crebra revifit at ftabulum. It may be observed, upon

2. 355.

the

the whole, that the tenderness of Spenfer's temper remarkably betrays itself on this occafion.

B. v. c. i. f. xv.

That I mote drinke the cup whereof she dranke.

That is, "That I might fuffer what fhe did." These words seem an improper imitation of a paffage in the new teftament, which every ferious reader cannot but remember with the greatest reverence.

B. v. c. ii. f. xxvii.

The which her fire had scrapt by HOOKE AND CROOKE.

So again,

In hopes her to attaine BY HOOKE OR CROOKE.

3. I. 17.

The proverb of getting any thing by hooke or by crocke is faid to have arifen in the time of Charles I. when there were two learned judges, named HOOKE and CROOKE; and a difficult caufe was to be gotten either by HOOKE or by CROOKE. But here is a proof that this proverb is much older than that time; and that the form was not then invented as a proverb, but applied as a pun. It occurs in Skelton.

B. v. c. iii. f. xxv.

When the falfe Florimel is placed by the fide of the true, the former vanishes into nothing; and as fuddenly, fays the poet, as all the glorious colours of the rain-bow fade and perish. With regard to the fudden evanefcence in each, the comparison is just and elegant but if we confider, that a rain-bow exifts by the prefence of the fun, the fimilitude by no means is made out. However, it is the former of these circumstances alone which the poet infifts upon, fo that a partial correfpondence only is expected.

SAILS are often used by our author for wings; and after him by Milton. And by Fletcher,

So up he rofe, upon his ftretched SAILES

*Purple Island, c. 12. f. 59.