If true, here only, &c*.

-

HESPERIAN FABLES true,

And in the original draught of the spirit's prologue to Comus, he had painted these delicious islands with the utmost luxuriance of fancy.

In Lycidas,

WEEP NO MORE, wofull fhepherds, WEEP NO MORE,
For Lycidas, your forrow, is not dead.

Lycidas funk low, but mounted high,

Where other groves, and other ftreams along,
With nectar pure his oozy locks he laves,
And hears the UNEXPRESSIVE NUPTIAL SONG
In the BLEST KINGDOMS meek of joy and love,
There entertain him all the SAINTS above,
In folemn troops, and sweet societies,
Who SING, and finging in their glory move.

Henceforth thou art the GENIUS OF THE SHORE.

The fame caft of thought dictated fimilar sentiments on a fimilar occafion.

Par. Loft. 4. 520.
E 2

† Ibid. 8. 631.

Nec

Nec te Lethao fas quafiviffe fub Orco,

Nec tibi conveniunt lacrymæ, NEC FLEBIMUS ULTRA,
Ite procul lacrymæ, PURUM COLIT ÆTHERA Damon,
HEROUMQUE ANIMAS inter, DIVOSQUE perennes,
Ethereos haurit latices.

Quin tu cæli poft jura recepta

DEXTER ades, PLACIDUSQUE FAVE QUICUNQUE

VOCARIS,

Seu tu nofter eris Damon, five AQUIOR AUDIS
Diodotus, quo te divino nomine cuncti

Calicola norint, SYLVISQUE VOCABEre Damon.

*

En etiam tibi VIRGINEI fervantur HONORES;
Ipfe caput nitidum cinētus rutilante corona,
Lataque frondentis geftans umbracula palma,
Eternum perages IMMORTALES HYMENÆOS;
CANTUS ubi, choreifque furit lyra mista beatis *.

The notion of the fpirit being prefent at the celestial fymphony, the UNEXPRESSIVE SONG, is again defcribed in the latin poem ad Patrem.

Spiritus æthereos qui circinat aureus orbes, quoque fydereis intercinit ipfe choreis,

Nunc

IMMORTALE melos, et INENARRABILE carmen.

Epitaphium Damonis.

In Comus.

How charming is divine philofophy!

Not harsh and crabbed, as dull fools suppose,
But mufical as is Apollo's lute.

So in Paradife Regained,

Hard are the ways of truth, and rough to walk,
Smooth on the tongue difcours'd, pleafing to th' ear,
And tuneable as fylvan pipe or fong".

So alfo in the Tractate of Education. "I fhall not detain you longer in the demonstration of what we should not do; but ftrait conduct you to a hill-fide, where I will point ye out the right path of a virtuous and noble education, laborious indeed at the first afcent, but also fo fmooth, fo green, fo full of goodly profpect, and melodious founds, that the harp of Orpheus was not more charming t."

It may not be difagreeable, to give a sketch of the analogy between fome paffages in Milton's poetical and profe works, hitherto not compared. The following is a moft beautiful fimile in Paradife Loft.

As when a scout,

Through dark and defert ways with peril gone,

#B. I. V.

478.

+ Edit. Lond, 1725, 12mo. pag. 344.

All

All night, at laft by break of chearfull dawn,
Obtains the brow of fome high-climbing hill,
Which to his eye difcovers unaware
The goodly profpect of fome foreign land,
Firft feen, or fome renown'd metropolis,
With gliftering spires, and pinnacles adorn'd,
Which now the rifing fun gilds with his beams.

Its ground-work is laid in the following paffage from his Hiftory. By this time, like one who had fet out on his way by night, and travelled through a region of smooth or idle dreams, our hiftory now arrives on the confines where daylight and truth meet us with a clear dawn, representing to our view, though at a far diftance, true colours and fhapes +."

In L'Allegro.

Where the great fun begins his ftate,
Robed in flames and amber light
The clouds in thousand liveries dight.

So in a very puerile description of the morning, in one of his Prolufions," Ipfa quoque tellus, in adventum folis, cultiori fe induit veftitu, nubesque juxta variis CHLAMYDATÆ coloribus, &c ‡."

* B. 3. v. 543. 2. pag. 12.

Birch's Edit. Milton's Profe Works, vol.
Ibid. vol. 2. pag. 586.

In the poem, At a vacation exercise in the College, &c.

The deep transported mind may foar
Above the wheeling poles, and at heav'ns door
Look in.

Then paffing through the fphears of watchfull fire
And mifty regions of wide air next under,
And hills of fnow, and lofts of piled thunder.

So in another Prolufion, written perhaps about the fame time. "Nec dubitatis, auditores, etiam in cælos volare, ibique illa multiformia nubium spectra, niviumque coacervatam vim contemplemini..... Grandinisque exinde loculos infpicite, et armamenta fulminum perfcrutemini *."

In Arcades, the genius thus divinely speaks of the mufic of the spheres.

Liften I

To the celeftial fyrens harmony,
That fit upon the nine-enfolded spheres.
And fing to those that hold the vital fheares,
And turn the adamantine spindle round,
On which the fate of gods and men is wound.
Such fweet compulfion doth in mufick lie,
To lull the daughters of neceffity,

Birch's edit. vol. 2. pag. 591.

And