On which the Tartar king did ride: Not trick'd and flounc'd as she was wont But kercheft in a comely cloud, While rocking winds are piping loud, Or usher'd with a shower still With minute-drops from off the eaves, Where the rude axe, with heaved stroke, With such consort as they keep, Entice the dewy-feather'd Sleep; And let some strange mysterious dream And, as I wake, sweet music breathe But let my due feet never fail And bring all heaven before mine eyes. These pleasures, Melancholy, give, He puts the Penseroso last, as a climax; because he prefers the pensive mood to the mirthful. I do not know why he spells the word in this manner. I have never seen it without the i,-Pensieroso. In Florio's Dictionary the że varies into an o,-Pensoroso; whence apparently the abbreviated form,-Pensoso. (8) As thick as motes in the sunne beams.-CHAUCER. But see how by one word, people, a great poet improves what he borrows. Prince Memnon's sister. It does not appear, by the ancient authors, thai Memnon had a sister; but Milton wished him to have one; so here she is. It has been idly objected to Spenser, who dealt much in this kind of creation, that he had no right to add to persons and circumstances in old mythology. As if the same poetry which saw what it did might not see more! (10) The cherub Contemplation. Learnedly called cherub, not seraph; because the cherubs were the angels of knowledge, the seraphs of love. In the celestial hierarchy, by a noble sentiment, the seraphs rank higher than the cherubs. (1) Most musical, most melancholy. A question has been started of late years, whether the song of the nightingale is really melancholy; whether it ought not rather to be called merry, as, in fact, Chaucer does call it. But merry, in Chaucer's time, did not mean solely what it does now; but any kind of hasty or strenuous prevalence, as "merry men," meaning men in their heartiest and manliest condition. He speaks even of the merry organ," meaning the church organ-the " merry organ of the mass." Coleridge, in some beautiful lines, thought fit to take the merry side, out of a notion, real or supposed, of the necessity of vindicating nature from sadness. But the question is surely very simple,—one of pure association of ideas. The nightingale's song is not in itself melancholy, that is, no result of sadness on the part of the bird; but coming, as it does, in the nighttime, and making us reflect, and reminding us by its very beauty of the mystery and fleetingness of all sweet things, it becomes melancholy in the finer sense of the word, by the combined overshadowing of the hour and of thought. (12) Like one that hath been led astray. This calls to mind a beautiful passage about the moon, in Spenser's Epithalamium : ? Who is the same that at my window peeps (13) Where glowing embers. Here, also, the reader is reminded of Spenser.-See p. 114: A little glooming light, much like a shade. (14) Or let my lamp, at midnight hour, Be seen. The picturesque of the "be seen" has been much admired. Its good-nature seems to deserve no less approbation. The light is seen afar by the traveller, giving him a sense of home comfort, and perhaps helping to guide his way. (15) Call up him that left half told The story of Cambuscan bold. Chaucer, with his Squire's Tale. But why did Milton turn Càmbuscàn, that is, Cambus the Khan, into Cambuscan? The accent in Chaucer is never thrown on the middle syllable. LYCIDAS. The poet bewails the death of his young friend and fellow-student, Edward King, of Christ's College, Cambridge, who was drowned at sea, on his way to visit his friends in Ireland. The vessel, which was in bad condition, went suddenly to the bottom, in calm weather, not far from the English coast; and all on board perished. Milton was then in his twenty-ninth year, and his friend in his twenty-fifth. The poem, with good reason, is supposed to have been written, like the preceding ones, at Horton, in Buckinghamshire :— Yet once more, O ye laurels, and once more, I come to pluck your berries harsh and crude, Shatter your leaves before the mellowing year. That from beneath the seat of Jove doth spring, So may some gentle Muse With lucky words favour my destin'd urn, And, as he passes, turn, And bid fair peace be to my sable shroud. For we were nurst upon the self-same hill, |