Where Corydon and Thyrsis met, Of herbs, and other country messes, To the tann'd haycock in the mead. 85 90 84. Are at their savory dinner says Skinner, à Rebacchando, ubi And though Phillis is the cook here, Thestylis is introduced soon after. 92. The upland hamlets] Upland, in opposition to the haymaking scene in the lower lands. Thyer. 93. When the merry bells ring round.] The first instance I remember in our poetry of the circumstance of a peal of bells, introduced as descriptive of festivity, is in Morley's Madrigals. See England's Helicon, Signat. Q. 4. ed. 1614. T. Warton. 94. And the jocund rebecks sound] Rebeck is a three-stringed fiddle, derived from the French rebec or the Italian rebecca, and these, Re sensum auget, quia sc. hoc instrumento in conviviis, comessationibus et symposiis uti solebant; and therefore Milton properly bestows upon it the epithet jocund. He uses the word again in his Areopagitica, p. 149. vol. i. edit. 1738. "The villagers also "must have their visitors to en"quire what lectures the bagpipe " and the rebeck reads, &c." 94. Probably the same instrument which is called in Chaucer, Lydgate, and the old French writers, the Rebible, the diminutive of Ribibe, used also by Chaucer, originally, as Sir John Hawkins thinks, from Rebeb, the name of a Moorish musical instrument with two strings played on by a bow. [See Tyrwhitt's Chaucer, n. on v. 6959.] Sir John adds, that the Moors brought it into Spain, whence it passed into Italy, and obtained the name of Ribeca. Hist. Mus. ii. 86. In the Percy Household book, 1512, are recited "Myn To many a youth, and many a maid, And young and old come forth to play But wyerie cymbals, rebecke's sinewes twin'd. In a barbarous Latin poet of the middle age, quoted by Du Cange, Gloss. Lat. V. Bardosa, we have, Quidam Rebeccam arcuabant. Where arcuabant shews that it was played upon by a bow, arcus. The rebeck seems to have been almost a common name for a fiddle. See Fletcher's Kn. Burn. Pestle. Milton's Liberty of unlicensed Printing. Shakespeare, Rom. and Jul. a. iv. s. 4. and Steevens's note. T. Warton. 96. Dancing in the chequer'd shade;] Shakespeare's Titus Andronicus, act ii. sc. 4. The green leaves quiver with the cooling wind, And make a chequer'd shadow on the ground. Virgil, Ecl. v. 5. 95 100 Sive sub incertas Zephyris motantibus umbras. Richardson. 97. And young and old come forth to play On a sunshine holy-day.] Thus also in the Mask, 959. Back, shepherds, back, enough your play, Till next sunshine holy-day. Holiday-sports are still much encouraged in the counties to which Milton was used. See note on Sams. Agon. 1418. T. Warton. 100. Then to the spicy nutbrown ale.] See the old play of Henry V. In six Old Plays, &c. Lond. 1779. p. 336. Yet we will have in store a crab i' th' fire, With nut-brown ale, that is full stale. This was Shakespeare's "Gossip's bowl," Mids. N. Dr. a. i. s. 1. The composition was ale, nutmeg, sugar, toast, and roasted crabs or apples. It was called Lambs-wool. Our old dramas have frequent allusions to this delectable beverage. In Fletcher's Faithfull Shepherdess it is styled "the spiced wassel boul." T. Warton. 101. With stories, &c.] Shakespeare's Winter's Tale is supposed She was pinch'd, and pull'd she said, to be of "sprites and goblins." A. ii. s. 1. T. Warton. 103. She was pinch'd and pull'd she said, &c.] He and she are persons of the company assembled to spend the evening, after a country wake, at a rural junket. All this is a part of the pastoral imagery which now prevailed in our poetry. Compare Drayton's Nymphidia, vol. ii. p. 453. These make our girles their sluttery rue, By pinching them both black and blue, &c. Traynes forth midwives in their slumbers, And then leades them from their burrowes, Home through ponds and water-fur rowes. As Milton here copied Jonson, so Jonson copied Shakespeare, Mids. N. Dr. à. ii. s. i. -Are you not he That frights the maidens of the villagery, &c. It is remarkable, that the Demon who was said to haunt women in child-bed, and steal their infants, is mentioned so And Shakespeare, Com. Err. a. ii. early as by Michael Psellus, a s. ii. Of the fairies. They'll suck our breath, and pinch us black and blue. And the Merry Wives, where Falstaffe is pinched by fairies. A. v. s. 5. And Browne, Brit. Past. b. i. s. ii. p. 31. And Heywood's Hierarchie of Angels, b. ix. p. 574. edit. 1635. fol. Who also, among the domestic demons, gives what he calls " a strange story of the Spirit of the But"tery." Ibid. p. 577. But almost all that Milton here mentions of these house-fairies appears to be taken from Jonson's Entertaynment at Altrope, 1603. Works, fol. p. 872. edit. 1616. When about the cream-bowles sweete, This is she that empties cradles, &c. Byzantine philosopher of the eleventh century, on the Operations of Demons. Edit. Gaulmin. Paris. 1615. 12mo. p. 78. T. Warton. 104. And he by friars' lantern led, &c.] Thus the edition of 1645. But in the edition 1673, the context stands thus, She was pinch'd and pull'd, she said, I know not if under the poet's immediate direction. And in Tonson's, 1705. This reading at least removes a slight confusion arising from his, v. 106. Nor is the general sense much altered. Friars' lantern, is the Jack and lantern, which led people in the night into marshes and waters. Milton gives the philosophy of this superstition, Parad. Lost, ix. 634. -A wandering fire Compact of unctuous vapour, which the night, &c. Which oft, they say, some evil spirit attends, &c. Tells how the drudging goblin sweat, In the midst of a solemn and learned enarration, his strong imagination could not resist a romantic tradition, consecrated by popular credulity. Shakespeare has finely transferred the general idea of this superstition to his Ghost in Hamlet, a. i. s. 3. Hor. What if it tempt you to the flood, my Lord? But then, from the ground-work of a vulgar belief, so beautifully accommodated and improved, how does he rise in the progression of his imagination to the supposition of a more alarming and horrible danger! Or to the dreadful summit of the cliff That beetles o'er his base into the sea, 105 and called the lubber-fiend, seems Burton, speaking of these fairies, says, that a bigger "kind there is of them, called "with us Hob-goblins and Robin "Goodfellowes, that would in "those superstitious times grinde (6 T. Warton. 106. To earn his cream-bowl duly set, &c.] Reginald Scot gives a brief account of this imaginary spirit much in the same manner with this of our author. "Your grand-dames, maids, were "wont to set a bowl of milk for "him, for his pains in grinding "of malt or mustard, and sweep"ing the house at midnight"his white bread and milk was his "standing fee." Discovery of Witchcraft, Lond. [1588 and] 1651. 4to. p. 66. Peck. See note on v. 103. And the commentators on Shakespeare's Mids. N. Dream, vol. iii. p. 27. edit. 1778. Robin Goodfellow, who is here made a gigantic spirit, fond of lying before the fire, corne for a messe of milke, cut "wood, or do any manner of cr drudgery worke." Melanch. p. i. s. 2. p. 42. edit. 1632. Afterwards, of the demons that mislead men in the night, he says, we commonly call them pucks." Ibid. p. 43. 66 In Grim the Collier of Croydon, perhaps printed before 1600, Robin Goodfellow says, I love a messe of cream as well as they, Ho, ho, my masters, no good fellowship? Is Robin Goodfellow a bugbear Act v. s. 1. See Reed's Old Pl. For I shall fleet their cream-bowls When in one night, ere glimpse of morn, In the old Moralities, it was cus- 108. His shadowy flail, &c.] We have the flail, an implement here given to Robin Goodfellow, in the exhibition of that favourite character in Grim the Collier of Croydon, see act iv. s. 1. Reed's Old Pl. xi. 238. "Enter Robin Goodfellow in a suit of leather close to his body, his face and "hands coloured russet colour, "with a flail." In which scene he says, p. 241. What, miller, are you up agin? Nay, then my flail shall never lin. Robin Goodfellow, clothed in green, was a common figure in the old city pageants. See Mayne's City Match, act ii. s. 6. edit. 1639. T. Warton. 113. And crop-full out of doors he flings, Ere the first cock his matin When larks gin sing 110 115 Mr. Bowle suggests an illustra- Hoho, hoho, needs must I laugh, I pull'd them out their beds, and How clatter'd I amongst their pots and pans, &c. Much the same is said in Scot's Discoverie of Witchcraft, Lond. 1588. 4to. p. 66. See also, To the readers. T. Warton. 114. Ere the first cock his matin rings.] Mr. Bowle supposes that the poet here thought of a passage in the Faerie Queene, v. vi. 27. -The native bellman of the night, The bird that warned Peter of his fall, First rings his silver bell t' each sleepy wight. It is certainly the same allusion -The shrill matin-song |