Or else the ways being foul, twenty to one, 5 10 relieving the poor, and building a public conduit in the marketplace. The inscription on the conduit is as follows. "Thomas "Hobson, late carrier between "London and this town, in his "life-time was at the sole charge "of erecting this structure, A. D. "1614. He departed this life "January 1, 1630, and gave by "will the rent of seven lays "of pasture-ground lying in St. "Thomas's Lays towards the "maintenance of this conduit "for ever. Moreover at his death "he gave £10. towards the fur"ther beautifying the same." I cannot say much in commendation of these verses upon his death: they abound with that sort of wit, which was then in request at Cambridge. chamberlin, &c.] I believe the 14. In the kind office of a chamberlain is an officer not yet discontinued in some of the old inns in the city. But Chytræus, a German, who visited England about 1580, and put his travels Show'd him his room where he must lodge that night, 15 XII. Another on the same. HERE lieth one, who did most truly prove While he might still jog on and keep his trot, Time numbers motion, yet (without a crime Too long vacation hasten'd on his term. Merely to drive the time away he sicken'd, Fainted, and died, nor would with ale be quicken'd; into Latin verse, mentions it as an extraordinary circumstance, that it was the custom of our inns to be waited upon by women. In Peele's Old Wives' Tale, Fantastique says, "I had even as live the chamberlaine of the White Horse had called me up to bed," a. i. s. 1. Peck, 5 10 15 at the end of his Memoirs of Cromwell, has printed Hobson's will, which is dated at the close of the year 1630. He died Jan. 1, 1630, while the plague was in London. This piece was written that year. Milton was now a Student at Cambridge. T. Warton. Nay, quoth he, on his swooning bed out-stretch'd, But vow, though the cross doctors all stood hearers, 20 25 As he were press'd to death, he cried more weight; He had been an immortal carrier. Only remains this superscription*. * Among Archbishop Sancroft's transcripts of poetry made by him at Cambridge, now in the Bodleian Library, is an anonymous poem on the death of Hobson. It was perhaps a common subject for the wits of Cambridge. I take this opportunity of observing, that in the same bundle is a poem on Milton's friend Lycidas, Mr. King, by Mr. Booth, of Corpus Christi, not in the published Collection. 30 Coll. MSS. Tann. 465. see pp. 235, 237. T. Warton. I wonder Milton should suffer these two things on Hobson to appear in his edition of 1645. He, who at the age of nineteen had so just a contempt for Those new-fangled toys, and trimming slight, Which take our new fantastics with delight. Hurd. XIII. L'Allegro. HENCE loathed Melancholy, Of Cerberus and blackest Midnight born, In Stygian cave forlorn 'Mongst horrid shapes, and shrieks, and sights unholy, * This and the following poem are exquisitely beautiful in themselves, but appear much more beautiful, when they are considered, as they were written, in contrast to each other. There is a great variety of pleasing images in each of them; and it is remarkable, that the poet represents several of the same objects as exciting both mirth and melancholy, and affecting us differently according to the different dispositions and affections of the soul. This is nature and experience. He derives the title of both poems from the Italian, which language was then principally in vogue. L'Allegro is the cheerful merry man; and in this poem he describes the course of mirth in the country and in the city from morning till noon, and from noon till night; and possibly he might have this in his thoughts, when he said afterwards in his Areopagitica "there be delights, there be re"creations and jolly pastimes "that will fetch the day about "from sun to sun, and rock the " tedious year as in a delightful "dream." Vol. i. p. 154, 155. edit. 1738. 1. Hence loathed Melancholy, &c.] The beginning of this poem is somewhat like the beginning of Kal. Decembres Saturnales of Statius, Sylvarum, lib. i. Et Phoebus pater, et severa Pallas, 1. Milton was too universal a scholar to be unacquainted with this mythology. În his Prolusions, or declamatory preambles to philosophical questions discussed in the schools at Cambridge, he says, Cæterum nec desunt qui Æthera et Diem itidem Erebo noctem peperisse tradunt. Prose Works, vol. ii. 585. See also his Latin ode on the death of Felton, Bp. of Ely, v. 31. and In quintum Novembris, v. 69. But as Melancholy is here the creature of Milton's imagin ation, he had a right to give her what parentage he pleased. See Observations on Spenser's F. Q. i. 73. Milton in this exordium had an eye on some elegant lines of Marston, Scourge of Villanie, b. iii. s. 10. ed. 1598. Sleepe, grim Reproof! My jocund muse doth sing In other keyes to nimble fingering; Find out some uncouth cell, Where brooding darkness spreads his jealous wings, And the night-raven sings; There under ebon shades, and low-brow'd rocks, As ragged as thy locks, In dark Cimmerian desert ever dwell. intent, And sullen frownes. Come sporting See Observat. on Spenser's F. Q. i. 60. T. Warton. 2. Of Cerberus and blackest Midnight born,] The poet in making Melancholy the daughter of Cerberus might perhaps intend to insinuate, that she has something of the cynic, as well as something monstrous and unnatural, in her composition: but if this poem had not undergone two impressions in Milton's life-time, and one of them before he lost his sight, I should have imagined that he had wrote Erebus, instead of Cerberus, as being more agreeable to heathen mythology Erebus and Night are often joined together, as in Hesiod, Theog. ver. 123. 5 10 6. Where brooding darkness] Called so because darkness sets the imagination on work, to create ideal forms and beings. -jealous] Alluding to the watch which fowl keep when they are sitting. Warburton. 9. As ragged] In Titus Andron. a. ii. s. 4. "The ragged entrails of this pit." Ragged is not uncommon in old writers, applied to rock. T. Warton. 10. In dark Cimmerian desert] The Cimmerians were a people who lived in caves under ground, and never saw the light of the sun. See Homer, Odyss. xi. 14. and Tibullus iv. i. 65. 10. Cimmeriæ tenebræ were anciently proverbial. But Cimmerian darkness and desolation were a common allusion in the poetry |