For Locrine was the son of Brutus, who was the son of Silvius, Silvius of Ascanius, Ascanius of Æneas, Æneas of Anchises. See Milton's "History of England," b. i.NEWTON. Their full tribute never miss, &c. The torrents from the Welsh mountains sometimes raise the Severn on a sudden to a prodigious height: but at the same time they "fill her molten crystal with mud:" her stream, which of itself is clear, is then discoloured and muddy. The poet adverts to the known natural properties of the river.-T. WARTON. May thy billows roll ashore The beryl and the golden ore. This is reasonable as a wish; but jewels were surely out of place among the decorations of Sabrina's chariot, on the supposition that they were the natural productions of her stream. The wish is equally ideal and imaginary, that her banks should be covered with groves of myrrh and cinnamon. A wish conformable to the real state of things, to English seasons and English fertility, would have been more pleasing, as less unnatural: yet we must not too severely try poetry by truth and reality.-T. WARTON. May thy lofty head be crown'd, &c. This votive address of gratitude to Sabrina was suggested to our author by that of Amoret to the river-god in Fletcher's “Faithful Shepherdess,” a. iii. s. 1.—T. WARTON. With many a tower, &c. Mr. Warton thinks that Windsor Castle suggested this description. Milton was thinking rather of Spenser.-TODD. And here and there thy banks upon With groves of myrrh and cinnamon. The construction of these two lines is a little difficult to crown her head with towers. is true imagery; but to crown her head upon her banks will scarcely be allowed to be so. I would therefore put a colon instead of a comma at v. 935, and then read And here and there thy banks upon Be groves of myrrh and cinnamon.-SEWARD, In v. 936,"banks" is the nominative case, as "head" was in the last verse but one. The sense and syntax of the whole is, May thy head be crown'd round about with towers and terraces, and here and there may thy banks be crowned upon with groves, &c. The phrase is Greek.-CALTON. Not a waste or needless sound, Will double all their mirth and chere. Come, let us haste; the stars grow high; But night sits monarch yet in the mid sky". 913 955 [The scene changes, presenting Ludlow town and the President's castle: then come in Country Dancers; after them the Attendant Spirit, with the Two Brothers, and the Lady.] SONG. Spir. Back shepherds, back; enough your play, Till next sunshine holiday: On the lawns, and on the leas. [This second Song presents them to their Father and Mother.] Noble Lord, and Lady bright, I have brought ye new delight; The stars grow high, But night sits monarch yet in the mid sky. Compare Fletcher's play, a. ii. s. 1.-T. WARTON. 66 • Here be, without duck or nod, &c. 963 By ducks and nods" our author alludes to the country people's awkward way of dancing and, the two Brothers and the Lady being now to dance, he describes their elegant way of moving by" trippings," "lighter toes," "court guise," &c. He follows Shakspeare, who makes Ariel tell Prospero, that his maskers, Before you can say, come and go, And Oberon commands his fairies :— Every elfe, and fairy sprite, Sing, and dance it trippingly. The Dryads were wood-nymphs: but here the ladies who appeared on this occasion at the court of the lord president of the marches, are very elegantly termed Dryades. Indeed the prophet complains of the Jewish women for mincing as they go, Isaiah iii. 16. But our author uses that word, only to express the neatness of their gait.—PECK. This speech is evidently a paraphrase on Ariel's song in the "Tempest," a. v. s. 1 :— Where the bee sucks, there suck I.-WARBURTON. 4 Up in the broad fields of the sky. 970 975 980 985 It may be doubted whether from Virgil, "Aeris in campis latis," En. vi. 888, for at first he had written "plain fields," with another idea; a level extent of verdure.— T. WARTON. He wrote "broad fields" from Fairfax, b. viii. st. 57. "O'er the broad fields of heauen's bright wildernesse."-TODD. There I suck the liquid air. Thus Ubaldo, in Fairfax's "Tasso," a good wisard, who dwells in the centre of the earth, but sometimes emerges, to breathe the purer air of Mount Carmel, b. xiv. st. 43;— And there in liquid ayre myself disport.-T. WARTON. s All amidst the gardens fair Of Hesperus, and his daughters three. The daughters of Hesperus, the brother of Atlas, first mentioned in Milton's manuscript as their father, had gardens or orchards which produced apples of gold. Spenser makes them the daughters of Atlas," Faer. Qu." ii. vii. 54. See Ovid, "Metam." ix. 636: and Apollodor. "Bibl." 1. ii. § 11. But what ancient fabler celebrates these damsels for their skill in singing? Apollonius Rhodius, an author whom Milton taught to his scholars, Argou." iv. 1396. Hence Lucan's virgin-choir, overlooked by the commentators, is to be explained, where he speaks of this golden grove, ix. 360 :— fuit aurea silva, Divitiisque graves et fulvo germine rami; Et nunquam somno damnatus lumina serpens, &c. Milton frequently alludes to these ladies, or their gardens, Par. Lost," b. iii. 568. iv. 520. viii. 631. "Par. Reg." b. ii. 357. And the Mask before us, v. 392.-T. WARTON. The golden tree. Many say that the apples of Atlas's garden were of gold: Ovid is the only ancient writer that says the trees were of gold, "Metam." iv. 636.-T. WARTON. There eternal Summer dwells, And west winds, with musky wing, Waters the odorous banks, that blow" Celestial Capid, her famed son, advanced, Holds his dear Psyche sweet entranced, Make her his eternal bride, Two blissful twins are to be born, Youth and Joy; so Jove hath sworn. But now my task is smoothly done, I can fly, or I can run, "Blow" is here actively used, as in Beaumont and Fletcher's "Lover's Progress," a. ii. s. 1 : The wind that blows the April-flowers not softer. That is, "makes the flowers blow." So, in Jonson's "Mask at Highgate," 1604 :- ▾ And drenches with Elysian dew. As in "Par. Lost," b. xi. 367, the angel says to Adam, Let Eve, for I have drench'd her eyes, Here sleep below.-T. WARTON. If your ears be true. Intimating that this song, which follows, of Adonis, and Cupid and Psyche, is not for the profane, but only for well-purged ears.-HURD. * See Spenser's " Astrophel," st. 48.-T. WARTON. The Assyrian queen. Venus is called "the Assyrian queen," because she was first worshipped by the Assyrians. See Pausanias, Attic." lib. i. cap. 14.-NEWTON. "Mids. N. Dream," a. ii. s. 1 :— In spangled sheen. By fountain clear, or spangled starlight sheen.-TODD. Undoubtedly Milton's allusion at large, is here to Spenser's allegorical garden of Adonis, Faer. Qu." iii. vi. 46, seq., but at the same time, his mythology has a reference to Spenser's" Hymne of Love," where Love is feign'd to dwell "in a paradise of all delight," with Hebe, or Youth, and the rest of the darlings of Venus, who sport with his daughter Pleasure.-T. WARTON. b But now my task is smoothly done, &c. So Shakspeare's Prospero, in the Epilogue to the " 'Tempest :" Quickly to the green earth's end, Mortals, that would follow me, Heaven itself would stoop to herh. Now my charms are all o'erthrown, &c. 1015 1020 And thus the satyr, in Fletcher's "Faithful Shepherdess," who bears the character of our Attendant Spirit, when his office or commission is finished, displays his power and activity, promising any farther services, s. ult.-T. WARTON. d Where the bow'd welkin slow doth bend. A curve which bends or descends slowly, from its great sweep. same sense, of Dover cliff, in "K. Lear," a. iv. s. 1 : There is a cliff, whose high and bending head Looks fearfully on the confined deep. "Bending" has the And, in the "Faithful Shepherdess," "bending plain," p. 105. Jonson has "bending vale," vii. 39.-T. WARTON. e And from thence can soar as soon To the corners of the moon. Oberon says of the swiftness of his fairies, "Mids. N. Dr." a. iv. s. 1 : We the globe can compass soon Swifter than the wandering moon. And Puck's fairy, ibid. a. ii. s. 1 :— I do wander every where, Swifter than the moone's sphere.-T. WARTON. f She can teach ye how to clime, &c. Dr. Warburton has observed, that the last four verses furnished Pope with the thought for the conclusion of his "Ode on St. Cecilia's Day." A prior imitation may be traced in the close of Dryden's Ode.-TODD. 66 The sphery chime. Chime," Ital. Cima. Yet he uses "chime" in the common sense, "Ode Nativ." v. 128. He may do so here, but then the expression is licentious, I suppose for the sake of the rhyme.-Hurd. The "sphery chime" is the music of the spheres.-T. WARTON. The moral of this poem is very finely summed up in the six concluding lines: the thought contained in the last two might probably be suggested to our author by a passage in the "Table of Cebes," where Patience and Perseverance are represented stooping and stretching out their hands to help up those, who are endeavouring to climb the craggy hill of Virtue, and yet are too feeble to ascend of themselves.—THYER. Had this learned and ingenious critic duly reflected on the lofty mind of Milton, "smit with the love of sacred song," and so often and so sublimely employed on topics of religion, he might readily have found a subject, to which the poet obviously and divinely alludes in these concluding lines, without fetching the thought from the "Table of Cebes." In the preceding remark, I am convinced Mr. Thyer had no ill intention: but, by overlooking so clear and pointed an allusion to a subject, calculated to kindle that lively glow in the bosom of every Christian, which the poet intended to excite, and by referring it to an image in a profane author, he may, beside stifling the sublime effect so happily produced, afford a handle to some, in these "evil days," who are willing to make the religion of Socrates and Cebes (or that of Nature) supersede the religion of Christ. "The moral of this poem |