35 Carmina sacrificus sollennes pangit ad aras, it more commodious to sing in the specious obscurity of the Pindaric measure. Homer is said to have borrowed many lines from the responses of the priestess Daphne, daughter of Tiresias, It was suspected, that persons of distinguished abilities in poetry were secretly placed near the 40 45 50 Verborum sensusque vacans, numerique loquacis? 60 65 Drew iron tears down Pluto's cheek. See above, at v. 22. 52. He alludes to the Song of Here we have, Orpheus, in Apollonius Rhodius, i. 277. He " sung of Chaos to "the Orphean lyre," Par. Lost, b. iii. 17. See also Onomacritus, Argon. v. 438. 53. quercubus addidit aures,] So also of Orpheus, Par. Lost, 66. Dividuumque Deum, geni torque puerque, tenemus.] The topic of persuasion is happily selected. Dividuus our author has twice Anglicised in Paradise Lost, b. vii. 382. Where see the note. And again, b. xii. 85. Milton's father was well skilled in music. Philips says, that he composed an In nomine of forty parts, for which he was honoured with a gold chain and medal by a Polish prince, to whom he presented it. He is mentioned by Wood in his manuscript History of English Musicians. " John "Milton, a musician livinge in "the reigne of Queene Elizabeth, "James I. Charles I. We have some of his compositions in the Tu tamen ut simules teneras odisse Camoenas, Non odisse reor; neque enim, pater, ire jubebas Qua via lata patet, qua pronior area lucri, Certaque condendi fulget spes aurea.nummi : Nec rapis ad leges, male custoditaque gentis Jura, nec insulsis damnas clamoribus aures; publick Musicke Schoole at "Oxford." MSS. Mus. Ashm. D. 19. 4to. Among the psalm tunes, published by Thomas Ravenscroft in 1633, are many with the name of John Milton; more particularly, that common one called York tune, the tenor part of which was such a favourite, as to be used by nurses for a lullaby, and as a chime-tune for churches. He has several songs for five voices, in "The Tears or "lamentations of a sorrowfull "soule, composed with musical ayres and songs both for voices " and divers instruments," containing also compositions by Bird, Bull, Örlando Gibbons, Dowland the lutanist, Ferabosco, Coperario, Weelks, Wilbye, and others the most celebrated masters of the times, written and published by Sir William Leighton, knight, a gentleman-pensioner, and a good musician, in 1614. He has a madrigal for five voices, among the numerous contributions of the most capital performers, in the Triumphs of Oriana, published by Morley in 1601. [See note on Comus, v. 495.] This collection is said to have been planned by the Earl of Nottingham, Lord High Admiral; who, with a view to sooth Queen Elizabeth's despair for the recent execution of Lord Essex by flattering her preposterous vanity, 70 gave for a prize-subject to the best poets and musicians, whom he liberally rewarded, the beauty and accomplishments of his royal mistress, now a decrepit virgin on the brink of seventy. But maiden queens are in perpetual bloom. Our author's father seems also to have been a writer. For in the Register of the Stationers, John Busby enters on Dec. 15, 1608, "A Sixe fold Politician by "John Milton." A copy of this book is in the Bodleian library, which appears to have belonged to Burton, who wrote on Melancholy. 66. The "Six-fold Politician" ought probably to be ascribed to John Milton, author of the Astrologaster. Hayley. 71. He had Ovid in his head. Amor. i. xv. 5. Non me verbosas leges ediscere, nec 2 Sed magis excultam cupiens ditescere mentem, 75. Aubrey, in Milton's manuscript Life, says, that he was "ten yeares old by his picture, "and then a poet." The picture is that by Cornelius Jansen. 83. novus Italus, &c.] Milton was so well skilled in Italian, that at Florence, the Crusca, an academy instituted for recovering and preserving the purity of the Florentine language, often consulted him on the critical niceties of that language. He tells Benedetto Buonmatteo, who was writing an Italian grammar, in a Latin Letter dated at Florence, 1638, that although he had indulged in copious draughts of Roman and Grecian literature, yet that he came with a fresh eagerness and delight to the luxuries of Dante and Petrarch, and the rest of the Italian poets; 75 80. 85 and that Athens with its pellucid Ilissus, and Rome with its banks of the Tiber, could not detain him from the Arno of Florence, and the hills of Fesole. Prose Works, ii. 570. See also Francini's panegyric. His Italian Sonnets shew that he was a master of the language. Dr. Johnson is of opinion, that Milton's acquaintance with the Italian writers may be discovered in his Lycidas, by the mixture of longer and shorter verses, according to the rules of the Tuscan poetry. 84. barbaricos testatus voce tumultus ;] The pure Roman language was corrupted by barbaric, or Gothic, invaders. He adopts Barbaricus, used by Virgil more than once, into English. Par. Lost, b. ii. 4. " Barbaric pearl " and gold." Per te nosse licet, per te, si nosse libebit : I nunc, confer opes, quisquis malesanus avitas At tibi, chare pater, postquam non æqua merenti -Aside the Devil turn'd 90 95 100 105 110 107. Anguiferos rictus is certainly an inaccurate expression. Calumnia is, I fear, the property of prose rather than of poetry. Many of Milton's expressions in his Latin poems are not supported by high classical authority. Symmons. 109. Perhaps Milton might be justified in lengthening the last For envy, yet with jealous leer malign syllable of ego, as the ictus of Ey'd them askance. the verse falls on it. Symmons. |