VII. At a Solemn Music. BLEST pair of Sirens, pledges of heav'n's joy, Wed the Circumcision,) were not at first printed together. I believe they were all written about the year 1629. T. Warton. 2. Sphere-born harmonious sisters, voice and verse.] So, says Mr. Bowle, Marino in his Adone, c. vii. 1. Musica e Poesia son due sorelle. T. Warton. 3. Wed your divine sounds, &c.] In the manuscript it appears that he had written these lines thus at first. Mix your choice words, and happiest sounds employ Dead things with inbreath'd sense able to pierce, And as your equal raptures temper'd sweet In high mysterious happy spousal meet, 3. Jonson has amplified this idea, Epigr. cxxix. on E. Filmer's Musical work, 1629. What charming peals are these?- Musick and Poesie: French Air and English Verse here wedded lie, &c. 5 Compare L'Allegro, 137. See also King James's Furies in the Invocation. -marrying so my heavenly verse In that King's Poeticall Exercises, 6. of pure concent,] So we read in the manuscript, and in the edition of 1673, and we prefer the authority of both to the single one of the edition in 1645, which has of pure content. 6. Concent, not consent, (which Tonson first reads, ed. fol. 1695.) is the reading of the Cambridge manuscript. Hence we should correct Jonson, in an Epithalamium on Mr. Weston, vol. vii. 2. And in the Foxe, a. iii. s. iv. p. 483. vol. vii. Works, ed. 1616. And perhaps Shakespeare, K. Henr. V. a. i. s. 2. For government, tho' high, and low, and lower Put into parts, doth keep in one consent, &c. And Lilly's Midas, 1592. a. iv. s. 1. And Fairfax's Tasso, c. xviii. 19. Concent and concented occur in several places of Spenser. The undisturbed song of pure Aye sung before the sapphire-colour'd throne With saintly shout, and solemn jubilee, With those just spirits that wear victorious palms, Singing everlastingly; That we on earth with undiscording voice 10 15 14. Compare P. L. vi. 882. and the Epitaph. Damon. 216. Lætaque frondentis gestans umbracula palmæ. T. Warton. 17-25. That we on earth, &c. -renew that song] Perhaps there are no finer lines in Milton, less obscured by conceit, less embarrassed by affected expressions, and less weakened by pompous epithets. And in this perspicuous and simple style are conveyed some of the noblest ideas of a most sublime, philosophy, heightened by metaphors and allusions suitable to the subject. T. Warton. 18. May rightly answer that melodious noise ;] The following lines were thus at first in the manuscript. By leaving out those harsh ill sounding jars Of clamorous sin that all our music mars And in our lives, and in our song As once we did, till disproportion'd sin To their great Lord, whose love their motion sway'd In first obedience, and their state of good. O may we soon again renew that song, And keep in tune with heav'n, till God ere long To live with him, and sing in endless morn of light. 18. Noise is in a good sense music. So in Ps. xlvii. 5. "God is gone up with a merry noise, and the Lord with the sound of the trump." Noise is sometimes literally synonimous with music. As in Shakespeare, "Sneak's noise." And in Chapman's All Fools, 1605. Reed's Old Pl. iv. 187. -You must get us music too, Calls in a cleanly noise. Compare also the ode on Christ's Nativity, st. ix. 96. and Spenser, F. Q. i. xii. 39. See more instances in Reed's Old Pl. vol. v. 304. vi. 70. vii. 8. x. 277. And in Shakespeare, Johns. Steev. vol. v. p. 489. seq. Perhaps the lady in Comus, 227, does not speak quite contemptuously, though modestly, "such noise as I can "make." Caliban seems, by the context, to mean musical sounds, when he says, the "isle is full of "noises." T. Warton. 20 25 -Sin that first It is the kindlie season of the time, To do their offices in nature's chime, &c. Jonson alludes also to that original harmony, which Milton notices, v. 21. Sad Shepherd, a. iii. s. 2. -giving to the world Again his first and tuneful planetting. See ode on the Nativity, st. xii. xiii. T. Warton. 23. In perfect diapason,] Concord through all the tones, dia warwy. Plin. lib. ii. sect. 20. Ita septem tonos effici, quam diapason harmoniam vocant, hoc est, universitatem concentus. Richardson. 28. To live with him, and sing &c.] In the manuscript the last line stands thus, To live and sing with him in endless morn of light. VIII. An Epitaph on the Marchioness of Winchester *. THIS rich marble doth inter The honour'd wife of Winchester, A Viscount's daughter, an Earl's heir, More than she could own from earth. 5 After so short time of breath, To house with darkness, and with death. 10 Yet had the number of her days Been as complete as was her praise, Nature and fate had had no strife *This Lady was Jane, daughter of Thomas Lord Viscount Savage, of Rock-Savage in the county of Chester, who by marriage became the heir of Lord Darcy Earl of Rivers; and was the wife of John Marquis of Winchester, and the mother of Charles first Duke of Bolton. She died in childbed of a second son in the twenty-third year of her age, and Milton made these verses at Cambridge, as appears by the sequel. 4. Besides what her virtues fair, &c.] In Howell's entertaining letters there is one to this lady which may justify our author's 15 panegyric. It is dated Mar. 15, 1626. He says, he assisted her in learning Spanish: and that nature and the graces exhausted all their treasure and skill in framing this exact model of "female perfection." He adds, "I return you here the Sonnet your Grace pleased to send me "lately, rendered into Spanish, "and fitted for the same ayre it "had in English both for ca"dence and feete, &c." Howell's Letters, vol. i. sect. 4. Let. xiv. p. 180. T. Warton. 15. Her high birth, and her graces sweet Quickly found a lover meet;] The virgin quire for her request The God that sits at marriage feast; He at their invoking came But with a scarce well-lighted flame; And now with second hope she goes, Her husband was a conspicuous VOL. III. 20 25 |