Under the trees now tripp'd, now solemn stood," 855 560 cup-bearer; the other, by Hercules, for whom he drew water: they are therefore both properly mentioned upon this occasion.-NEWTON. Milton had mentioned these two boys in his seventh Elegy, where he compares the God of Love to them. In which he had most probably an eye to Spenser's description of Fancy in his Mask of Cupid, "Faer. Qu." iii. xii. 7. The first was Fancy, like a lovely boy, &c.-DUNSTER. Milton here alludes to the description of the costly tables of the Romans, their waiters, &c., given by an author, to whose opinions he was certainly partial: "Seneca describes the order and number of their waiters more particularly: they had waiting them, saith he, puerorum infelicium greges, whole troopes of vnfortunate Ganymedes," &c. Hakewill's "Apol. of the Power and Providence of God," fol. ed. 1630, v. 376.-Todd. in Now solemn stood. The same idea of graceful attitude is given in a line of "Comus," where the enchanter, speaking to the Lady of her brothers, whom he professes to have seen, says, Their port was more than human as they stood. Hamlet likewise, in the scene with his mother, thus exemplifies the gracefulness of his father's person : A station like the herald Mercury New-lighted on a heaven-kissing hill; where "station" is attitude, or the act of standing.-DUNSTER. n Nymphs of Diana's train, and Naiades, With fruits and flowers from Amalthea's horn, The poet perhaps specifies these beautiful attendants, as more eminently possessing the power of beguiling the heart: the "nymphs of Diana's train," on account of their remarkable beauty; see "Odyss." vi. 110: the " Naiades," as having been companions of the enchantress Circe; see "Comus," ver. 254; and the "ladies of the Hesperides," by their skill in singing. See notes on "Comus," v. 981. Compare also P. Fletcher's "Purp. Isl." 1613, c. x. st. 30: Choice nymph, the crown of chaste Diana's train, The story of Amalthea's horn, strictly so called, is given by Ovid, "Fast." v. 115, &c.; but in the beginning of the ninth book of the "Metamorphoses," a different history of a cornucopia is given, which seems to be more immediately referred to in this passage of the "Paradise Regained:" Nec satis id fuerat; rigidum fera dextera cornu Sacrarunt; divesque meo bona Copia cornu est.-DUNSTER. • Fairer than feign'd of old, or fabled since. Some readers may perhaps, in this passage, think our author a little too fond of showing his great reading; a fault, of which he is indeed sometimes guilty: but those who are conversant in romance-writers, and know how lavish they are in the praises of their beauties, will, I doubt not, discover great propriety in this allusion.-THYER. Whenever Milton takes any images from his favourite romances, he immediately rises, as here, into the most exquisite poetry, and seems to finish his lines with peculiar pleasure and art.-Jos. WARTON. The reason of this seems to be, that here was more play for his imagination. The classical learning was not so imaginative as the gothic and romantic. p Faery damsels, met in forest wide Sir Lancelot, Pelleas, and Pellenore (the latter by the title of King Pellenore), are And all the while harmonious airs were heard 4 Of chiming strings, or charming pipes; and winds persons in the old romance of "Morte d'Arthur, or The Lyf of King Arthur, of his noble knyghtes of the round table, and in thende the dolorus deth of them all; writton originally in French, and translated into English by Sir Thomas Malleory, Knt. printed by William Caxton, 1484."-From this old romance, Mr. Warton ("Observations on Spenser," sect. 2) shows that Spenser borrowed much. Sir Lancelot is there called of "Logris;" and Sir Tristram is named of "Lyones," under which title he appears also in the "Faery Queen." "Logris" is the same with Loegria (according to the more fabulous historians, and amongst them Milton), an old name for England. Holinshed calls it both Loegria and Logiers. See his "History of England," b. ii. 4, 5. The same author, in his "Description of Britain," instead of Loegria, or Logiers, writes it Lhoegres. The title of his 22d chapter is, "after what manner the sovereigntie of this isle doth remaine to the princes of Lhoegres or kings of England." Spenser, in his "Faery Queen," where he gives the "Chronicle of the early Briton kings from Brute to Uther's reign," calls it Logris, ii. x. 14 :— And Camber did possess the western quart, Lyones was an old name for Cornwall, or at least for a part of that county. Camden, in his "Britannia," speaking of the Land's End, says, "The inhabitants are of opinion that this promontory did once reach farther to the west, which the seamen positively conclude from the rubbish they draw up. The neighbours will tell you too, from a certain old tradition, that the land there drowned by the incursions of the sea was called Lionesse." Sir Tristram of Lyones or Lionesse, is well known to the readers of the old romances. In the French translation of the "Orlando Inamorato" of Boiardo, he is termed Tristan de Leonnois, although in the original he is only mentioned by the single name of Tristan. In the "Orlando Inamorato" also, among the knights, who defend Angelica in the fortress of Albraca against Agrican, is Sir Hubert of Lyones, Uberto dal Lione. Tristram, in his account of himself in the "Faery Queen," vi. ii. 28, says, And Tristram is my name, the only heire Of good king Meliogras, which did rayne In Cornewale, till that he through lives despeire He then relates how his uncle seized upon the crown; whereupon his mother, conceiving great fears for her son's personal safety, determined to send him into "some foreign land," Out of the countrie wherein I was bred, The which the fertile Lionesse is hight, These particulars, Mr. Warton shows, are drawn from the "Morte d'Arthur," where it is said "There was a knight Meliodas, and he was lord and king of the county of Lyones, and he wedded king Marke's sister of Cornewale." The issue of this marriage was Sir Tristram. These knights, he also observes, are there often represented as meeting beautiful damsels in desolate forests. Sir Pelleas, "a very valorous knight of Arthur's round table," is one of those who pursue the blatant beast, when, after having been conquered and chained up by Sir Calidore, it "broke its iron chain" and again "ranged through the world."-Faery Queen, vi. xii. 39. Milton's later thoughts could not, we find, but rove at times, where, as he himself told us, "his younger feet wandered," when he "betook him among those lofty fables and romances, which recount in solemn cantos the deeds of knighthood founded by our victorious kings, and from hence had in renowne over all Christendome." "Apol. for Smectym." p. 177, "Prose Works," ed. Amst. 1698.-DUNSTER. And all the while harmonious airs were heard Of chiming strings, or charming pipes. Thus in "Paradise Lost," b. xi. 558 the sound Of instruments that made melodious chime. And again, ver. 594, "charming symphonies." Spenser, as Mr. Calton observes, thus likewise uses the verb to charm, "Faery Queen," v. ix. 13: Like as the fouler, on his guileful pype, Charmes to the birds full many a pleasant lay. But Spenser has to charm frequently in this sense. Thus, in his "Colin Clout's come home again," of his shepherd's boy, Of gentlest gale Arabian odours fann'd What doubts the Son of God to sit and eat? All these are spirits of air, and woods, and springs," Charming his oaten pipe unto his peers: And again, in the conclusion of his "October:”— Here we our slender pipes may safely charme.-DUNSTER. And winds Of gentlest gale Arabian odours fann'd 865 $70 Mr. Thyer, who supposes this circumstance introduced in compliance with the Eastern custom of using perfumes at their entertainments, has noticed the similarity of the following lines, "Paradise Lost," b. iv. 156:— Now gentle gales, Fanning their odoriferous wings, dispense Native perfumes, and whisper whence they stole He might also have cited a beautiful line from our author's early Elegy, "In Adventum Veris;" Cinnamea Zephyrus leve plaudit odorifer ala. Milton, in the same Elegy, refers to the "Arabian odours;" and in the continuation of the passage from the "Paradise Lost," exhibited by Mr. Thyer, he speaks of the winds blowing Sabean odours from the spicy shore Of Araby the blest.-DUNSTER. See likewise "Paradise Lost," b. viii. 515, &c. And compare Apoil. Rhod. "Argon," i. 1142; and particularly the following passage from Drayton, "Muses Eliz." 1630, p. 138: Where the soft windes did mutually embrace, In the cool arbours Nature there had made; Such was the splendour. Virgil, describing the magnificent entertainment prepared by Dido for Æneas (" Æn." i. 637), says, At domus interior regali splendida luxu on which La Cerda observes:-"Apte et signate splendida; nam splendor de conviviis sæpe;" and he cites from Athenæus, b. iii. Aаμporárny decævoù napaσKEVýv.—DUNSter. These are not fruits forbidden; no interdict Defends the touching of these viands pure: Their taste no knowledge works, at least of evil. This sarcastical allusion to the Fall of Man, and to that particular command, by the transgression of which, being seduced by Satan, he fell, is finely in character of the speaker. Milton, in his "Paradise Lost," terms the forbidden fruit "the tree of interdicted knowledge;" and, in the eighth book, where Adam, relating to the angel what he remembered since his own creation, particularly recites the "rigid interdiction," ver. 323-335.-DUNSTER. ■ All these are spirits of air, and woods, and springs. These "spirits of air, and woods, and springs," remind us of Shakspeare's "elves of hills, brooks, standing lakes, and groves," in the "Tempest."-DUNSTER. The whole of this passage is extraordinarily and exquisitely beautiful; the turn of the expression is in the highest degree persuasive and happy. Thy gentle ministers, who come to pay W And call swift flights of angels ministrant And count thy specious gifts no gifts, but guiles. What I might have bestow'd on whom I pleased, Whose pains have earn'd the far-fet spoil. With that, Both table and provision vanish'd quite With sound of harpies' wings and talons heard: ▾ Command a table in this wilderness. From Psalm lxxviii. 19:-" They said, Can God furnish a table in the wilderness?" -RICHARDSON. An expression likewise in Shakspeare, "Hamlet," a. v. s. 6: "And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest."-NEWTON. Compare St. Matthew, xxvi. 53.-DUNSTER. And count thy specious gifts no gifts, but guiles. Not without a resemblance to Virgil, "Æn." ii. 49 :— Timeo Danaos et dona ferentes; and to a preceding part of the same speech of Laocoon: O miseri, quæ tanta insania, cives? Dr. Newton observes, that "thy gifts no gifts," is from Sophocles, "Ajax," v. 675.— DUNSTER. Compare our author, in his "Apology for Smectymnus," sect. xi. :-"Shall we receive our prayers at the bounty of our more wicked enemies, whose gifts are no gifts, but the instruments of our bane?"-TODD. y With that, &c. See the notes on "Comus," ver. 659.-TODD. z With sound, &c. The sound of the wings and talons is much finer than if the harpies had been seen; because the imagination is left at work, and the surprise is greater than if they had been mentioned before.-T. WARTON. Only the importune tempter still remain'd, By hunger, that each other creature tames, Which way, or from what hope, dost thou aspire b Longer than thou canst feed them on thy cost? And his son Herod placed on Judah's throne, d 405 410 418 420 As this infernally magical banquet vanishes, the attendant spirits (see before, ver. 236), who had appeared in the scene as "tall stripling youths, nymphs of Diana's train, or ladies of the Hesperides," resume their proper infernal shapes. Milton, we may observe, characterizes the furies as harpy-footed, "Paradise Lost," b. ii. 596.-DUN STER. The powerful brevity of this termination of the splendid array is very striking. Spenser and our old poets write impórtune, thus accented; "Faer. Qu.” i. xii. 16:— And often blame thee to impórtune fate.-NEWTON. b Or at thy heels the dizzy multitude, Longer than thou canst feed them on thy cost? The "dizzy multitude" is the ventosa plebs of the Roman poet, who speaks of them as to be gained in the same manner. Hor. "Epist." I. xix. 37 :— Non ego ventosæ plebis suffragia venor See also Shakspeare, "Henry V." a. iv. s. 3 : C Nor care I who doth feed upon my cost.-Dunster. Money brings honour, friends, conquest, and realms. Mammon, in the "Faery Queen," attempts the virtue of Sir Guyon with the same pretences, ii. vii. 11: Vain-glorious elf, said he, dost thou not weet, That money can thy wants at will supply? Shields, steeds, and arms, and all things for thee meet It can purvey in twinkling of an eye: And crowns and kingdoms to thee multiply. Do I not kings create, and throw the crown Sometimes to him that low in dust doth lie? And him that reign'd into his room thrust down; And whom I lust, do heap with glory and renown?-CALTON. d What raised Antipater the Edomite, And his son Herod placed on Judah's throne. This appears to be the fact from history. When Josephus introduces Antipater upon the stage, he speaks of him as abounding with great riches, "Antiq." lib. xiv. cap. 2. And his son Herod was declared king of Judea by the favour of Mark Anthony, partly for the sake of the money which he promised to give him. Ibid. cap. xxvi.NEWTON. |