Page images
PDF
EPUB

Retired leisure is the Epicurean philosophy personified. "Inscriptum hortulis (Epicuri): Hospes heic bene manebis, heic summum bonum voluptas est." Senec. Epist. 21. Epicurum

exigui lætum plantaribus horti."

Juven. Sat. 13, v. 122.

However just the commentator's remarks may be on the quaint gardens of former centuries, there seems to be little foundation for fixing this taste on Milton in any part of his life; he does not place his chearful man among clipped and distorted ever-greens, but,

By hedge-row elms, on hillocks green;

and the prospect which entertains him is perfectly free from artificial decoration. Our poet's pensive man retreats To arched walks of twilight groves,

And shadows brown that Sylvan loves
Of pine, or monumental oak,

Where the rude axe with heaved stroke
Was never heard the nymphs to daunt,
Or fright them from their hallow'd haunt.

If there are any allusions to the topiary art in Arcades, they were intended as a compliment to his patroness at Harefield, where the gardens were probably in the prevailing taste of the times. That " trim gardens" does not necessarily imply annatural ornament, is plain from

Meadows trim with daisies pied.

While the bee with honied thie,
That at her flowery work doth sing,
And the waters murmuring
With such consort as they keep,
Entice the dewy-feather'd sleep.

"See the small brookes

L'Allegro.

V. 142.

With the smooth cadence of their murmuring.
Each bee with honey on her laden thye."

Drayton's Owlę.

Hor. Epod. 2. v. 27.

"Fontesque lymphis obstrepunt manantibus;
Somnos quod invitet leves."

[blocks in formation]

Approach, and kiss her sacred vesture's hem.

ARCADES, v. 83.

"Fairfax, in the metrical dedication of his Tasso to Queen Anne, commands his Muse not to approach too boldly, nor to soil

[ocr errors][merged small][merged small]

What Queen Anne does Mr. Warton mean, and from what edition of Fairfax's translation does he quote "her vesture's sacred hem?" The edition before me is dedicated "To her high Majestie," concluding, "Your Maiesties humble subject," and, as it was printed in 1600, can be applied to no other queen but Elizabeth. Anne of Denmark, the queen of James, did not come into England till the year 1603, and the verse is,

"Her hand, her lap, her vesture's hem."

Poor Anne, her vesture's hem was not held very sacred by ber craven consort, or his minions.

Why should'st thou, but for some felonious end,

O thievish night,

COMUS, V. 195.

να κλεπτων γας η νυξη τησδ' αληθειας το φως.

Eurip. Iphig. in Taur. v. 1226.

This might be rendered thus in old English; "the night is for thieves, but the day for true men.”

The folded flocks penn'd in their wattled cotes.

[blocks in formation]

Thyrsis? whose artful strains have oft delay'd
The huddling brook to hear his madrigal.

V. 494.

1

"Orphea

Arte materna, rapidos morantem
Fluminum lapsus."

Hor. lib. 1. Od. 12. v. 8.

I hate when vice can bolt her arguments.

V. 760.

Bolting meal at the mill is, I believe, a modern invention; and bolting would not so often have been alluded to by our ancient writers, if that process had been only carried on in the mill; but, a century ago, almost every family had a bolting-hutch, the use of which was consequently familiar to the poets of those times. Modern refinement hath obscured many allusions in our old authors, by consigning spinning, weaving, dying, and other formerly domestic employments, to different trades.

She woos the gentle air

To hide her guilty front with innocent snow."

ODES. Hymn on the Nativity, v. 39.

Hath not this Cowleyan conceit an impropriety in bringing snow so far south as Bethlehem, nearly in latitude thirty-one?

The winds with wonder whist

Smoothly the waters kist,

Whisp'ring new joys to the mild ocean,

Who now hath quite forgot to rave,

While birds of calm sit brooding on the charmed wave,

V. 64.

"Perque dies placidos hiberno tempore septem
Incubat Halcyone pendentibus æquore nidis.
Tum via tuta maris; ventos custodit, et arcet
Eolus egressu."

Ovid. Met. lib. 11. v. 745.'

Thy age, like our's, O soul of Sir John Cheek,
Hated not learning worse than toad or asp,
When thou taught'st Cambridge, and King Edward Greek.
SONNET 11. v. 12.

"In Cambridge also, in St. Johns Colledge, in my time, I doe know, that not so much the good statutes, as two jentlemen of worthy memory, Syr John Cheke and Doctour Redman, by their onely example of excellencie in learning, of godliness in lyving, of diligence in studying, of counsell in exhorting, by good order in all things, did brede up, so

many learned men, in that one colledge of St. Johns, at one tyme as I beleeve, the universitie of Louaine, in many yeares was never able to affourd." Ascham's Scholemaster, 1st booke, 1576.

1786, March.

LXXXIX. Critical Remarks on Milton.

MR. URBAN,

IF the following remarks on Milton are worth insertion, they are much at your service.

C-T-O.

Mr. Warton, in his entertaining and masterly remarks on Spenser, very properly takes occasion to censure an expression in Milton, in the following words: "Milton, perhaps, is more blameable for a fault of this kind.

Now had they brought the work, by wondrous art
Pontifical.

10 B. P. Lost. As the ambiguous term pontifical may be so easily construed into a pun, and may be interpreted popish as well as bridge-making, besides the quaintness of the expression." To this remark of Mr. Warton let me add the following epis gram from the Poems of Sannazarius:

"De Jucundo Architecto.

Jucundus geminos fecit tibi, Sequana, pontes,
Jure tuum hunc possis dicere pontificem."

Milton's idea of Sin and Death's creeping from the mouth of Error is generally supposed to be copied from Spenser, I C. 1 B. 16. It might have had its origin from P. Fletcher, of whom Milton was equally a borrower. See P. Island, 12. Çant. 27.

"The first that crept from his detested maw

Was Hamartia, &c. &c."

There is a passage of great sublimity in Milton's Vacation

exercise.

The deep transported mind may soar

Above the wheeling poles, and at heaven's door
Look im

Molinæus, Milton's old antagonist, has an idea somewhat fimilar. See his Pacis cælestis Anticipatio.

"Quo tendis anime? Tene dum carnis scapha
Vectus laboras in procelloso mari,

Penetrare cœlos, et fores celsissimæ
Serenitatis pulsitare fas putas?"

The following, amongst Milton's many obligations to Ariosto, seems to have been unnoticed:

As when to them who sail

Beyond the Cape of Hope, and now are past
Mozambic, off at sea north-east winds blow
Sabæan odours from the spicy shore

Of Araby the blest; with such delay

Well pleas'd they slack their course, and many a league, Chear'd with the grateful smell, old Ocean smiles.

Par. Lost, B. iv. v. 159.

"Dal mar sei miglia, o sette, a poco a poco

Si va salendo in verso il colle ameno.

Mirti, e cedri, e naranci, e lauri il loco,
E mille altri soavi arbori han pieno.
Serpillo, e persa, e rose, e gigli, e croco
Spargon dall' odorifero terreno
Tanta soavità, che'n mar sentire
La fa ogni vento, che da terra spire."

Cant. xviii. 138.

I hate when vice can bolt her arguments.

Comus, 760.

Of this plain, and seemingly intelligible passage, I have heard it observed (and I believe Mr. T. Warton has sheltered the opinion under his authority) that the word bolt here is an expression taken from the boulting mill, and means, to sift, to clear. But surely this cannot be the meaning Milton intended it to convey. The word here seems simply to convey the idea of darting, and is a borrowed terni from archery. It is thus literally used by B. Jonson in his "Volpone;"

"But angry Cupid bolting from his eyes
Hath shot himself into me.'

[ocr errors]

Act ii. scene 4.

In Shakespeare it is thus metaphorically used in Milton's

« PreviousContinue »