She heard them give thee this, that thou shouldst still A Sibyl old, bow-bent with crooked age, m. age,mud That far events full wifely could prefage, Your fon, said she, (nor can you it prevent) nodT ftotle's Categories, or Burgerfdicius, or any of the old logicians, he will not want what follows to be ex Yet fhall he live in ftrife, and at his door Devouring war fhall never cease to roar: To harbour those that are at enmity. Fo 85 What pow'r, what force, what mighty fpell, if not ' Your learned hands, can loose this Gordian knot? 91. Rivers arife, &c.] In invoking thefe rivers Milton had his eye particularly upon that admirable episode in Spenfer of the marsiage of the Thames and the Medway, where the several rivers are introduc'd in honor of the ceremony. Faery Queen B. 4. Cant. 11. Of utmost Tweed; fo Spenfer St. 36. 90 The who like fome earth-born giant &c. And bounteous Trent, that in The name is of Saxon original, but (as Camden obferves in his And Trede the limit betwixt Lo- Staffordshire.) " fome ignorant gris land And Albany "and idle pretenders imagine the name to be derived from the "French word Trente, and upon "rivers running into it, and like"wife fo many kinds of fifh fwim ming in it." However this notion might very well be adopted in poetry. Or fullen Mole &c. So Spenfer St. 32. Or Oofe, either that in Yorkshire," that account have feign'd thirty or that in Cambridgeshire, both mention'd by Spenfer. Or gulphy Dun, I find not in Spenfer, but fuppofe the Don is meant from whence Doncafter has its name; and Camden's account of this river fhows the propriety of the epithet gulphy. "Danus, commonly Don and "Dune, feems to be fo call'd, be"cause it is carried in a low deep channel; for that is the fignifi*cation of the British word Dan." And Mole, that like a noufling See Camden's Yorkshire. Or Trent, See the fame account in Camden's Surry. 可 The next Quantity and Quality spake in profe, then Relation was call'd by his name. IVERS arife; whether thou be the fon Rofumoft or or Dun, Of utmost Tweed, or Oofe, or gulphy Or Trent, who like fome earth-born giant fpreads His thirty arms along th' indented meads, And glifters wide, as als of won- And Briftow fair, which on his waves he builded hath. Or fedgy Lee, this river divides Middlefex and Effex. defcribes it, St. 29. Spenfer thus And the Medaway and the Thame are join'd together, as they are married in Spenser. I wonder that Milton has paid no particular compliment to the river flowing by Cambridge (this exercise being The wanton Lee that oft doth made and spoken there) as Spenfer has done St. 34. lose his way. Or coaly Tine, Spenfer defcribes it by the Picts Wall. St. 36. Or ancient hallow'd Dec; fo Spenfer St. 391 And following Dee, which Bri- Thence doth by Huntingdon and My mother Cambridge, whom He doth adorn, and is adorn'd of it With many a gentle Mufe, and many a learned wit. To 95 Or fullen Mole that runneth underneath, Or coaly Tine, or ancient hallow'd Dee, Or Humber loud that keeps the Scythian's name, ~T Or Medway fmooth, or royal towred Thame, bio [The reft was profe.]. HI. 100 T HIS is the month, and this the happy morn, Of. wedded Maid, and Virgin Mother born, is bп♬ That he our deadly forfeit fhould release, And with his Father work us a perpetual peace. T That pos'd 1629, fo that Milton was then 21 years old. He fpeaks of this poem in the conclufion of hise II. That glorious form, that light unfufferable, Wherewith he wont at Heav'n's high council-table 10 He laid afide; and here with us to be, And chose with us a darksome house of mortal clay. III. Say heav'nly Mufe, fhall not thy facred vein Now while the Heav'n by the fun's team untrod, Hath took no print of the approaching light, 20 And all the fpangled host keep watch in fquadrons bright ? IV: See how from far. upon the eaftern road The ftar-led wifards hafte with odors fweet : |