With wild thyme and the gadding vine o'er

grown,

And all their echoes mourn:

40

The willows, and the hazel copfes green,
Shall now no more be seen

Fanning their joyous leaves to thy foft lays.
As killing as the canker to the rofe,

45

Ver. 40. the gadding vine] Doctor Warburton fuppofes, that the vine is here called gadding, be-. cause, being married to the elm, like other wives, fhe is fond of gadding abroad, and seeking a new affociate. I have met with a peculiar ufe of the word gadding, which also shows its ancient and original spelling. From the Register of a Chantry at Godderfton in Norfolk, under the year 1534. "Receyvid at the Gadyng with Saynte Marye Songe at Crifmas." Blomf. Norf. iii. 404. That is, "At going about from house to houfe at christmas with a Carol of the Holy Virgin, &c." It seems as if there was such an old verb as gude, a frequentative from go. Chaucer, Rom. R. 938.

"Thefe bowis two held Swete-Loking,

"That ne femid like no gadling."

That is "no gadder, idler, &c." Gadelyng occurs in Hearne's "Gloff. to Robert of Gloucefter, ftragling, renegade, &c." p. 651. Tully, in a beautiful defcription of the growth of the vine, fays, that it fpreads itself abroad,"multiplici lapfu et erratico." Do Senectute. T. WARTON.

Ver. 45. As killing as the canker to the rofe,] Mr. Warton has obferved, that Shakspeare is fond of this image, and, from frequent repetition, feems to have fuggefted it to Milton. He has given many inftances, but has omitted two beautiful paffages, which alfo feem to have affifted a modern poet in a muchadmired ballad. The firft is from the Two Gent. of Verona, A. i. S. i.

"As the moft forward hud

"Is eaten by the canker ere it blow;

Even fo by love the young and tender wit

Or taint-worm to the weanling herds that graze, Or froft to flowers, that their gay wardrobe wear, When first the white-thorn blows;

Such, Lycidas, thy lofs to fhepherds' ear. Where were ye, Nymphs, when the remorselefs deep

50

Clos'd o'er the head of your lov'd Lycidas? For neither were ye playing on the steep, Where your old Bards, the famous Druids, lie,

"Is turn'd to folly; blafting in the bud,

"Lofing his verdure even in the prime, &c.”

The other, from Twelfth Night, A. ii. S. iv.

"She never told her love,

"But let concealment, like a worm i'the bud,

"Feed on her damask cheek."

The ballad, which is indebted to thefe paffages, is the William and Margaret of Mallet:

"Her bloom was like the fpringing flower,

"That fips the filver dew;

"The rose was budded in her cheek,

"Juft opening to the view.

"But love had, like the canker-worm,

"Confum'd her early prime:

"The rofe grew pale, and left her cheek;
"She died before her time." TODD,

Ver. 50. Where were ye, &c.] Theocritus and Virgil are obvious here. But fee Spenfer's Aftrophel, ft. 22. "Ah, where were ye the while his shepheard peares, &c." T. WARTON.

Ver. 53. Where your old Bards,] In the edition of 1638, "the old Bards." With a very different meaning. The correction appeared in the author's edition of 1645. T. WARTON.

Milton, I find, had written it " your old Bards," in his own manufcript. TODD.

Nor on the fhaggy top of Mona high,

Nor yet where Deva spreads her wifard stream:

Ver. 54. Nor on the fhaggy top of Mona high,] In Drayton's Polyolbion, Mona is introduced reciting her own history; where the mentions her thick and dark groves as the favourite refidence of the Druids:

"Sometimes within my fhades, in many an ancient wood, "Whofe often-twined tops great Phebus fires withstood, "The fearleffe British priests, under an aged oake, &c." Where, fays Selden," The British Druids tooke this isle of Anglesey, then well-ftored with thicke woods and religious groves, in fo much that it was then called INIS DOWIL, The Dark ile, for their chiefe refidence, &c." S. ix. vol. iii. p. 837. 839. Here are Milton's authorities. For the Druid-fepulchres, in the preceding line, at Kerig y Druidion, in the mountains of Denbighshire, he confulted Camden's Britannia. T. WARTON.

The Shaggy top Milton probably remembered in Sylvefter's Du Bartas. See the note on Par. Loft, B. vi. 645. TODD.

Ver. 55. Nor yet where Deva fpreads her wifard ftream:] In Spenfer, the river Dee is the haunt of magicians. Merlin ufed to vifit old Timon, in a green valley under the foot of the mountain Rauranvaur in Merionethshire, from which this river fprings. Faerie Queene, i. 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 reafon, why Deva's is a wifard ftream. In Drayton, this river is ftyled the hallowed, and the holy, and the ominous, flood. Polyolb. S. x. vol. iii. p. 848. S. ix. vol. iii. p. 287. S. iv. vol. ii. p. 731. Again," holy Dee." Heroical Epift. vol. i. p. 293. And in his Ideas, vol. iv. p. 1271. Compare Spenfer as above, įv. xi. 39.

"Dee which Britons long ygone

"Did call diuine.".

And Browne, in his Britannia's Paftorals, B. ii. S. v. p. 117. edit. 1613. Never more let holy Dee &c." In our author's

Ay me! I fondly dream!

At a Vacation Exercife, Dee is characterifed, "ancient hallowed Dee." v. 91. Where fee the Note. Much fuperftition was founded on the circumftance of its being the ancient boundary between England and Wales: and Drayton, in his Tenth Song, having recited this part of its hiftory, adds, that, by changing its fords, it foretold good or evil, war or peace, dearth or plenty, to either country. He then introduces the Dee, over which king Edgar had been rowed by eight kings, relating the Story of Brutus. See alfo S. iii. vol. ii. p. 711. S. xii. vol. iii. p. 901. But in the Eleventh Song, Drayton calls the Weever, a river of Chethire," the wifard river," and immediately fubjoins, that in prophetick skill it vies with the Dee. S. xi. vol. iii. p. 861. Here we feem to have the origin and the precife meaning of Milton's appellation. In Comus, WISARD alfo fignifies a Diviner where it is applied to Proteus, v. 872. Milton appears to have taken a particular pleafure in mentioning this venerable river. In the beginning of his first Elegy, he almost goes out of his way to specify his friend's refidence on the banks of the Dee; which he defcribes with the picturefque and real circumstance of its tumbling headlong over rocks and precipices into the Irish fea. El. i. 1-4.

But to return home to the text immediately lying before us. In the midst of this wild imagery, the tombs of the Druids, difperfed over the folitary mountains of Denbighshire, the shaggy fummits of Mona, and the wifard waters of Deva, Milton was in his favourite track of poetry. He delighted in the old British traditions and fabulous hiftories. But his imagination feems to have been in fome meafure warmed, and perhaps directed to thefe objects, by reading Drayton; who in the Ninth and Tenth Song's of his Polyolbion has very copiously enlarged, and almost at one view, on this fcenery. It is, however, with great force and felicity of fancy, that Milton, in transferring the claffical feats of the Mufes to Britain, has fubftituted places of the most romantick kind, inhabited by Druids, and confecrated by the vifions of British bards; and it has been juftly remarked, how coldly and unpoetically Pope, in his very correct paftorals, has on the fame occafion felected only the fair fields of Ifis, and the winding vales of Cam. But at the fame time there is an immediate pro

Had

ye been there for what could that have done?

What could the Mufe herfelf that Orpheus bore,

priety 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 feas where Lycidas was fhipwrecked. It is thus Theocritus afks 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 facred water of Acis, or on the fummits of mount Etna: because all these were the haunts or the habitation of the fhepherd Daphnis. These rivers and rocks have a real connection with the poet's fubject. T. WARTON.

Ver. 56. Ay me! I fondly dream!

Had ye been there--for what could that have done?] So thefe lines ftand in editions 1638, 1645, and 1673. Doctor Newton thus exhibits the paffage.

Cl Had ye been there, for what could that have done?" And adds this note. "We have here followed the pointing of Milton's manufcript in preference to all the editions: and the meaning plainly is, I fondly dream of your having been there, for what would that have fignified?" But furely the words, I fondly dream had ye been there, will not bear this conftruction. The reading which I have adopted, to fay nothing of its authority, has an abruptness which heightens the present sentiment, and more ftrongly marks the distraction of the speaker's mind. "Ay me! I am fondly dreaming! I will suppose you had been there—but why should I fuppofe it, for what would that have availed?" The context is broken and confufed, and contains a fudden ellipfis which I have fupplied with the words in Italicks. T. WARTON.

Ver. 58. What could the Mufe &c.] See Par. Loft, B. vii. 37. of Orpheus torn in pieces by the Bacchanalians: "Nor could the Mufe defend her fon." And his murtherers are called "that wild rout," v. 34. Calliope was the mother of Orpheus. Lytidas, as a poet, is here tacitly compared with Orpheus. They were both victims of the water. T. WARTON.