Thy drowsy nurse hath fworn she did them spie Come tripping to the room where thou didst lie,

Doctor Warburton would read the Fancy's Midwife: for, he argues, it cannot be understood that the performed the office of mid-wife to the fairies. Mr. Steevens, much more plaufibly, fupposes her to be here called the Faeries' Mid-wife, because it was her "department to deliver the fancies of fleeping men of their dreams." But I apprehend, and with no violence of interpre tation, that the poet means The Midwife among the Fairies, because it was her peculiar employment to fteal the new-born babe in the night, and to leave another in its place. The poet here ufes her general appellation and character, which yet has fo far a proper reference to the present train of fiction, as that her illufions were practifed on perfons in bed or afleep; for fhe not only haunted women in childbed, but was likewise the incubus or night-mare. Shakspeare, by employing her here, alludes at large to her midnight pranks performed on fleepers: but denominates her from that most notorious one, of her personating the drowsy midwife who was infenfibly carried away into fome diftant water, and fubftituting a new birth in the bed or cradle. It would clear the appellation to read, under the sense affigned, The Fairie Midwife. The poet avails himself of Mab's appropriate province in giving her this new nocturnal agency. WARTON.

Ver. 62. Come tripping to the room &c.]

So barren, unpoe

tical, and abstracted a subject, could not have been adorned with finer touches of fancy. See alfo, v. 69.

"A Sibyl old, &c."

And in this illuftration there is great elegance, v. 83.

"To find a foe, &c."

The addrefs of Ens is a very ingenious enigma on Subftance.

WARTON.

Came tripping to the room, &c. is an allufion to the superstition, noticed by Shakspeare, Hen. IV. P. i. A. i. S. i.

"O, that it could be prov'd,

"That fome night-tripping fairy had exchang'd

"In cradle-cloths our children where they lay, &c."

And, fweetly finging round about thy bed,
Strew all their bleffings on thy fleeping head.
She heard them give thee this, that thou shouldst
ftill

From eyes of mortals walk invisible:

65

Yet there is fomething that doth force my fear; For once it was my dismal hap to hear

70

A Sibyl old, bow-bent with crooked age, That far events full wifely could prefage, And, in time's long and dark profpective glafs, Forefaw what future days fhould bring to pafs; "Your fon," faid fhe, (" nor can you it prevent) "Shall subject be to many an Accident. "O'er all his brethren he shall reign as king, 75 "Yet every one shall make him underling; "And those, that cannot live from him afunder,

Ungratefully shall strive to keep him under; "In worth and excellence he shall out-go them, "Yet, being above them, he fhall be below "them;

80

Ver. 74. Shall fubject be to many an Accident.] A pun on the logical Accidens. WARTON.

Ver. 75. C'er all his brethren he shall reign as king,] The Predicaments are his brethren: of or to which he is the Subjectum, although firft in excellence and order.

Ungratefully fall strive to keep him under; They cannot exist, but as inherent in Subftance.

From others he hall stand in need of nothing. He is ftill Subftance, with, or without, Accident.

Yet on his brothers fhall depend for clothing. By whom he is cloathed, fuperinduced, modified, &c. But he is fill the fame.

WARTON.

"From others he shall stand in need of nothing, "Yet on his brothers fhall depend for clothing. “ To find a foe it shall not be his hap,

“ And Peace shall lull him in her flowery lap; "Yet shall he live in ftrife, and at his door "Devouring War fhall never ceafe to roar; Yea, it fhall be his natural property

85

"To harbour thofe that are at enmity. "What power, what force, what mighty fpell,

"if not

"Your learned hands, can loofe this Gordian

"knot ?"

90

Ver. 83. Subftantia fubftantiæ nova contrariatur, is a schoolmaxim.

WARTON.

Ver. 84. And Peace ball lull him in her flowery lap ;] So in Harrington's Arifto, c. xlv. 1.

"Who long were lul'd on high in Fortune's lap.”

And in William Smith's Chloris, 1596.

"Whom Fortune never dandled in her lap.”

And in Spenfer's Teares of the Mufes, Terpfich. ft. i.

"Whofo hath in the lap of foft delight

"Been long time lul'd."

We have the flowery lap of fome irriguous valley," Par. Loft, B. iv. 254. Warton.

See alfo Mir. for Magiftrates, 1610, p. 327.

"Whilft Fortune false doth lull them in her lap.”

And in Certaine Selected Odes of Horace by John Ashmore, 4to. 1621, p. 17.

"In Fortune's lap, who then, but I,

"By Venus luld-asleep did lie ?”

Ver. 88. To harbour thofe that are at enmity.] His Accidents.

WARTON.

The next Quantity and Quality Spake in profe; then
Relation was called by his name.

RIVERS, arife; whether thou be the fon
Of utmost Tweed, or Oofe, or gulphy Dun,
Or Trent, who, like fome Earth-born giant,
fpreads

His thirty arms along the indented meads;

Ver. 91. Rivers, arife; &c. ]Milton is fuppofed, in the invocation and affemblage of these rivers, to have had an eye on Spenfer's Episode of the Nuptials of Thames and Medway, Faer. Qu. iv. xi. I rather think he confulted Drayton's Polyolbion. It is hard to fay, in what fenfe, or in what manner, this introduction of the rivers was to be applied to the subject. WARTON, Ver. 93. Or Trent, who like fome Earth-born giant spreads

His thirty arms along the indented meads;] It is faid that there were thirty forts of fish in this river, and thirty religious houfes on its banks. See Drayton, Polyolb. S. xii. vol. iii. p. 906. Drayton adds, that it was foretold by a wifard,

"And thirty several streames, from many a fundry way, "Unto her greatness shall their watry tribute pay."

Thefe traditions, on which Milton has raised a noble image, are a rebus on the name Trent. WARTON.

Ver. 94.

indented meads;] Indent, in this

fenfe and context, is in Sylvefter's Du Bartas, D. iii. W. i.

"Our filuer Medway, which doth deepe indent

"The flowerie medowes of my native Kent."

And Drayton fpeaks of "creeks indenting the land," Polyolb. S. i. WARTON.

See alfo Du Bart. ed. fupr. p. 775.

"There filver torrents rufh,

"Indenting meads and paftures, as they pass ?"

Or fullen Mole, that runneth underneath;
Or Severn swift, guilty of maiden's death;
Or rocky Avon, or of fedgy Lee,

Or coaly Tine, or ancient hallow'd Dee;

95

Or Humber loud, that keeps the Scythian's name; Or Medway smooth, or royal-tower'd Thame. 100

[The reft was profe. ]

Ver. 95. Or fullen Mole that runneth underneath;] At Mickleham near Darking in Surrey, the river Mole during the fummer, except in heavy rains, finks through its fandy bed into a fubterraneous and invifible channel. In winter it constantly keeps its current. This river is brought into one of our author's religious difputes. "To make the word Gift, like the river Mole in Surrey, to run under the bottom of a long line, and so to start up and to govern the word prefbytery, &c." Pr. W. vol. i, 92.

WARTON.

Ver. 96. Or Severn fwift, guilty of maiden's death;] The maiden is Sabrina. See Comus, v. 827. WARTON.

Ver. 98.

ancient hallow'd Dee;] In Apollonius Rhodius we have Φάσιδι συμφέρεται ΙΕΡΟΝ ῥέον. Argon. iv. 134.

V,

And in Theocritus, Axidos IEPON idag. Idyl. i. 69. See also "Divine Alpheus," in Arcades, v. 30. Other proofs might be added. But Milton is not claffical here. Dee's divinity was Druidical. From the fame fuperftition, fome rivers in Wales are ftill held to have the gift or virtue of prophecy. Gyraldus Cambrenfis, who writes in 1188, is the first who mentions Dee's fanctity, and from the popular traditions. See Note on Lycidas, ver. 55. WArton.

Randolph, in his Poems, notices alfo "the holy Dee,'' edit, 1640, p. 48.

Ver. 99. Or Humber loud, that keeps the Scythian's name;] Humber, a Scythian king, landed in Britain three hundred years before the Roman invafion, and was drowned in this river by Locrine, after conquering king Albanact. See Drayton, Polyelb.