To many a youth, and many a maid,
Dancing in the chequer'd shade;
And young and old come forth to play
On a funshine holy-day,

Till the live-long day-light fail;

Then to the spicy nut-brown ale,

97. And young and old come forth to play

On a funfbine holy-day.] Thus alfo in the MASK, v. 959.
Back, fhepherds, back, enough your play,

Till next SUNSHINE HOLY-DAY.

100

Milton, in SAMSON AGONISTES, fpeaks with much less compla cency of Holidays, which he infinuates, under the character of the perfecuted Samfon, to be of heathen inftitution. The paffage is a concealed attack on the ritual of the church of England. But he first expreffes his contempt of a Nobility and an Opulent Clergy, that is, Lords both temporal and spiritual, who by no means coincided with his levelling and narrow principles of republicanism and calvinism, and whom he tacitly compares with the lords and priests of the idol Dagon. SAMS. AGONIST. V. 1418.

Lords are LORDLIEST in their wine :

And the WELL-FEASTED prieft then foonest fir'd
With zeal, if aught religion feem concern'd.
No less the people on their HOLYDAYS,
Impetuous, infolent, unquenchable, &c.

More will be faid on this subject in COMUS.

99. Till the live-long day-light fail.] Here the poet begins to pass the Night with Mirth. And he begins with the night or evening of the fanfbine bolyday, whofe merriments he has juft celebrated.

1

100. Then to the Spicy nut-brown ale.] See the old play of HENRY THE FIFTH. In fix OLD PLAYS, &c. Lond. 1779. p. 336.

Yet we will have in ftore a crab i' th' fire,

With NUTBROWN ale, that is full ftale.

This was Shakespeare's "goffip's bowl," MID. N. DR. A. i. S.i. The compofition was ale, nutmeg, fugar, toast, and roafted crabs or apples. It was called LAMBS-WOOL. Our old dramas have frequent allufions to this delectable beverage. In Fletcher's FAITHFULL SHEPHERDESS it is ftyled "the fpiced waffel boul." A. v. S. i. vol. iii. p. 177.

With ftories told of many a feat,

How faery Mab the junkets eat,
She was pincht, and pull'd she sed,
And he by friers lantern led

103. She was pinch'd and pull'd she fed, &c.] HE and SHE are perfons of the company affembled to spend the evening, after a country wake, at a rural junket. All this is a part of the paftoral imagery which now prevailed in our poetry. Compare Drayton's NYMPHIDIA, Vol. ii. p. 453.

These make our girles their fluttery rue,

By pinching them both black and blue, &c.

And Shakespeare, Coм. ERR. A. ii. S. ii. Of the fairies.

They'll fuck our breath, and pinch us black and blue. And the MERRY WIVES, where Falstaffe is pinched by fairies. A. v. S. v. 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 domeftic demons, gives what he calls a ftrange ftory of "the Spirit of the Buttery." Ibid. p. 577. But almost all that Milton here mentions of these houfe-fairies appears to be taken from Jonfon's ENTERTAINMENT AT ALTROPE, 1603. WORKS, fol. p. 872. edit. 1616.

When about the CREAM-BOWLES fweete,

You and all your elves do meete.
This is MAB, the miftris fairy,
That doth nightly rob the dairy,
And can help or hurt the churning,
As fhee pleafe, without difcerning.
She that PINCHES country wenches,
If they rub not cleane their benches;
And with fharper nayles remembers
When they rake not up their embers.
This is the that empties cradles, &c.
Traynes forth midwives in their flumbers,
And then leades them from their burrowes,

Home through PONDS and WATER-FURROWES.

As Milton here copied Jonfon, fo Jonfon copied Shakespeare, MIDS, N. DR. A. ii. S. i.

Are you not he

That frights the maidens of the villagery, &c.

Tells how the drudging Goblin fwet,
To earn his cream-bowl duly fet,

105

It is remarkable, that the Demon who was faid to haunt women in child-bed, and steal their infants, is mentioned fo early as by Michael Pfellus, a Byzantine philofopher of the eleventh century, on the OPE RATIONS OF DEMONS. Edit. Gaulmin. Parif. 1615. 12°. p. 78.

104. And be by friers lantern led, &c.] Thus the edition of 1645. But in the edition 1673, the context stands thus,

She was pincht and pull'd, fhe sed,

And by the friers lantern led

Tells how, &c.

I know not if under the poet's direction. This reading at least removes a flight confufion arifing from bis, v. 106. Nor is the general fense much altered. Friers lantern, is the JACK AND LANTERN, which led people in the night into marshes and waters. Milton gives the philofophy of this fuperftition, PARAD. L. B. ix. 634.

A wandering fire

Compact of unctuous vapour, which the night
Condenses, and the cold environs round,
Kindled through agitation to a flame,

Which oft, they fay, fome EVIL SPIRIT attends,
Hovering and blazing with delufive light,

Misleads th' amaz'd night wanderer from his way

To bogs and mires, and oft through pond and pool.

In the midst of a folemn and learned enarration, his ftrong imagination could not refift a romantic tradition, confecrated by popular credulity. Shakespeare has finely transferred the general idea of this fuperftition to his Ghoft in HAMLET, A. i. S. iii.

Mar. It waves you to a more removed ground;

But do not go with it.

Hor. What if it tempt you to the FLOOD, my Lord?

But then, from the ground work of a vulgar belief, fo beautifully accommodated and improved, how does he rife in the progreffion of his imagination to the fuppofition of a more alarming and horrible danger? Or to the dreadfull fummit of the cliff

That beetles o'er his base into the sea,
And there affume some other horrible form,
Which might deprive your fovereignty of reafon
And draw you into madness?

When

When in one night, ere glimpse of morn,
His fhadowy flale hath thresh'd the corn,
That ten day-lab'rers could not end;
Then lies him down the lubbar fiend,

And stretch'd out all the chimney's length,

Basks at the fire his hairy ftrength,

And crop-full out of doors he flings,
Ere the first cock his matin rings.

105. Tells bow the drudging goblin fwet,

To earn his cream-bowl duly fet, &c.] This goblin is Robin Goodfellow. See Note on v. 103. And the commentators on Shakefpeare's MIDS. N. DREAM, vol. iii. p. 27. edit. 1778. His creambowl was earned, and he paid the punctuality of thofe by whom it was duly placed for his refection, by the fervice of threshing with his invifible fairy flail, in one night and before the dawn of day, a quantity of corn in the barn, which could not have been threshed in fo short a time by ten labourers. He then returns into the house, fatigued with his task; and overcharged with his reward the creambowl, throws himself before the fire, and stretched along the whole breadth of the fire-place, basks till the morning. Robin Goodfellow, who is here made a gigantic spirit, fond of lying before the fire, and called the LUBBAR-FIEND, feems to be confounded with the fleepy giant mentioned in Beaumont and Fletcher's KNIGHT OF THE BURNING PESTLE, A. iii. S. i. vol vi. p. 411. edit. 1751. "There is a pretty tale of a witch that had the devil's mark about her, god bless us, that had a gyaunt to her fon that was called Lob-lye-by-the-fire." Jonfon introduces Robin Goodfellow as a perfon of the drama, in LOVE RESTORED, A Mafque at Court, where more of his fervices, and a great variety of his gambols, are recited. WORKS, edit. 1616. p.990. Burton, speaking of thefe fairies, fays that "a bigger kind there is of "them, called with us Hob-goblins and Robin Goodfellowes, that “would in those fuperftitious times grinde corne for a meffe of milke, "cut wood, or do any manner of drudgery worke." MELANCH. P. i. . 2. p. 42. edit. 1632. Afterwards of the demons that mislead men in the night, he fays, "we commonly call them PUCKS." lbid. p.43. Shakespeare's WINTER'S TALE is fuppofed to be "of fprights and "goblins." A. ii. S. i.

113. And crop.full out of doors he flings,

Ere the firft cock his matin rings.] Milton remembered the old

Song

Thus done the tales, to bed they creep,
By whispering winds foon lull'd asleep.

115

Towred cities please us then,

Song of Puck or ROBIN GOODFELLOW, rescued from oblivion by Peck.

When larks gin fing

Away we fling.

The chorus of this fong is "Ho, Ho, Ho!" Hence fays Puck, "Ho, "Ho, Ho, Coward why comeft not thou." MIDS. N. DR. A. iii. S. ii, See the laft Note on the ODE ON THE NATIVITY.

Mr. Bowle fuggefts an illuftration of the text from Warner's ALBION'S ENGLAND, ch. 91. Robin Goodfellow is the speaker.

Hoho, hoho, needs must I laugh, fuch fooleries to name,

And at my CRUMMED MESSE OF MILKE, each night, from maid or dame

To do their chares, as they fuppos'd, when in their deadeft sleepe I pul'd them out their beds, and made themselves their houses fweepe.

How clatter'd I amongst their pots and pans, and dreamed they? My hempen bampen fentence, when fome tender foole would lay Me fhirt or flop, them greeved, for I then would go away. Much the fame is faid in Scot's DISCOVERIE of WITCHCRAFT, Lond. 1588. 4to. p. 66. And, To the Readers.

I take this opportunity of observing, from Mr. Bowle's information, that Shakespeare's Oberon in the MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM, is originally taken from an old French romance called SIR HUON OF BOURDEAUX, tranflated into English by Lord Berners early in the reign of king Henry the eighth. He is styled Oberon LE FEE, and is a very important character, in that romance. See OBSERVAT, on

Spenfer's FAERIE QUEENE, vol. i. 57. ii. 138,

114. Mr. Bowle supposes, that the poet here thought of a passage in the FAERIE QUEENE, V. vi. 27.

The native belman of the night,

The bird that warned Peter of his fall,

First RINGS HIS SILVER BELL t'each fleepy wight.

117. Towred cities pleafe us then, &c.] THEN, that is at Night. The poet returns from his digreffion, perhaps difproportionately prolix, concerning the feats of fairies and goblins, which protract the converfation over the spicy bowl of a village-fupper, to enumerate other pleasures or amufements of the night, or evening. THEN is in this linę a repetition of the firft THEN. "Then to the fpicy nut-brown

"ale,