47 P. 73. Sprung of old Anchises' line. For Locrine was the son of Brutus, who was the son of Silvius, he of Ascanius, and Ascanius of Æneas, the son of Anchises. 45 P. 73. Brimméd]—i. e. swelling, rising to the brim. 49 P. 73. And here and there thy banks upon. Banks is the nominative case, as head was in the last line but one. The sense and syntax of the whole is, may thy head be crowned round about with towers, &c., and here and there [may] thy banks [be crowned] upon with groves, &c.—èmiσtépalvto σo ai ỏxtaí. The phrase is Greek.— Calton 50 P. 76. Leas.]-Pastures, corn-fields. 31 P. 76. To the ocean now I fly. A paraphrase of Ariel's song in the "Tempest :' "Where the bee sucks, there lurk I." 52 P. 78. Purfled.]—Flourished, embroidered with the needle. 53 P. 78. Sadly sits the Assyrian queen. Venus, so called, because she was first worshipped by the Assyrians. 54 P. 80. Heaven itself would stoop to her. "Comus," observes Hallam, "was sufficient to convince any one of taste and feeling, that a great poet had arisen in England, and one partly formed in a different school from his contemporaries. Many of them had produced highly beautiful and imaginative passages; but none had evinced so classical a judgment, none had aspired to so regular a perfection. Jonson had learned much from the ancients, but there was a grace in their best models which he did not quite attain. Neither his 'Sad Shepherd, nor the 'Faithful Shepherdess' of Fletcher, have the elegance or dignity of 'Comus.' A noble virgin and her young brothers, by whom this masque was originally represented, required an elevation, a purity, a sort of severity of sentiment which no one in that age could have given but Milton. He avoided, and nothing loth, the more festive notes which dramatic poetry was wont to mingle with its serious strain. But for this he was compensated by the brightest hues of fancy, and the sweetest melody of song. In 'Comus' we find nothing prosaic or feeble, no false taste in the incidents, and not much in the language, nothing over which we should desire to pass on a second perusal. The want of what we may call personality, none of the characters having names, except Comus himself, who is a very indefinite being, and the absence of all positive attributes of time and place, enhance the ideality of the fiction by a certain indistinctness not unpleasing to the imagination." THE END. |