35

Such as may make thee search thy coffers round,
Before thou clothe my fancy in fit sound:
Such where the deep transported mind may soar
Above the wheeling poles, and at heav'n's door
Look in, and see each blissful deity
How he before the thunderous throne doth lie,
List’ning to what unshorn Apollo sings
To th' touch of golden wires, while Hebe brings
Immortal nectar to her kingly sire:
Then passing through the spheres of watchful fire,

40

Milton's to his native language, Pindar, Pyth. iii. 26. axsporxouoc that even in these green years Por@q. Hor. Od. i. xxi. 2. he had the ambition to think of Intonsum pueri dicite Cynthium. writing an epic poem; and it is 40. Then passing through the worth the curious reader's atten- spheres of watchful

fire, &c.] A tion to observe how much the sublime mode of describing the Paradise Lost corresponds in its study of natural philosophy. circumstances to the prophetic Compare another college exerwish he now formed. Thyer.

cise, written perhaps about the Here are strong indications same time. Nec dubitatis, auof a young mind anticipating ditores, etiam in cælos volare, the subject of the Paradise Lost, ibique ille multiformia nubium if we substitute Christian for

spectra, niviumque coacervatam Pagan ideas. He was now deep vim, contemplemini . . . . Granin the Greek poets. T. Warton. dinisque exinde loculos inspicite,

36. the thunderous throne] et armamenta fulminum perscruShould it not be the thunderer's? temini. Pr. W. ii. 591. But the Jortin,

thoughts are in Sylvester's Du Thunderous is more in Milton's Bartas, p. 133. ed. 1621. He manner, and conveys a new and supposes that the soul, while stronger image. Besides, the imprisoned in the body, often word is used in Par. Lost, X. springs aloft into the airy re702.

gions ; Nature and ether black with thun. -And there she learns to knowe drous clouds,

Th' originals of winde, and hail, and

snowe; It is from thunder, as slumbrous

Of lightning, thunder, blazing-stars, from slumber, Par. Lost, iv. 615. and stormes, Wondrous from wonder is ob- Of rain and ice, and strange-exhaled vious. T. Warton.

formes:

By th' aire's steep stairs she boldly 37. -unshorn Apollo] An epi

climbs aloft thet by which he is distinguished

To the world's chambers: heaven in the Greek and Latin poets. she visits oft, &c.

45

And misty regions of wide air next under,
And hills of snow and lofts of piled thunder,
May tell at length how green-ey'd Neptune raves,
In heav'n's defiance mustering all his waves;
Then sing of secret things that came to pass
When beldam Nature in her cradle was;
And last of kings and queens and heroes old,
Such as the wise Demodocus once told
In solemn songs at king Alcinous feast:
While sad Ulysses soul and all the rest
Are held with his melodious harmony

50

See also Sylvester's Job, ibid. p. The fields he passed then, whence

hail and snow, 944. Milton might here have

Thunder and rain fall down from had an eye on a similar passage

clouds above. in Sir David Lyndesay's Dreme.

Fairfax. Compare Brewer's Lingua, 1607. Reed's Old Pl. vol. v. 162. Men. 42. green-ey'd Neptune] dacio says, having scaled the hea- Virgil, Georg. iv. of Proteus. vens,

Ardentes oculos intersit lumine glauco., In the province of the meteors I saw the cloudy shapes of hail and

T. Warton, rain, Garners of snow, and crystals full of

48. Such as the wise Demododew, &c.

cus &c.] Alluding to the eighth

T. Warton. book of the Odyssey, where Al40. —watchful fire.] See Ode cinous entertains Ulysses, and on Chr. Nativ. v. 21..

the celebrated musician and poet And all the spangled host keep watch Demodocus sings the loves of in order bright.

Mars and Venus, and the de

Hurd. struction of Troy; and Ulysses We have vigil flamma, Ovid, and the rest are affected in the Trist. iii, 4. vigiles flammas, Art. manner here described. Am. iii. 463. T. Warton.

48. He now little thought that 41. And misty regions of wide Homer's beautiful couplet of the air next under,

fate of Demodocus, could, in a And hills of snow and lofts of

few
years,
with
so much

propiled thunder,]

priety be applied to himself. So Tasso describes the descent He was but too conscious of his of Michael. Cant. ix. st. 61.

resemblance to some other Greek Vien poi da campi lieti, e fiammeg. the Paradise Lost. See b. jii. 33.

bards of antiquity when he wrote gianti D'eterno di là, donde tuona, e pioue: seq. T. Warton.

In willing chains and sweet captivity.
But fie, my wand'ring Muse, how thou dost stray!
Expectance calls thee now another way,
Thou know'st it must be now thy only bent
To keep in compass of thy predicament:
Then quick about thy purpos'd business come,
That to the next I may resign my room.

55

Then Ens is represented as father of the Predicaments

his ten sons, whereof the eldest stood for Substance with his canons, which Ens, thus speaking, explains.

GOOD luck befriend thee, Son; for at thy birth
The fairy ladies danc'd upon the hearth;

60

52. In willing chains and sweet if we recollect, that every thing, captivity.) Tasso, Gier. Lib. c. vi. in the masks of this age, ap84.

peared in a bodily shape. Airy

nothing had not only a local haGiogo di servitu dolce e leggiero.

Bowle.

bitation and a name, but a visible

figure. It is extraordinary that 56. -of thy predicament :] the pedantry of King James I. What the Greeks called a cate- should not have been gratified gory, Boëthius first named a

pre

with the system of logic repredicament: and if the reader is sented in a mask, at some of his acquainted with Aristotle's Cate- academic receptions. He was gories, or Burgersdicius, or any once entertained at Oxford, in of the old logicians, he will not 1618, with a play called the want what follows to be explained Marriage of the Arts. As to the to him; and it cannot well be fairy ladies dancing, &c. it is the explained to him, if he is unac- first and last time that the sysquainted with that kind of logic. tem of the fairies was ever in

59. Good luck befriend thee, troduced to illustrate the docSon, &c.] Here the metaphysical trine of Aristotle's ten categories. or logical Ens is introduced as a Yet so barren, unpoetical, and person, and addressing his eldest abstracted a subject could not son Substance. Afterwards the have been adorned with finer logical Quantity, Quality, and touches of fancy, than we meet Relation, are personified, and with, v. 62. come tripping to the speak. This affectation will ap- room, &c. v. 69. a sibyl old, &c. pear more excusable in Milton, And in this illustration there is VOL. III.

A a

70

Thy drowsy nurse hath sworn she did them spy
Come tripping to the room where thou didst lie,
And sweetly singing round about thy bed
Strow all their blessings on thy sleeping head.
She heard them give thee this, that thou should'st still 65
From eyes of mortals walk invisible :
Yet there is something that doth force my fear,
For once it was my dismal hap to hear
A Sibyl old, bow-bent with crooked age,
That far events full wisely could presage,
And in time's long and dark prospective glass
Foresaw what future days should bring to pass ;
Your son, said she, (nor can you it prevent,)
Shall subject be to many an Accident.
O’er all his brethren he shall reign as king,

75
Yet every one shall make him underling,
And those that cannot live from him asunder
Ungratefully shall strive to keep him under,
In worth and excellence he shall out-go them,
Yet being above them, he shall be below them ;
From others he shall stand in need of nothing,
Yet on his brothers shall depend for clothing.

80

great elegance, v. 83. to find a exist, but as inherent in Subfoe, &c. The address of Ens is stance. From others he shall stand a very ingenious enigma on Sub- in need of nothing; he is still substance. T. Warton,

stance, with, or without, accident. 74. Shall subject be to many an Yet on his brothers shall depend Accident.] A pun on the logical for clothing ; by whom he is accidens. O'er all his brethren he clothed, superinduced, modified, shall reign as king ; the Predica- &c. But he is still the same. ments are his brethren; of or to To find a foe, &c.; Substantia which he is the subjectum, al- substantiæ nova contrariatur, is a though first in excellence and school maxim. To harbour those order. Ungratefully shall strive that are at enmity; his accidents. to keep him under ; they cannot T. Warton.

85

To find a foe it shall not be his hap,
And
peace

shall lull him in her flow’ry lap;
Yet shall he live in strife, and at his door
Devouring war shall never cease to roar :
Yea it shall be his natural property
To harbour those that are at enmity.
What pow'r, what force, what mighty spell, if not
Your learned hands, can loose this Gordian knot?

90

The next Quantity and Quality spake in prose,

then Relation was called by his name. RIVERS arise; whether thou be the son Of utmost Tweed, or Oose, or gulphy Dun,

84. And

peace shall lull him in gulphy Dun, I find not in Spenher flow’ry lap;] So in Harring- ser, but suppose the Don is ton's Ariosto, c. xlv. 1.

meant, from whence Doncaster Who long were lulld on high in for.

has its name; and Camden's ac. tune's lap

count of this river shows the See also W. Smith's Cloris, 1596. propriety of the epithet gulphy.

“ Danus, commonly Don and and Spenser's Tears of the Muses,

“ Dune, seems to be so called, Terpsich. st. i. and Par. Lost, iv.

“ because it is carried in a low 254. T. Warton.

“ deep channel ; for that is the 91. Rivers arise ; &c.] In in

signification of the British voking these rivers Milton had his

« word Dan." See Camden's eye particularly upon that admi- Yorkshire. Or Trent, who like rable episode in Spenser of the marriage of the Thames and the description is much nobler than

some earth-born giant &c. This ,

Spenser's, st. 35. vers are introduced in honour of

And bounteous Trent, that in himthe ceremony. Faery Queen, b.

self enseams iv. cant. 11. Of utmost Tweed; Both thirty sorts of fish, and thirty .so Spenser, st. 36.

sundry streams. And Tweede the limit betwixt Lo- The name is of Saxon original, gris land

but (as Camden observes in his And Albany.

Staffordshire) “some ignorant Or Oose, either that in Yorkshire, " and idle pretenders imagine or that in Cambridgeshire, both “ the name to be derived from mentioned by Spenser. Or - the French word Trente, and