being the Miltonic word for recess, harbour, hiding-place : yet he has overlooked the passages in Sylvester, which occasioned, in my opinion, the introduction of "sable shroud" into Milton's Monody. And, first, Sylvester uses the precise expression, though with a different meaning, in his 'Bethulian's Rescue,' lib. iv. p. 991. edit. 1621. Still therefore, cover'd with a sable shroud, Hath she kept home, as to all sorrow vow'd. But in Sylvester's translation of 'Du Bartas,' ed. supr. p. 114. we find, O happy pair! upon your sable toomb May mel and manna ever showring come. And what farther confirms me in the application of tomb or grave to Milton's text, is a passage from a funeral Elegy of Sylvester, edit. supr. p. 1171. From my sad cradle to my sable chest, Poore pilgrim I did finde few months of rest. TODD. I cannot think that, applied to Lycidas, "shroud" means tomb, as Todd supposes, because Sylvester so used it, in reference to a different case. • Ver. 25. Together both, &c. From the regularity of his pursuits, the purity of his pleasures, his temperance, and general simplicity of life, Milton habitually became an early riser: hence he gained an acquaintance with the beauties of the morning, which he so frequently contemplated with delight, and has therefore so repeatedly described in all their various appearances; and this is a subject which he delineates with the lively pencil of a lover. In the 'Apology for Smectymnuus,' he declares, "Those morning haunts are where they should be, at home; not sleeping or concocting the surfeits of an irregular feast, but up and stirring, in winter often before the sound of any bell awakens men to labour or devotion; in summer, as oft as the bird that first rouses, or not much tardyer, to read good authors," &c. Prose Works,' i. 109. In 'L'Allegro,' one of the first delights of his cheerful man is to hear the "lark begin his flight." His lovely landscape of Eden always wears its most attractive charms at sun-rising, and seems most delicious to our first parents "at that season prime for sweetest scents and airs." In the present instance, he more particularly alludes to the stated early hours of a collegiate life, which he shared "on the self-same hill," with his friend Lycidas at Cambridge.-T. WARTON. This is a beautiful note of T. Warton, characteristic of that amiable critic and poet, and such as few others, if any, could have written. 9 Ver. 26. Under the opening eyelids of the morn. Perhaps from Thomas Middleton's 'Game at Chesse,' an old forgotten play, published about the end of the reign of James I. 1625. Like a pearl T. WARTON, Dropt from the opening eyelids of the morn Upon the bashful rose. The "eyelids of the morning" is a phrase of sublime origin. See Job iii. 9. “Neither let it see the dawning of the day," or, as in the margin, "the eyelids of the morning." See also chap. xli. 18. And Sophocles, 'Antigone,' v. 103. -TODD. 10 Ver. 27. We drove afield. That is, "we drove our flocks afield." I mention this, that Gray's echo of the passage in the 'Church-yard Elegy,' yet with another meaning, may not mislead many careless readers. "How jocund did they drive their team afield !"-T. WARTON. Gray seems to have had every expression of Milton by heart. 11 Ver. 28. Her sultry horn. “We continued together till noon," &c. The gray-fly is called by the naturalists, the gray-fly, or trumpet-fly; and "sultry horn" is the sharp hum of this insect at noon, or the hottest part of the day. But by some this has been thought the chaffer, which begins its flight in the evening.-T. WARTON. 12 Ver. 29. Battening our flocks. To "batten" is both neutral and active, to grow or to make fat. The neutral is most common. Shakspeare, Hamlet,' a. iii. s. 4. Could you on this fair mountain leave to feed, T. WARTON. 13 Ver. 31. His westering wheel. Drawing toward the So, in Chaucer's 'Troil. and Creseide,' b. ii. 905. west. The sonne Gan westrin fast and dounward for to wrie. NEWTON. 14 Ver. 39. Thee, shepherd, thee the woods, and desert caves, &c. The passage most similar, in all its circumstances, to the present, is, in the opinion of Mr. Dunster, the lamentation for Orpheus in Ovid, Met.' xi. 43. Te mæstæ volucres, Orpheu; te turba ferarum, Te rigidi silices, tua carmina sæpe secutæ Fleverunt sylvæ; positis te frondibus arbos. TODD. 15 Ver. 40. The gadding vine. Dr. Warburton supposes, that the vine is here called "gadding," because, being married to the elm, like other wives, she is fond of gadding abroad, and seeking a new associate. Tully, in a beautiful description of the growth of the vine, says, that it spreads itself abroad,"multiplici lapsu et erratico." De Senectute.'-T. WARTON. 16 Ver. 45. As killing as the canker to the rose. The whole context of words in this and the four following lines is melodious and enchanting. 17 Ver. 50. Where were ye? This burst is as magnificent as it is affecting. 18 Ver. 54. Nor on the shaggy top of Mona high. In Drayton's Polyolbion,' Mona is introduced reciting her own history; where she mentions her thick and dark groves as the favourite residence of the druids. For the druidsepulchres, in the preceding line, at Kerig y Druidion, in the mountains of Denbighshire, he consulted Camden's 'Britannia.'-T. WARTON. 19 Ver. 55. Nor yet where Deva spreads her wisard stream. In Spenser, the river Dee is the haunt of magicians. Merlin used to visit old Timon, in a green valley under the foot of the mountain Rauranvaur in Merionethshire, from which this river springs. Faerie Queene,' 1. ix. 4. The Dee has been made the scene of a variety of ancient British traditions. The city of Chester was called by the Britons the "fortress upon Dee;" which was feigned to have been founded by the giant Leon, and to have been the place of king Arthur's magnificent coronation: but there is another and perhaps a better reason, why Deva's is a "wisard” stream. In Drayton, this river is styled the "hallowed," and the "holy," and the "ominous flood." In our author's 'Vacation Exercise,' Dee is characterised, "ancient hallow'd Dee," v. 91. Much superstition was founded on the circumstance of its being the ancient boundary between England and Wales: and Drayton, in his Tenth Song, having recited this part of its history, adds, that, by changing its fords, it foretold good or evil, war or peace, dearth or plenty, to either country. then introduces the Dee, over which king Edgar had been rowed by eight kings, relating the story of Brutus. Milton appears to have taken a particular pleasure in mentioning this venerable river. In the beginning of his first Elegy, he almost goes out of his way to specify his friend's residence on the banks of the Dee; which he describes with the picturesque and real circumstance of its tumbling He headlong over rocks and precipices into the Irish sea. But to return home to the text immediately lying before us. In the midst of this wild imagery, the tombs of the Druids, dispersed over the solitary mountains of Denbighshire, the shaggy summits of Mona, and the wisard waters of Deva, Milton was in his favourite track of poetry. He delighted in the old British traditions and fabulous histories: but his imagination seems to have been in some measure warmed, and perhaps directed to these objects, by reading Drayton; who, in the Ninth and Tenth Songs of his 'Polyolbion,' has very copiously enlarged, and almost at one view, on this scenery. It is, however, with great force and felicity of fancy, that Milton, in transferring the classical seats of the Muses to Britain, has substituted places of the most romantic kind, inhabited by Druids, and consecrated by the visions of British bards; and it has been justly remarked, how coldly and unpoetically Pope, in his very correct pastorals, has on the same occasion selected only the "fair fields" of Isis, and the "winding vales" of Cam: but at the same time there is an immediate propriety in the substitution of these places, which should not be forgotten, and is not I believe obvious to every reader. The mountains of Denbighshire, the isle of Man, and the banks of the Dee, are in the vicinity of the Irish seas where Lycidas was shipwrecked. It is thus Theocritus asks the nymphs, how it came to pass, that, when Daphnis died, they were not in the delicious vales of Peneus, or on the banks of the great torrent Anapus, the sacred water of Acis, or on the summits of mount Ætna: because all these were the haunts or the habitation of the shepherd Daphnis. These rivers and rocks have a real connexion with the poet's subject.-T. WARTON. Here is another note of T. Warton, which combines a thousand charms of poetry, history, and taste. 20 Ver, 58. What could the Muse, &c. See 'Paradise |