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onely owe you thanks for intimating unto me (how modestly soever) the true artificer. For the work itself I had viewed som good while before with singular delight, having received it from our common friend Mr. R. in the very close of the late R.'s poems, printed at Oxford, wherunto it is added (as I now suppose) that the accessory might help out the principal, according to the art of stationers, and to leave the reader con la bocca dolce.

Now, sir, concerning your travels, wherin I may chalenge a little more priviledge of discours with you; I suppose you will not blanch Paris in your way; therefore I have been bold to trouble you with a few lines to Mr. M. B., whom you shall easily find attending the young Lord S., as his governour; and you may surely receive from him good directions for the shaping of your farther journey into Italy, where he did reside by my choice som time for the king, after mine own recess from Venice. I should think that your best line would be thorow the whole length of France to Marseilles, and thence by sea to Genoa, whence the passage into Tuscany is as diurnal as a Gravesend barge: I hasten, as you do, to Florence, or Sienna, the rather to tell you a short story from the interest you have given me in your safety. At Siena I was tabled in the house of one Alberto Scipioni, an old Roman courtier in dangerous times, having bin steward to the Duca di Pagliano, who with all his family were strangled, save this onely man that escaped by foresight of the tempest with him I had often much chat of those affairs; into which he took pleasure to look back from his native harbour; and at my departure toward Rome (which had been the centre of his experience) I had wonn confidence enough to beg his advice, how I might carry myself securely there, without offence of others, or of mine own conscience. Signor Arrigo mio, sayes he, i pensieri stretti, et il viso sciolto, will go safely over the whole world; of which Delphian oracle (for so I have found it) your judgement doth need no commentary; and therefore, sir, I will commit you with it to the best of all securities, Gods dear love, remaining Your Friend as much at command as any of longer date,

POSTSCRIPT.

HENRY WOOTTON m.

SIR, I have expressly sent this my foot-boy to prevent your departure without som acknowledgement from me of the receipt of your obliging Letter, having my self through som busines, I know not how, neglected the ordinary conveyance. In any part where I shall understand you fixed, I shall be glad, and diligent, to entertain you with home novelties; even for some fomentation of our friendship, too soon interrupted in the cradle ".

the higher poetry of "Comus: " he was rather struck with the pastoral mellifluence of its lyric measures, which he styles" a certain Dorique delicacy in the songs and odes," than with its graver and more majestic tones, with the solemnity and variety of its peculiar vein of original invention. This drama was not to be generally characterised by its songs and odes: nor do I know that softness and sweetness, although they want neither, are particularly characteristical of those passages, which are most commonly rough with strong and crowded images, and rich in personification. However, the song to Echo, and the initial strains of Comus's invitation, are much in the style which Wootton describes.-T. WARTON.

Mr. R. I believe "Mr. R." to be John Rouse, Bodley's librarian. tionably Thomas Randolph, the poet.-T. WARTON,

"The late R." is unques

› Mr. M. B. Mr. Michael Branthwaite, as I suppose; of whom Sir Henry thus speaks in one of his letters, ** Reliq. Wotton." 3rd edit. p. 546.-" Mr. Michael Branthwaite, heretofore his majestic's agent in Venice, a gentleman of approved confidence and sincerity.-TODD.

Lord S. The son of Lord Viscount Scudamore, then the English ambassador at Paris, by whose notice Milton was honoured, and by whom he was introduced to Grotius, then residing at Paris also, as the minister of Sweden.-TODD.

Signor, &c. Sir Henry seems to have been very fond of recommending this advice to his friends, who were about to travel. See "Reliq. Wotton." 3rd edit. p. 356, where he relates to another correspondent his intimacy with Scipioni, and his maxim, "Gli pensieri stretti, et il viso sciolto: that is, as I use to translate it, Your thoughts close, and your countenance loose.' This was that moral antidote which I imparted to Mr. B. and his fellow-travellers, having a particular interest in their well-doings." Milton, however, neglecting to observe the maxim, incurred great danger, by disputing against the superstition of the church of Rome within the verge of the Vatican -TODD.

In Milton mentions this letter of Sir Henry Wootton for its elegance, in his "Defensio secunda populi Anglicani."-T. WARTON.

In the cradle. He should have said "in its cradle." See the beginning of the letter.-T. WARTON.

ORIGIN OF COMUS.

Ix Fincher's + Faith Shepherdess," an Arcadian comedy recently published, Miza sound many wouches of pastoral and superstitious imagery, congenial with bs v1 Masolas: many of these, yet with the highest improvements, he has ITLISterreĚ 1102 Cotrus; together with the general cast and colouring of the paere. The raached aise from the lyric rhymes of Fletcher, that Doric delicacy, wet with Se Henry Wootton was so much delighted in the songs of Milton's Frama Fiescher's comedy was coldly received the first night of its performance: bat in had ample revenge in this conspicuous and indisputable mark of Milton's Acrevdatud : I was afterwards represented as a mask at court, before the king and queen in Twych Night, in 1953. I know not, indeed, if this was any recom menästan te Misse ; who, in the Paradise Lost," speaks contemptuously of these EMPORIS, VIKh had been among the chief diversions of an elegant and liberal monarch, d. rv. 762 —

court-amours,

M.x'd dance and wanton mask, or midnight ball, &c.

And in bs Ready and easy Way to establish a free Commonwealth,” written in 156), on the inconveniences and dangers of readmitting kingship, and with a view to counterset the noxious humour of returning to bondage, he says, "A king must be adored as a demi-god, with a dissolute and haughty court about him, of vast expense and luxury, masks and revels, to the debauching our prime gentry, both male and female, not in their pastimes only," &e. " Pr. W." i. 590. I believe the whole compliment was paid to the genius of Fletcher: but in the mean time it should be remembered, that Milton had not yet contracted an aversion to courts and court amusements; and that in "L'Allegro," masks are among his pleasures: nor could he now disapprove of a species of entertainment, to which, as a writer, he was giving encouragement. The royal masks did not, however, like "Comus," always abound with Piatonic recommendations of the doctrine of chastity.

The ingenious and accurate Mr. Reed has pointed out a rude outline, from which Milton seems partly to have sketched the plan of the fable of "Comus." See “Biograph. Dramat." ii. p. 441. It is an old play, with this title, "The old Wives Tale, a pleasant conceited Comedie, plaied by the Queenes Maiesties players. Written by G. P. [i. e. George Peele.] Printed at London by John Danter, and are to be sold by Ralph Hancocke and John Hardie, 1595." In quarto. This very scarce and curious piece exhibits, among other parallel incidents, two brothers wandering in quest of their sister, whom an enchanter had imprisoned. This magician had learned his art from his mother Meroe, as Comus had been instructed by his mother Circe: the brothers call out on the lady's name, and Echo replies: the enchanter had given her a potion which suspends the powers of reason, and superinduces oblivion of herself: the brothers afterwards meet with an old man who is also skilled in magic; and, by listening to his soothsayings, they recover their lost sister; but not till the enchanter's wreath had been torn from his head, his sword wrested from his hand, a glass broken, and a light extinguished. The names of some of the characters, as Sacrapant, Chorebus, and others, are taken from the "Orlando Furioso." The history of Meroe, a witch, may be seen in "The xi Bookes of the Golden Asse, containing the Metamorphosie of Lucius Apuleius, interlaced with sundrie pleasant and delectable Tales, &c. Translated

out of Latin into English by William Adlington. Lond. 1566." See chap. iii. "How Socrates in his return from Macedony to Larissa was spoyled and robbed, and how he fell acquainted with one Meroe a witch." And chap. iv.

How Meroe the witch turned divers persons into miserable beasts." Of this book there were other editions, in 1571, 1596, 1600, and 1639, all in quarto and the black letter. The translator was of University-college. See also Apuleius in the original. A Meroe is mentioned by Ausonius, Epigr. xix.

Peele's play opens thus :-Anticke, Frolicke, and Fantasticke, three adventurers, are lost in a wood, in the night. They agree to sing the old song,

Three merrie men, and three merrie men,

And three merrie men be wee;

I in the wood, and thou on the ground,
And Jack sleeps in the tree.

They hear a dog, and fancy themselves to be near some village. A cottager appears, with a lantern: on which Frolicke says, "I perceiue the glimryng of a gloworme, a candle, or a cats-eye," &c. They intreat him to show the way; otherwise, they say, "wee are like to wander among the owlets and hobgoblins of the forest." He invites them to his cottage; and orders his wife to "lay a crab in the fire, to rost for lambes-wool," &c. They sing

When as the rie reach to the chin,

And chop cherrie, chop cherrie ripe within;
Strawberries swimming in the creame,

And schoole-boyes playing in the streame, &c.

At length, to pass the time trimly, it is proposed that the wife shall tell "a merry winters tale," or, "an old wiues winters tale ;" of which sort of stories she is not without a score. She begins:-There was a king, or duke, who had a most beautiful daughter, and she was stolen away by a necromancer; who, turning himself into a dragon, carried her in his mouth to his castle. The king sent out all his men to find his daughter; "at last, all the king's men went out so long, that hir Two Brothers went to seeke hir." Immediately the two brothers enter, and speak, FIRST BR. Vpon these chalkie cliffs of Albion,

We are arriued now with tedious toile, &c.
To seek our sister, &c.

A soothsayer enters, with whom they converse about the lost lady. Sooths. Was she fayre 2nd Br. The fayrest for white and the purest for redde, as the blood of the deare or the driven snowe, &c. In their search, Echo replies to their call: they find, too late, that their sister is under the captivity of a wicked magician, and that she had tasted his cup of oblivion. In the close, after the wreath is torn from the magician's head, and he is disarmed and killed by a spirit in the shape and character of a beautiful page of fifteen years old, she still remains subject to the magician's enchantment: but in a subsequent scene the spirit enters, and declares, that the sister cannot be delivered but by a lady, who is neither maid, wife, nor widow. The spirit blows a magical horn, and the lady appears; she dissolves the charm by breaking a glass, and extinguishing a light, as I have before recited. A curtain is withdrawn, and the sister is seen seated and asleep she is disenchanted and restored to her senses, having been spoken to thrice: she then rejoins her two brothers, with whom she returns home; and the boy-spirit vanishes under the earth. The magician is here called "inchanter vile," as in "Comus," v. 907.

There is another circumstance in this play, taken from the old English "Apuleius." It is where the old man every night is transformed by our magician into a bear, recovering in the day-time his natural shape.

Among the many feats of magic in this play, a bride newly married gains a marriage-portion by dipping a pitcher into a well as she dips, there is a voice :—

Faire maiden, white and redde,

Combe me smoothe, and stroke my head,
And thou shall haue some cockell bread!
Gently dippe, but not too deepe,

For feare thou make the golden beard to weepe!

Faire maiden, white and redde,

Combe the stothe, and stroke my head;

And every haire a shenue shall be,
And every sheane a giùden tree!

W the sage-drection, “A bead comes vp full of gold; she combes it into her

I must not man, that Shakspeare seems also to have had an eye on this play. It in the spent where The harvest-men enter with a song." Again, "Enter the best-men saging, with wachen in their handes." Frolicke says, "Who have we NETE, DIT KIDULTONs maruest-starres !" They sing,

Loe, here we creme a reaping, a reaping,

I. reape our haruest-fruite;

And thus we passe the yeare so long,
And never be we mute.

Campure the mask in the Tempest," a. iv. s. 1. where Iris says,

You sur-burnt sicklemen, of August weary,
Come hither from the furrow, and be merry;
Mike body-day, your rye-straw hats put on,
And these fresh nymphs encounter every one
In country fxting.

Where is this stage-Erection :- Enter certain reapers, properly habited: they joan with the nymphs in a graceful dance." The Tempest" probably did not appear before the year 1612

That Miton had his eye on this ancient drama, which might have been the favourite of his early youth, perhaps may be at least affirmed with as much credibuity, as that he conceived the Paradise Lost" from seeing a mystery at Florence, written by Andreini a Fiorentine in 1617, entitled " Adamo."

In the mean time, it must be confessed, that Milton's magician Comus, with his cup and wand, is unmately founded on the fable of Circe. The effects of both characters are much the same: they are both to be opposed at first with force and villence. Circe is subdued by the virtues of the herb moly which Mercury gives to Ulysses, and Comus by the plant hæmony which the spirit gives to the two brothers. About the year 1615, a mask, called the " Inner Temple Masque," written by William Browne, author of "Britannia's Pastorals," which I have frequently cited, was presented by the students of the Inner Temple; lately printed from a manuscript in the library of Emmanuel College: but I have been informed, that a few copies were printed soon after the presentation. It was formed on the story of Circe, and perhaps might have suggested some few hints to Milton. I will give some proofs of parallelism as we go along. The genius of the best poets is often determined, if not directed, by circumstance and accident. It is natural, that even so original a writer as Milton should have been biassed by the reigning poetry of the day, by the composition most in fashion, and by subjects recently brought forward, but soon giving way to others, and almost as soon totally neglected and forgotten.-T. WARTON.

INTRODUCTORY REMARKS.

"Comus" is perhaps more familiar to the modern English reader than any other poems of Milton, except "L'Allegro " and "Il Penseroso:" its poetical merits are generally felt and acknowledged its visionary and picturesque inventiveness give it a full title to a prime place in our admiration. Thyer and Warburton both remark that the author has here imitated Shakspeare's manner more than in the rest of his compositions.

The spirits of the air were favourite idols of Milton he had from early youth become intimately acquainted with all that learning, all that superstition, and all that popular belief had related regarding them; and he had added all that his own rich and creative imagination could combine with it.

It seems that an accidental event, which occurred to the family of his patron, John Egerton, Earl of Bridgewater, then keeping his court at Ludlow Castle, as lord president of Wales, gave birth to this fable. The earl's two sons and daughter, Lady Alice, were benighted, and lost their way in Haywood-forest; and the two brothers, in the attempt to explore their path, left the sister alone, in a track of country rudely inhabited by sets of boors and savage peasants. On these simple facts the poet raised a superstructure of such fairy spells and poetical delight, as has never since been equalled.

Masks, as I have already remarked, were then in fashion with the court and great nobility; and when the lord president entered upon the state of his new office, this entertainment was properly deemed a splendid mode of recommending himself to the country in the opening of his high function. Milton was the poet on whom Lord Bridgewater would naturally call; the bard having already produced the "Arcades" for the countess's mother, Lady Derby, at Harefield, in Middlesex.

Comus discovers the beautiful Lady in her forlorn and unprotected state; and, to secure her as a prize for his unprincipled voluptuousness, addresses her in the disguised character of a peasant, offering to conduct her to his own lowly but loyal cottage, until he hears of her stray attendants: meanwhile, the brothers, unable to find their way back to their sister, become dreadfully uneasy lest some harm should befall her nevertheless, they comfort themselves with the protection which Heaven affords to innocence; but the good Spirit, with whom the poem opens, now enters, and informs them of the character of Comus, and his wicked designs upon their sister. Under his guidance, they rush in on Comus and his crew, who had already carried off the Lady; put them to the rout; and release the captive, imprisoned by their spells, by the counter-spells of Sabrina. She is then carried back to her father's court, received in joy and triumph; and here the Mask ends. Who but Milton, unless perhaps Shakspeare, could have made this the subject of a thousand lines,-in which not only every verse, but literally every word, is pure and exquisite poetry? Never was there such a copiousness of picturesque rural images brought together: every epithet is racy, glowing, beautiful, and appropriate. But this is not all: the sentiments are tender, or lofty, refined, philo. sophical, virtuous, and wise. The chaste and graceful eloquence of the Lady is enchanting-the language flowing, harmonious, elegant, and almost ethereal. Cowper said of his feelings when he first perused Milton, we, in reading these dialogues, "dance for joy."

As

But almost even more than this part, the contrasted descriptions given by the good Spirit and Comus, of their respective offices and occupations, by carrying us into a visionary world, have a surprising sort of poetical magic.

This was the undoubted forerunner of that sort of spiritual invention, which more than thirty years afterwards produced "Paradise Lost" and "Paradise Regained;" but with this characteristic and essential difference: that "Comus" was written in youth, in joy and hope, and buoyancy, and playfulness; and those majestic and sublime epics, in the shadowed experience of age, in sorrow and disappointment,—

With darkness and with dangers compass'd round.

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