With other notes than to the Orphéan lyre, 20 Taught by the heavenly Muse to venture down Orpheus made a hymn to wrote of the creation out of Ver. 17. With other notes, &c.] Night, which is still extant; he alfo Chaos. See Apoll. Rhodius, i. 493. Orpheus was infpired by his mother Calliope only, Milton by the heavenly Mufe; therefore he boafts that he fung with other notes than Orpheus, though the fubjects were the fame. RICHARDSON. Ibid. the Orphéan lyre,] Mr. Warton fays that the epithet is perfectly Grecian, and the combination literally from Apollonius Rhodius: See his note, Eleg. vi. 37. But "the Orphean lyre" had appeared before in English poetry, as I find in Harrington's Polindor and Floftella, 1651, p. 57. Ver. 20. "the Orphean lyre out-mated." TODD. and up to re-afcend,] So Chap man, fpeaking alfo of Chaos and eternal night, Revenge of Buffy D'Ambois, 4to. 1613. "Up from the chaos of eternal night "Once more I afcend." TODD. Ver. 25. So thick a drop ferene hath quench'd their orbs, Or dim fuffufion veil'd.] Drop ferene or Gutta serena, It was formerly thought, that that fort of blindness was an incurable extinction or quenching of fight by a tranfparent, watery, cold humour diftilling upon the optick nerve, though making very little change in the eye to appearance, if any; it is now known to be moft commonly an obftruction in the capillary veffels of that nerve, and curable in fome cafes. A cataract for many ages, Or dim fuffufion veil'd. Yet not the more 26 Cease I to wander, where the Mufes haunt Clear spring, or fhady grove, or funny hill, Smit with the love of facred fong; but chief until about thirty years ago, was thought to be a film externally growing over the eye, intercepting or veiling the fight, beginning with dimnefs, and fo encreafing till vifion was totally obftructed: but the disease is in the cryftalline humour lying between the outmoft coat of the eye and the pupilla. The dimnefs, which is at the beginning, is called a fuffufion; and, when the fight is loft, it is a cataract; and cured by couching, which is with a needle paffing through the external coat and driving down the difeafed crystalline, the lofs of which is fomewhat fupplied by the ufe of a large convex glafs. When Milton was firft blind, he wrote to his friend Leonard Philara, an Athenian then at Paris, for him to confult Dr. Thevenot; he fent his cafe (it is in the 15th of his familiar letters): what anfwer he had is not known; but it feems by this paffage that he was not certain what his disease was: or perhaps he had a mind to describe both the great caufes of blindness according to what was known at that time, as his whole poem is interfperfed with great variety of learning. RICHARDSON. Ver. 26. Yet not the more Ceafe I to wander,] Yet do not I forbear to follow the Mufes wherefoever they meet. HUME. This is the fenfe of the paffage, which Bentley and Pearce propofed to alter, but which Dr. Newton allows. TODD. Ver. 27. where the Mufes haunt Clear, fpring, or fhady grove,] So, in Sandys's Ovid, 1656, p. 6. "Our Demi-gods, Nymphs, Sylvans, Satyrs, Faunes, And, in bishop Hall's Defiance to Eney: "Come, Nymphs and Ver. 29. Smit with the love of facred fong;] So Virgil, Georg. ii. 475. 3 Thee, Sion, and the flowery brooks beneath, 30 That wash thy hallow'd feet, and warbling flow, Nightly I vifit: nor fometimes forget Those other two equall'd with me in fate, "Dulces ante omnia Mufæ, "Quarum facra fero ingenti percuffus amore." NEWTON. Ver. 30. the flowery brooks beneath,] Kedron and Siloah. He still was pleased to study the beauties of the ancient poets, but his highest delight was in the fongs of Sion, in the holy Scriptures; and in these he meditated day and night. This is the fenfe of the paffage, ftript of its poetical ornaments. Ver. 32. NEWTON. nor fometimes forget] It is the fame as and fometimes not forget. Nec and neque in Latin are frequently the fame as et non. PEARCE. Ver. 33. Thofe other two, &c.] It has been imagined that Milton dictated Thofe other too, which though different in fenfe, yet is not diftinguishable in found; fo that they might easily be mistaken the one for the other. In ftrictnefs of fpeech perhaps we should read others instead of other, Thofe others too: but those other may be admitted as well as these other in B. iv. 783.thefe other wheel the north: but then it must be acknowledged that too is a forry botch at beft. The most probable explanation of this paffage I conceive to be this. Though he mentions four, yet there are but two whom he particularly defires to resemble, and thofe he diftinguishes both with the epithet blind to make the likeness the more striking: "Blind Thamyris, and blind Mæonides." Mæonides is Homer, fo called from the name of his father Mæon: and no wonder our poet defires to equal him in renown, whofe writings he fo much ftudied, admired, and imitated. The character of Thamyris is not fo well known and established: but Homer mentions him in the Iliad, ii. 595; and Euftathius ranks him with Orpheus and Mufæus, the moft celebrated poets and musicians. Plato mentions his hymns with honour in the beginning of his eighth book of Laws, and towards the conclufion So were I equall'd with them in renown, : 35 of the laft book of his Republick feigns, upon the principles of tranfmigration, that the foul of Thamyris paffed into a nightingale. He was a Thracian by birth and invented the Dorick mood or measure, according to Pliny, L. 7. c. 57. Plutarch, in his treatise of Mufick, fays that he had the finest voice of any of his time, and that he wrote a poem of the war of the Titans with the Gods and from Suidas we learn that he compofed likewife a poem of the generation of the world, which, being fubjects near of kin to Milton's, might probably occafion the mention of him in this place. Thamyris then, and Homer, are those other two, whom the poet principally defires to refemble: And it seems as if he had intended at first to mention only thefe two, and then, currente calamo, had added the two others, Tirefias, and Phineus, the one a Theban, the other a king of Arcadia; famous blind prophets and poets of antiquity; for the word prophet fometimes comprehends both characters, as vates does in Latin. NEWTON. Ver. 35. And Tirefias, and Phineus, prophets old:] Dr. Bentley rejects this verse; but it is genuine. Tirefias is repeatedly celebrated by Milton. See Mr. Warton's note, Eleg. vi. 67. Dr. Pearce proposes to improve the line, by reading, "And Phineus, and Tirefias, prophets old." TODD. Ver. 37. Then feed on thoughts,] Compare Shakspeare, Ant. and Cleop. A. iv. S. xiii. "pleafe your thoughts, "On "In feeding them with those my former fortunes, &c." Thus alfo in Sir P. Sidney's Arcadia, 13th edit. p. 92. thoughts he feeds." Milton ufes the phrafe again, in Par. Reg. B. ii. 258. "Fed with better thoughts." And in his ProfeWorks, 1698, vol. i. p. 223. "I trust hereby to make it manifeft with what small willingness I endure to interrupt the pursuit of no less hopes than these, and leave a calm and pleafing folita Harmonious numbers; as the wakeful bird rinefs, fed with cheerful and confident thoughts, to embark in troubled fea of noifes, &c." TODD. 45 Ver. 39. darkling,] It is faid that darkling was coined by Milton, but I find it used several times in Shakspeare, and in the authors of that age. NEWTON. Ver. 41. Seafons return; but not to me returns &c.] This beautiful turn of the words is copied from the beginning of the third Act of Guarini's Paftor Fido, where Mirtillo addreffes the spring: "Tu torni ben, ma teco "Non tornano &c. "Tu torni ben, tu torni, "Ma teco altro non torna, &c." NEWTON. The pathetick complaint of Robert Duke of Normandy on his blindness may be alfo here compared, Mir. for Magistrates, edit. 1610, p. 654. "Can I distinguish day from dark some night? "Or do I know the feafons of the yeare? "Know I when fpring deckes earth with sweet delight, "Whom, by his boisterous blafts, I know right well." |