Fill'd her with thee a daughter fair, So buxom, blithe, and debonair. Hafte thee Nymph, and bring with thee Quips and Cranks, and wanton Wiles, 17. Or whether (as fome fager nafing) &c] No mythologift either ancient or modern that I can meet with gives this account of -the birth of Euphrofyne; neverthedefs we must do Milton the juftice to own, that he could not poffibly have invented better allegorical parents for her than Zephyrus and Aurora, or the gentle weftern gales of a fine morning in the fpring, which to use his own words in his Paradife Loft, IV. 154. to the heart infpire Vernal delight and joy, able to drive All fadness but defpair.. His pretence of authority in the parenthefis (as feme fager fing) is introduc'd in my opinion only to give a more venerable authoritative air to his poem: and I have 25 T 30 Come, Come, and trip it as you go On the light fantastic toe, And in thy right hand lead with thee, Mirth, admit me of thy crew To live with her, and live with thee, Through the sweet-briar, or the vine, Or the twisted eglantine: While the cock with lively din Scatters the rear of darkness thin, Oft lift'ning how the hounds and horn From the fide of some hoar hill, 50 55 Through the high wood echoing fhrill: By hedge-row elms, on hillocs green, " he was up and stirring, in win"ter often ere the found of any "bell awake men to labor, or to "devotion; in fummer as oft with "the bird that first roufes, or not "much tardier, to read good au"thors &c": And few minds, I believe, but such as are innocent and unftain'd with guilty pleafures have any great tafte for thefe pure and genuin ones which the poet defcribes. Thyer. 44. — the dappled darun] The word is ufed and explain'd in 60 Rob'd Rob'd in flames, and amber light, And the milkmaid fingeth blithe, And the mower whets his fithe, 65 And every fhepherd tells his tale. Strait mine A eye hath caught new pleafures d bl Whilft the landskip round it measures, and mo Ruffet lawns, and fallows gray, Where the nibbling flocks do ftray, would not have been faid but only for the fake of the rime, and we have an instance, I conceive, in the line before us. Mr. Pope, I have been inform'd, had remark'd feveral defects of the fame kind in thefe two poems; and there may be fome truth and juftnefs in the obfervation, which Dryden has made in the dedication of his Juvenal, that "rime was not Mil"ton's talent, he had neither the eafe of doing it, nor the graces "of it," but then it must be faid, that he had talents for greater things, and there is more harmony in his blank verfe than in all the riming poetry in the world. 62. The clouds in thousand liveries dight,] And fo in Il Penferofo W 16 Mountains And storied windows richly dight. Dight, drefs'd, adorn'd; a word used by Spenfer, and our old writers. Faery Queen, B. 1. Cant. 4. St. 6. With rich array and coftly arras dight. Fairfax Cant. 1. St. 72. So every one in arms was quickly dight. 69. Strait mine eye hath caught new pleasures There is in my opinion great beauty in this abrupt and rapturous ftart of the poet's imagination, as it is extremely well adapted to the fubject, and carries a very pretty allufion to those fudden gleams of Mountains on whofe barren breast The lab'ring clouds do often reft, Shallow brooks, and rivers wide. or the little bear next to our pole, as in the Mask 342. I find the fame expreffion in Democritus Jub nior or Burton's treatife of Melancholy, as quoted by Mr. Peck. ""Tis the general humor of all "lovers; the is his ftern, his pole"ftar, his guide, his Cynofure, "his Hesperus and Vefperus, &c. P. 512. 84. Are at their favory dinner fet Of herbs, &c] Mr. Thyer thinks with me that this is an allufion to Virgil Ecl. II: 10. Theftylis et rapido feflis meffori bus æftu Allia ferpyllumque herbas con- And tho' Phillis is the cook here, |