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As once we did, till disproportion'd sin

Jarr'd against nature's chime, and with harsh din
Broke the fair music that all creatures made

To their great Lord, whose love their motion sway'd
In perfect diapason, whilst they stood

In first obedience, and their state of good.

O may we soon again renew that song,

And keep in tune with heav'n, till God ere long
To his celestial consort us unite,

To live with him, and sing in endless morn of light.

18. Noise is in a good sense music. So in Ps. xlvii. 5. "God is gone up with a merry noise, and the Lord with the sound of the trump." Noise is sometimes literally synonimous with music. As in Shakespeare, "Sneak's noise." And in Chapman's All Fools, 1605. Reed's Old Pl. iv. 187.

-You must get us music too,
Calls in a cleanly noise.

Compare also the ode on Christ's
Nativity, st. ix. 96. and Spenser,
F. Q. i. xii. 39. See more in-
stances in Reed's Old Pl. vol. v.
304. vi. 70. vii. 8. x. 277. And
in Shakespeare, Johns. Steev. vol.
v. p. 489. seq. Perhaps the lady
in Comus, 227, does not speak
quite contemptuously, though
modestly, "such noise as I can
"make." Caliban seems, by the
context, to mean musical sounds,
when he says, the "isle is full of
"noises." T. Warton.

19. till disproportion'd sin Jarr'd against nature's chime, &c.]

So in P. L. xi. 55.

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-giving to the world

Again his first and tuneful planetting. See ode on the Nativity, st. xii. xiii. T. Warton.

23. In perfect diapason,] Concord through all the tones, dia warwy. Plin. lib. ii. sect. 20. Ita septem tonos effici, quam diapason harmoniam vocant, hoc est, universitatem concentus. Richardson.

28. To live with him, and sing &c.] In the manuscript the last line stands thus,

To live and sing with him in endless morn of light.

VIII.

An Epitaph on the Marchioness of Winchester *. THIS rich marble doth inter

The honour'd wife of Winchester,

A Viscount's daughter, an Earl's heir,
Besides what her virtues fair
Added to her noble birth,

More than she could own from earth.
Summers three times eight save one
She had told; alas too soon,

After so short time of breath,

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To house with darkness, and with death.

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Yet had the number of her days

Been as complete as was her praise,
Nature and fate had had no strife
In giving limit to her life.
Her high birth, and her graces sweet
Quickly found a lover meet;

* This Lady was Jane, daughter of Thomas Lord Viscount Savage, of Rock-Savage in the county of Chester, who by marriage became the heir of Lord Darcy Earl of Rivers; and was the wife of John Marquis of Winchester, and the mother of Charles first Duke of Bolton. She died in childbed of a second son in the twenty-third year of her age, and Milton made these verses at Cambridge, as appears by the sequel.

4. Besides what her virtues fair, &c.] In Howell's entertaining letters there is one to this lady which may justify our author's

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panegyric. It is dated Mar. 15, 1626. He says, he assisted her in learning Spanish: and that nature and the graces exhausted all their treasure and skill in

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framing this exact model of "female perfection." He adds, "I return you here the Sonnet

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your Grace pleased to send me "lately, rendered into Spanish, " and fitted for the same ayre it "had in English both for ca"dence and feete, &c." Howell's Letters, vol. i. sect. 4. Let. xiv. p. 180. T. Warton.

15. Her high birth, and her
graces sweet
Quickly found a lover meel ;]

The virgin quire for her request

The God that sits at marriage feast;
He at their invoking came

But with a scarce well-lighted flame;
And in his garland as he stood,
Ye might discern a cypress bud.
Once had the early matrons run
To greet her of a lovely son,

And now with second hope she goes,
And calls Lucina to her throws;
But whether by mischance or blame
Atropos for Lucina came;

Her husband was a conspicuous loyalist in the reign of Charles I. His magnificent castle of Basing in Hampshire withstood an obstinate siege of two years against the rebels, and when taken was levelled to the ground, because in every window was flourished Aymez Loyauté. He died in 1674, and was buried at Englefield in Berkshire; where, on his monument, is an admirable Epitaph by Dryden. It is remarkable, that husband and wife should have severally received the honour of an epitaph from two such poets as Dryden and Milton. Jonson also wrote a pathetic poem, entitled, An Elegie on the Lady Anne Pawlett, Marchioness of Winton; Underw. vol. vii. 17. But Jane appears in the text of the poem, with the circumstance of her being the daughter of Lord Savage. She therefore must have been our author's Marchioness. Compare Cartwright's poems, p. 193. There

VOL. III.

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are two old portraits of this lady and her husband at the Duke of Bolton's at Hakewood, Hants. T. Warton.

19. He at their invoking came But with a scarce well-lighted flame ;]

From Övid, Met. x. 4.

Adfuit ille quidem; sed nec solemnia verba,

Nec lætos vultus, nec felix attulit

omen.

Fax quoque, quam tenuit, lacrimoso
stridula fumo
Usque fuit, nullosque invenit motibus
ignes.

Jortin.

22. -Ɑ cypress bud] An emblem of a funeral: and it is called in Virgil feralis, Æn. vi. 216. and in Horace funebris, Epod. v. 18. and in Spenser the cypress funeral. Faery Queen, b. i. cant. i. st. 8.

28. Atropos for Lucina came ;] One of the Fates instead of the goddess who brings the birth to light.

C C

And with remorseless cruelty

Spoil'd at once both fruit and tree:

The hapless babe before his birth
Had burial, yet not laid in earth,
And the languish'd mother's womb
Was not long a living tomb,

So have I seen some tender slip,
Sav'd with care from winter's nip,
The pride of her carnation train,
Pluck'd up by some unheedy swain,
Who only thought to crop the flow'r
New shot up from vernal show'r;
But the fair blossom hangs the head
Side-ways, as on a dying bed,
And those pearls of dew she wears,
Prove to be presaging tears,
Which the sad morn had let fall
On her hast'ning funeral.

Gentle Lady, may thy grave

Peace and quiet ever have;
After this thy travail sore
Sweet rest seize thee evermore,

41. But the fair blossom hangs the head, &c.] Mr. Bowle compares this and the five following verses with what Antonio Bruni says of the rose, Le Tre Gratie, p. 221.

Ma nata a pena, o filli,
Cade languisce e more:
Le tenere rugiade,

Ch' l'imperlano il seno,
Son ne suoi funerali

Le lagrime dolenti.

T. Warton.

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That to give the world increase,

Short'ned hast thy own life's lease.

Here, besides the sorrowing
That thy noble house doth bring,
Here be tears of perfect moan
Wept for thee in Helicon,

And some flowers, and some bays

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For thy hearse, to strow the ways,

Sent thee from the banks of Came,

Devoted to thy virtuous name;

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Whilst thou, bright Saint, high sitt'st in glory,

Next her much like to thee in story,

That fair Syrian shepherdess,

Who after years of barrenness,

The highly favour'd Joseph bore

To him that serv'd for her before,
And at her next birth much like thee,
Through pangs fled to felicity,
Far within the bosom bright
Of blazing Majesty and Light:

55. Here be tears of perfect
moan, &c.
Sent thee from the banks of
Came.]

I have been told that there was
a Cambridge collection of verses
on her death, among which Mil-
ton's Elegiac Ode first appeared.
But I rather think this was not
the case.
As our Marchioness
was the daughter of Lord Savage
of Rock-Savage in Cheshire, it
is natural to suppose that her
family was well acquainted with
that of Lord Bridgewater, of the
same county, for whom Milton

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wrote Comus. He might probably therefore write this elegy in consequence of his acquaintance with the Egerton family.

Mr. Bowle remarks, that her death was celebrated by Sir John Beaumont, and Sir William Davenant. See Beaumont's Poems, 1629. p. 159. T. Warton.

63. That fair Syrian shepherdess, &c.] Rachel, the daughter of Laban the Syrian, kept her father's sheep, Gen. xxix. 9. and after her first son, Joseph, died in child-bed of her second son, Benjamin, xxxv. 18.

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