Tall stripling youths rich clad, of fairer hue 352. -of fairer hue Than Ganymed or Hylas ;] These were two most beautiful youths; Ganymed was cupcupbearer to Jupiter, and Hylas drew water for Hercules, and therefore they are both properly mentioned upon this occasion. 355. and Naiades] Milton is not to be blamed for writing as others did in his time. But since the critics have determined to write Naïdes in three syllables, or Naïades in four, it is time for the English poets to call these nymphs Naïds, and not Naiads. Jortin. 356. from Amalthea's horn,] The same as the cornu copiæ; the horn of plenty. Amalthea was, as some say, a Naid, the nurse of Jupiter, who nourished him with the milk of a goat, whose horn was afterwards made the horn of plenty; others say, that Amalthea was the name of the goat. 357. The ladies of th' Hesperides,] The Hesperides were famous for the gardens and orchards which they had bearing golden fruit in the western isles of Africa: they may therefore not improperly be ranked with the spirits of woods and springs. (See v. 374.) 358. Fairer than feign'd of old, 355 or fabled since, &c.] Here seems to be some defect in the syntax, as if the poet had meant to say Fairer than feigned of old, or what has been fabled since of fairy damsels met in forest wide by knights, &c. of whom he had read in his romances, where it is not so easy to trace him, but the name of Sir Pelleas occurs in the Faery Queen, b. vi. cant. xii. st. 39. 358. Sir Lancelot, Pelleas, and Pellenore, are Persons in the old Romance of Morte Arthur, or The Luf of King Arthur, of his noble Knyghtes of the round table, and in thende the dolorous deth of them all; written originally in French, and translated by Sir Thomas Malleory, Knt. printed by W. Caxton, 1484. From this old Romance Mr. Warton (Observations on Spenser, sect. 2.) shews that Spenser borrowed much. Sir Lancelot is there called of Logris; and Sir Tristram of Lyones. Logris, or Loegria, is an old name for England, according to the more fabulous historians, and among them Milton. Hollinshed calls it Loe gria, Logiers, and Lhoegres. See his Description of Britain, and his History of England, b. ii. 4, 5. Lyones was an old name for Cornwall, or at least for a part Of fairy damsels met in forest wide And all the while harmonious airs were heard Of chiming strings, or charming pipes, and winds 360 From their soft wings, and Flora's earliest smells. 365 of that county. See Camden's Britannia concerning the Land's end. And Spenser, Faery Queen, b. vi. c. ii. 28 et seq. and c. xii. 39. Milton's later thoughts could not but rove at times where, as he himself told us, his " younger feet wandered," when he "betook him among those lofty fables and romances, which recount in solemn cantos the deeds of knighthood founded by our victorious kings, and from hence had in renowne over all Christendome." Apol. for Smectymn. Dunster. 358. -or fabled since &c.] Some readers may perhaps in this passage think our author a little too fond of shewing his great reading, a fault which he is indeed sometimes guilty of: but those who are conversant in romance-writers, and know how lavish they are in the praises of their beauties, will I doubt not discover great propriety in this allusion. Thyer. 363. Of chiming strings, or charming pipes,] So Spenser hath used the verb charms. Faery Queen, b. iv. cant. 9. st. 13. Like as the fowler on his guileful pipe Charms to the birds full many a pleasant lay. Calton. -now gentle gales Fanning their odoriferous wings dispense Native perfumes, and whisper whence they stole Those balmy spoils: and by this little specimen one may see, as I observed before, that our poet's imagination did life, and that there is no differnot flag in the latter part of his ence in the Paradise Lost and Paradise Regained, but such as subjects. Thyer. was occasioned by the different 365. Flora's earliest smells.] From the regularity of his pursuits, the purity of his pleasures, his temperance and general simplicity of life, Milton habitually Such was the splendour, and the Tempter now What doubts the Son of God to sit and eat? All these are spi'rits of air, and woods, and springs, 370 senses, resembles the Address of Pleasure to Hercules, Xen. Memor. 1. ii. See also the translation of it in the choice of Hercules, published in Mr. Spence's Polymetis. Dunster. 368. What doubts the Son of God to sit and eat?] What seems to be used here much like the Latin quid, which signifies both what and why, as in Paradise Lost, ii. 329. What sit we then projecting peace and war? 369. These are no fruits forbidden, no interdict &c.] This sarcastical allusion to the fall of man, and to that particular command, by transgressing which, being seduced by Satan, he fell, is finely in character of the speaker. Compare Par. Lost, v. 51 and 323. But Satan immediately resumes his hypocritical servility, which much resembles his language in Par. Lost, b. ix. when, in his addresses to Eve, "persuasive rhetorick sleeked his tongue." Dunster. 370. Defends the touching] Forbids, prohibits, hinders, as the word is used in Paradise Lost, xi. 86. xii. 207. Thy gentle ministers, who come to pay Thee homage, and acknowledge thee their Lord: 375 And who withholds my pow'r that right to use? 380 Shall I receive by gift what of my own, When and where likes me best, I can command ? I can at will, doubt not, as soon as thou, Command a table in this wilderness, And count thy specious gifts no gifts but guiles. To whom thus answer'd Satan malecontent. 385 390 391. thy gifts no gifts] Expressed from the Greek proverb. Sophocles, Ajax 665. Εχθρων άδωρα δώρα, κ' ουκ ονήσιμα. -timeo Danaos et dona ferentes. and to a preceding part of Lao- Creditis avectos hostes, aut ulla putatis Dona carere dolis Danaum? Dunster. What I might have bestow'd on whom I pleas'd, 395 And rather opportunely in this place Chose to impart to thy apparent need, Why should'st thou not accept it? but I see Of these things others quickly will dispose, 400 Whose pains have earn'd the far fet spoil. With that Both table and provision vanish'd quite With sound of harpies' wings, and talons heard; 401. the far fet spoil.] Fel is much softer than fetch'd, and it is used by Chaucer, Squire's Tale, 296. This strangir knight is fet to him full sone; and by Spenser, Faery Queen, b. iii. cant. i. st. 8. And by Johnson, Prol. to Silent Woman, Though there be none far fet: and in prose as well as in verse by Sir Philip Sidney, Arcad. p. 360. Therewith he told her a far fet tale: Defence of Poetry, p. 551. as if our old writers had a better ear, and studied the beauties of sound more than the moderns. 401. -With that &c.] The breaking off short of the verse admirably expresses the sudden and abrupt manner, wherein Both table and provision vanish'd quite With sound of harpies' wings, and talons heard ; When from the mountain-tops, with hideous cry, And clatt'ring wings, the hungry harpies fly; They snatch the meat. Dryden. And we have a like scene in Shakespeare, in the Tempest, act iii. where several strange shapes bring in a banquet, and afterwards enters Ariel like a harpy, claps his wings upon the table, and with a quaint device the banquet vanishes. 401. All this part of the temptation of Christ is formed and conducted on the principles of romance, in which a sumptuous banquet is a common temptation. The table, richly spread in regal mode, vanishes also like the banquet of a Gothic necromancer. Compare the Tempest, a. iii..s. 3. All this sort of fiction had long before been adopted from romance by Spenser and his masters the Italian poets. Perhaps the ground-work is in Virgil's in which the author has imitated hell, Æn. vi. 603. Virgil, Æn. iii. 225. At subitæ horrifico lapsu de montibus adsunt Harpyiæ, et magnis quatiunt clan- VOL. III. -Lucent genialibus altis Aurea fulcra toris, epulæque ante |