of your invitation to your country house, I will with pleasure come to you, as soon as the spring is further advanced, that I may at once enjoy the delightfulness of the season, and that of your conversation. I will then retire for a short time, as I would to the celebrated porch of Zeno, or to the Tusculan villa of Cicero, from the tumult of the town to your Suffolk Stoa; where, you, like another Serranus, or Curius, in moderate circumstances, but with a princely soul, reign tranquilly in the midst of your little farm." Symmons' Life of Milton, page 15.-I believe this letter to have been written two years after the elegy, but I am aware that there may have been much inaccuracy in the printed dates of the letters.

NOTE 14. Ascend Medea's chariot.

H.

In which, with her son Medus, she flew from Athens, the abode of her husband Egeus, into Media, so named from Medus.

C.

NOTE 15. Or that, whence young Triptolemus of

yore.

When he was sent by Ceres from Eleusis to instruct barbarous nations in the arts of agriculture.

C.

NOTE 16. From Hama, whom a club-arm'd Cimbrian slew.

Krantzius, a Gothic geographer says, that the city of Hamburgh in Saxony, took its name from Hama, a puissant Saxon champion, who was killed on the spot,

where that city stands, by Starchater, a Danish giant Saxonia lib. 1. c. xi. p. 12. Edit. Wechel. 1575, fɔlio. The Cimbrica Clava, is the club of the Dane. In describing Hamburgh this romantic tale could not escape Milton. WARTON.

NOTE 17. So from Philippi wander'd forth forlorn.

Cilician Paul with sounding scourges torn.

Cowper in translating this couplet has softened the expression Pellitur, and rendered the passage more consonant to Scripture" And the keeper of the prison told this saying to Paul: the magistrates have sent to let you go, now therefore depart and go in peace.

"But Paul said unto them, they have beaten us openly, uncondemned, being Romans, and have cast us into prison, and now do they thrust us out privily. Nay! verily, but let them come themselves and fetch us out!

"And the sergeants told these words unto the magistrates, and they feared, when they heard they were Romans.

"And they came, and besought them, and brought them out, and desired them to depart out of the city."Acts xvi. 36.

NOTE 18.

"With sounding scourges torn."

H.

Whipping and imprisonment were among the punishments of the arbitrary Star-Chamber, the threat Regis Achabi which Young fled to avoid.

WARTON.

NOTE 19. Thou, therefore, as the most afflicted may, Still hope, and triumph, o'er thy evil day!

It is highly pleasing to observe a youth of eighteen thus breathing the spirit of religious fortitude, and chearful hope, into the wounded mind of that exiled preceptor, to whom he was indebted for an early introduction to those poetical studies, which he applied to the noblest and most delightful purposes.-Readers who relish all the beauties of this Elegy, must feel a pleasure in reflecting, that the young poet enjoyed the high gratification of seeing his cordial presage in the close of it accomplished. How lively must his joy have been in beholding this worthy object of his grateful affection, not only restored to his native country, but raised to a station of honor and affluence. That joy must have been equalled, or exceeded, by the cordial exultation of Young himself, if the good man lived, as he probably did, long enough to peruse the Comus of his affectionate pupil, that enchanting harbinger of his most extensive productions, a poem which one of his warmest admirers has not scrupled to call "the most beautiful and perfect poem of that sublime genius."

In how captivating a light does poetry appear, when we find it happily employed, as it generally was, even in the juvenile compositions of Milton, to confirm afflicted mortals in their duty, and to promote and inspirit the purest pleasures, and affections of the heart! Of this purpose and effect his Ode to his sister on the death of her infant, and this Elegy to his preceptor are very signal examples.

NOTE 20. Nor let thy burning wheels approach too

nigh,

For thou can'st govern them.

In allusion to the story of Phaeton, who could not. c.

NOTE 21. French spirits kindling with Cerulean fires,

Haustaque per lepidos Gallica musta focos.

The preposition per, and the epithet lepidos convince me, that Milton does not mean in this place to speak of wine drunk at the chearful fires; but that focus, which in its proper sense signifies a hearth, is here used by a metonymy for fire itself, and Gallica musta for brandy, in short that he means to describe the well known Christmas amusement called snap-dragon.

Mustum properly signifies wine so new, as not yet to have fermented, and may therefore with equal propriety be used to express a distilled spirit, which is never fermented at all.The Latin language failing us, where modern inventions are in question, in such cases, a poet composing in Latin is obliged to resort to a periphrasis.

NOTE 22. Simply let these like him of Samos live.

Pythagoras.

NOTE 23. Tiresias wiser for his loss of sight.

C.

He was struck blind by Juno; and Jupiter, to compensate his loss of sight, bestowed on him the gift of prophecy.

NOTE 23. The promis'd King of Peace employs

my pen:

Alluding, as Mr. Warton observes, to his Ode on

the Nativity.

C.

NOTE 24. Verse that reserv'd in secret shall attend,

Thy candid voice, my critic and my friend.

The transitions and connexions of this Elegy are conducted with the skill and address of a master, and form a train of allusions and disgressions, productive of fine sentiment and poetry. From a trifling and unimportant circumstance, the reader is gradually led to great and lofty imagery.

WARTON.

It may also be observed, that the friendship, the politeness, and the moral dignity of Milton, are all very gracefully displayed in this charming poem. He praises the festive gaiety of his favorite correspondent with great elegance, and warmth, yet vindicates, with becoming spirit, his own strict attachment to that singular temperance, which was one of his own happy characteristics, for it enabled him to struggle thro' an extensive life of difficulties and of dangers, and to exert, under all his misfortunes, the unclouded powers of an exalted and unconquerable mind.

H.

NOTE 25. That Amathusia, smiling queen, inspires Venus called Amathusia from Amathus a City of

Cyprus.