Thus night oft see me in thy pale carreer, Till civil-fuited morn appear, Not trickt and frounct as fhe was wont With the Attic boy to hunt, But kercheft in a comely cloud, While rocking winds are piping loud, Or usher'd with a fhower ftill, To arched walks of twilight groves, And fhadows brown that Sylvan loves And let some strange mysterious dream Wave at his wings in aery ftream Of 141.-day's garish eye,] Garish, fplendid, gaudy. A word in Shakefpear. Richard III. A&t 4. Sc. 4. a garish flag. Romeo and Juliet. Act 3. Sc. 4. all the world fhall be in love with night, 148. Wave at his wings] Wave is used here as a verb neuter. 151. - fweet mufic breathe &c] This thought is taken from Shakefpear's Tempeft. Fortin. 158. pillars may proof,] That is proof against a great weight. So And pay no worship to the garish in the poem of Arcades fun. -branching But let my due feet never fail To walk the studious cloyfters pale, As may with sweetness, through mine ear, 155 160 Diffolve Diffolve me into extafies, And bring all Heav'n before mine eyes. 165 ; 7 Where I may fit and rightly spell 167. And may at laft my weary age &c] There is fomething extremely pleafing and proper in this laft circumftance, not merely as it varies and inlarges the picture, but as it adds fuch a perfection and completeness to it, by conducting the Penferofo fo happily to the laft fcene of life, as leaves the reader's mind fully fatisfied: And if preferring the one would not look like cenfuring the other, I would fay that in this refpect this poem clames a fuperio. rity over the Allegro, which, altho' defign'd with equal judgment, and executed with no lefs fpirit, yet ends as if fomething more might till have been added. Thyer. 170 175 AR 173. Till old experience do attain To fomething like prophetic firain.] This resembles what Cornelius Nepos fays of Cicero, that his prudence feemed to be a kind of divination, for he foretold every thing that happen'd afterwards like a prophet. et facile exiftimari poffit, prudentiam quodammodo effe divinationem. Non enim Cicero ea folum, quæ vivo fe acciderunt, futura prædixit, fed etiam, quæ nunc ufu veniunt, cecinit, ut vates. Vita Attici cap. 16. This ending is certainly very fine, but tho' Mr. Thyer thinks it perfect and complete, yet others have been of opinion that fomething more might ftill be added, and I have feen XV. * ARCADE S. Part of an Entertainment prefented to the Countefs Dowager of Derby at Harefield, by some noble perfons of her family, who appear on the scene in pastoral habit, moving toward the feat of state, with this Song. I. S O N G. OOK Nymphs, and Shepherds look, What fudden blaze of majesty Is that which we from hence defcry, Too nature, or compofed by a different hand. The Countess Dowager of Derby, to whom it was prefented, muft have been Alice, daughter of Sir John Spenfer of Althorp in Northamptonshire Knight, and the widow of Ferdinando Stanley the fifth Earl of Derby: and Harefield is in Middlesex, and according to Camden lieth a little to the north of Uxbridge, fo that I think we may certainly conclude, that Milton made this poem while he refided in that neighbourhood with his father at Horton near Colebrooke. It should feem too, that it was made before the Mask at Ludlow, as it is a more imperfect effay: and Frances the fecond daughter |