In the fame fublime manner EXPECTATION is perfonalized in Milton. VI, 306.

66

While EXPECTATION food

"In horror."

So VICTORY is perfonalized, In K. Richard III. A& V. VICTORY fits on our helms.e'

Again, In Antony and Cleopatra, A& I.

"On your sword

"Sit lawrell'd VICTORY."

Hence Milton. VI, 762.

"At his right hand VICTORY

"Sat eage-wing'd."

In the IVth book, where Satan falls into those doubts with himself, and paffions of fear and despair, Milton uses the fame image, as Shakespeare in describing the perturbed and distracted ftate of Macbeth.

"And like a devilish engine back recoils

"Upon himself: horror and doubt distract "His troubled foul." B. IV, 16.

"Who then shall blare

"His pefter'd senses to recoyl and start

"When all that is within him does condemn

"Itself for being there?”

Macbeth, A& V.

Milton, in the description of Eve's bower [B. IV, 703.]

says,

"Other creatures here

"Beast, bird, infect or worm, durft enter none; "Such was their awe of Man."

So in the fong, inferted in A Midfummer-Night's Dream, A& II. Infects and worms are forbid to approach the

Bower

Bower of the Queen of Fairies. Callimachus has a thought not unlike, speaking of the place where Rhea brought forth Jove.

Ἔνθεν ὁ χῶρος

Ιερός· ἐδέ τί μιν κεχρημένον Εἰλειθυίης

Ερπετόν, ἐδὲ γυνὴ ἐπινίσσεται.

Hym. I, 11.

Inde locus eft facer : neque prægnans aliquod animal, neque mulier eum adit ulla. Epelov, is whatever walks or creeps, bird, beaft, infect or worm, as Milton expreffes it; who doubtless had both Callimachus and Shakespeare in his mind. And this is very ufual for Milton, in the compass of a few lines to rifle the beauties of various authors, and hence to make them his own by his properly applying and improving them as his divine subject required. This having not been, as I know of, fufficiently attended to, I will instance in one or two paffages.

"Like that Pygmean race

"Beyond the Indian mount; or Fairy elves, "Whose midnight revels by a forest fide,

"Or fountain, fome belated peasant fees

"Or dreams he fees; while over-head the moon "Sits arbitress, &c."

Milton is speaking of the fallen Angels, who had reduced their immense shapes-first he says they resembled the Pygmean race. See Homer II. y'. 6. and Eukath. fol. 281. "Or Fairy elves

"Whose midnight revels by a forest fide

"Or fountain, &c."

Shakespeare in A Midsummer Night's Dream, A&t II.

"And never fince that middle Summer's spring "That we on hill, in dale, forest or mead,

"By paved fountain, or by rushy brook,

"Or on the beached margent of the sea

"To dance our ringlets to the whifling wind, &c.”

Again, the following in Milton.Some belated peasant fees or dreams be fees: is literally from Virgil, Aen. VI, 454. Aut videt aut vidisse putat. And, while over head the Moon fits arbitrefs: from Horace. L. I. Od. IV.

Jam Cytherea Choros ducit Venus, IMMINENTE LUNA.

Milton, B. V. ✯. 5.

"Which th' only found

"Of leaves, and fuming rills, (Aurora's fan) "Lightly difpers'd, and the fhrill matin fong "Of birds on every bough.

This is partly Virgil. VIII, 456.

Evandrum ex humili tecto lux fufcitat alma,

Et MATUTINI VOLUCRUM fub culmine CANTUS.

And partly Taffo [B. VII. ft. 5.] thus rendered by Fairfax, "The birds awakt her with their morning fong,

"Their warbling muficke pierft her tender eare,

"The murmuring brooks, and whistling winds among "The ratling boughes and leaves their parts did beare, &c."

From Virgil Milton has literally the matin song of birds: from Taffo, the found of leaves and rills: his own addition is, Aurora's fan: a pretty poetical image applied to the fanning winds among the leaves of the trees, and the cooling fumes arifing from the rills.

I will add but one paffage more which has already been cited. "Heav'n open'd wide

"Her ever-during gates, harmonious found

"On golden hinges moving."

B. VII, 205.

This, by way of contraft, fhould be compar'd with B. II,

881.

"On a fudden open fly

"With impetuous recoil and jarring found

"Th' infernal doors, and on their hinges grate "Harth thunder."

The reader, if he has any ear, will plainly perceive how the found of these verses corresponds to the sense; and how finely they are improved from Virgil. Aen. VI, 573. "Tum demum horrifono ftridentes cardine facrae "Panduntur portae."

Hell gates grate harsh thunder; the gates of Heaven open with harmonious found. This (to omit Homer and the Pfalmift mentioned already) he had from Amadis de Gaul, B. IV. Ch. XI. where he defcribes the palace of Apolidon. And the Witty Rabelais [B. V. Ch. 37.] has the self-same image.- -In these two laft inftances here brought no mention is made of Shakespeare, but this fmall digreffion, perhaps, the reader will excuse as it shews in a new light fome fine paffages of our epic poet.

INDE X.