a

5

Or else the ways being foul, twenty to one,
He's here stuck in a slough, and overthrown.
'Twas such a shifter, that if truth were known,
Death was half glad when he had got him down;
For he had any time this ten years full,
Dodg’d with him, betwixt Cambridge and the Bull.
And surely Death could never have prevaild,
Had not his weekly course of carriage fail'd;
But lately finding him so long at home,
And thinking now his journey's end was come,
And that he had ta'en up his latest inn,
In the kind office of a chamberlin

10

“ good cattle, always ready and relieving the poor, and building “ fit for travelling; but when a a public conduit in the markets “ man came for a horse, he was place. The inscription on the « led into the stable, where there conduit is as follows. " Thomas “ was great choice, but he “ Hobson, late carrier between

obliged him to take the horse “ London and this town, in his « which stood next to the stable- “ life-time was at the sole charge “ door ; so that every customer “ of erecting this structure, A.D. " was alike well served accord- “ 1614. He departed this life “ing to his chance, and every "January 1, 1630, and gave by “ horse ridden with the same “ will the rent of seven lays “ “justice: from whence it be- “ of pasture-ground lying in St.

came a proverb, when what “ Thomas's Lays towards the
ought to be

your
election was

" maintenance of this conduit “ forced upon you, to say Hob- " for ever. Moreover at his death " son's choice. This memorable “ he gave £10. towards the fur

man stands drawn in fresco at “ther beautifying the same. “ an inn (which he used) in I cannot say much in commend“ Bishopsgate-street, with an ation of these verses upon his “ hundred pound bag under his death : they abound with that “ arm, with this inscription sort of wit, which was then in $6 upon the said bag,

request at Cambridge

14. In the kind office of a “ The fruitful mother of an hun

chamberlin, &c.] I believe the dred more."

chamberlain is an officer not yet Mr. Ray, in his Collection of discontinued in some of the old English Proverbs, says that he inns in the city. But Chytræus, raised himself to a great estate, a German, who visited England and did much good in the town, about 1580, and put his travels

Show'd him his room where he must lodge that night, 15
Pullid off his boots and took away the light:
If any ask for him, it shall be said,
Hobson has supp'd, and's newly gone to bed.

XII.

Another on the same.

5

a

Here lieth one, who did most truly prove
That he could never die while he could move;
So hung his destiny, never to rot
While he might still jog on and keep his trot,
Made of sphere-metal, never to decay
Until his revolution was at stay.
Time numbers motion, yet (without a crime
'Gainst old truth) motion number'd out his time:
And like an engine mov'd with wheel and weight,
His principles being ceas'd, he ended strait.
Rest that gives all men life, gave him his death,
And too much breathing put him out of breath ;
Nor were it contradiction to affirm
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;

10

15

into Latin verse, mentions it as at the end of his Memoirs of an extraordinary circumstance, Cromwell, has printed Hobson's that it was the custom of our will, which is dated at the close inns to be waited upon by of the year 1630. He died Jan.

In Peele's Old Wives' 1, 1630, while the plague was Tale, Fantastique says,

“ I had in London. This piece was even as live the chamberlaine written that year. Milton was *«s of the White Horse had called a Student at Cambridge.

me up to bed,” a. i. s. 1. Peck, 7. Warlon.

women.

now

20

25

Nay, quoth he, on his swooning bed out-stretch'd,
If I mayn't carry, sure I'll ne'er be fetch'd,
But vow, though the cross doctors all stood hearers,
For one carrier put down to make six bearers.
Ease was his chief disease, and to judge right,
He died for heaviness that his cart went light:
His leisure told him that his time was come,
And lack of load made his life burdensome,
That ev'n to his last breath (there be that say't)
As he were press'd to death, he cried more weight;
But had his doings lasted as they were,
He had been an immortal carrier.
Obedient to the moon he spent his date
In course reciprocal, and had his fate
Link'd to the mutual flowing of the seas,
Yet (strange to think) his wain was his increase:
His letters are deliver'd all and gone,
Only remains this superscription*.

30

**

Among Archbishop San- Coll. MSS. Tann. 465. see pp. croft's transcripts of poetry made 235, 237. T. Warton. by him at Cambridge, now in I wonder Milton should suffer the Bodleian Library, is an these two things on Hobson to anonymous poem on the death appear in his edition of 1645. of Hobson. It was perhaps a He, who at the age of nineteen common subject for the wits of had so just a contempt for Cambridge. I take this opportu

Those new-fangled toys, and trimnity of observing, that in the

ming slight, same bundle is a poem on Mil

Which take our new fantastics with ton's friend Lycidas, Mr. King, delight. by Mr. Booth, of Corpus Christi,

Hurd. not in the published Collection.

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 is somewhat like the beginning are exquisitely beautiful in them- of Kal. Decembres Saturnales of selves, but appear much more Statius, Sylvarum, lib. i. beautiful, when they are con

Et Phæbus pater, et severa Pallas, sidered, as they were written, in Et Musæ procul ite feriatæ : contrast to each other. There is Jani vos revocabimus Kalendis.

Saturnus mihi compede exoluta, a great variety of pleasing images

Et multo gravidus mero December, in each of them; and it is re

Et ridens jocus, et sales protervi markable, that the poet repre- Adsint, dum refero diem beatam sents several of the same objects Læti Cæsaris, ebriamque partem. as exciting both mirth and me

1. Milton was too universal a lancholy, and affecting us differ- scholar to be unacquainted with ently according to the different this mythology. In his Prodispositions and affections of the lusions, or declamatory preamsoul. This is nature and expe- bles to philosophical questions rience. He derives the title of discussed in the schools at Camboth poems from the Italian, bridge, he says, Cæterum nec which language was then princi- desunt qui Æthera et Diem itipally in vogue. L'Allegro is the dem Erebo noctem peperisse tracheerful merry man; and in this dunt. Prose Works, vol. ii. 585. poem he describes the course of See also his Latin ode on the mirth in the country and in the death of Felton, Bp. of Ely, v. city from morning till noon, and 31. and In quintum Novembris, from noon till night; and possi- v. 69. But as Melancholy is here bly he might have this in his the creature of Milton's imagin thoughts, when he said after- ation, he had a right to give her wards in his Areopagitica- what parentage he pleased. See - there be delights, there be re- Observations on Spenser's F. Q. 66 creations and jolly pastimes i. 73. “ that will fetch the day about Milton in this exordium had s from sun to sun, and rock the

an eye on some elegant lines of “ tedious year as in a delightful Marston, Scourge of Villanie, b. - dream." Vol. i. p. 154, 155. iii. s. 10. ed. 1598. edit. 1738.

Find out some uncouth cell,

5 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.

10

my verie soule

Dull-sprighted Melancholie, leave my Deor. iii. 17.-eorumque fratres braine,

et sorores, qui a genealogis antiTo hell, Cimmerian Night. In lively

quis sic nominantur, Metus, vaine I strive to paint: then hence all darke Labor, Invidentia, Tenebræ, intent,

Miseria, Querela, &c. quos omnes And sullen frownes. Come sporting Erebo et Nocte natos ferunt. I Merriment,

find Mr. Upton in his letter to Cheeke-dimpling Laughter, crowne

Mr. West on Spenser's Faery With jouisance.

Queen has proposed the same See Observat. on Spenser's F. Q. conjecture. i. 60. T. Warton.

4. 'Mongst horrid shapes, &c.] 2. Of Cerberus and blackest He has this passage of Virgil in Midnight born,] The poet in his eye, Æn, vi. 285–289.

, making Melancholy the daughter

Multaque præterea variarum monof Cerberus might perhaps intend stra ferarum, &c. to insinuate, that she has some.

Warburton. thing of the cynic, as well as some

6. Where brooding darkness] thing monstrous and unnatural, in Called so because darkness sets her composition : but if this the imagination on work, to poem had not undergone two

create ideal forms and beings, impressions in Milton's life-time, and one of them before he lost watch which fowl keep when

-jealous) Alluding to the his sight, I should have imagined they are sitting. Warburton. that he had wrote Erebus, instead

9. As ragged] In Titus Andron. of Cerberus, as being more

a. ii. s. 4. “ The ragged entrails agreeable to heathen mythology of this pit.” Ragged is not unErebus and Night

are often joined common in old writers, applied together, as in Hesiod, Theog. to rock. 7. Warton. ver. 123.

10. In dark Cimmerian desert] Εκ Χατος δ' Ερεβος σε μελαινα σε Νυξ The Cimmerians were a people Nuxross cut' Along as xou ‘Husgon egs and never saw the light of the

who lived in caves under ground, Oυς τεκε, κυσσαμενη Ερεβει φιλοτητα sun. See Homer, Odyss. xi. 14.