Weep no more, woful Shepherds, weep no more, For Lycidas your forrow is not dead, Sunk though he be beneath the watry floor; So finks the day-ftar in the ocean bed, And yet anon repairs his drooping head, 166 And tricks his beams, and with new-fpangled ore "CORINEIDA LOXO." MANS. V. 46. Where fee the Note. And he is mentioned in Spenfer's M. M. of THESTYLIS. Vp from his tombe The mightie Corineus rofe, &c. See Geoffr. Monm. L. xii. c. i. Milton, who delighted to trace the old fabulous ftory of Brutus, relates, that to Corineus Cornwall fell by lot," the rather by him liked, for that the hugeft giants in rocks and caves were faid to lurk there ftill; which "kind of monfters to deal with was his old exercife." HIST. ENG. ubi fupr. i. 6. On the fouth-western shores of Cornwall, I faw a moft ftupendous pile of rock-work, stretching with immense ragged cliffs and shapeless precipices far into the fea: one of the topmoft of thefe cliffs, hanging over the reft, the people informed me was called the GIANTS CHAIR. Near it is a cavern called in Cornish the CAVE WITH THE VOICE. 165. Weep no more, &c.] The fame change of circumstances, and style of imagery, occur in Spenfer's NOVEMBER, which is a paftoral elegy. Cease now, my Mufe, now cease thy forrowes fourse! She raignes a goddeffe now amid the faints, That whilom was the faint of fhepheards light; And is enstalled now in heauens hight. No danger there the fhepheard can aftert, There drinkes fhe nectar with ambrofia mixt, &c. See the EPITAPHIUM DAMONIS, V. 201-218. And, Ode on the DEATH of a FAIR INFANT, ft. X. 166. Is not dead, &c.] So in Spenfer's ASTROPHEL, ft. 48. Ah no! it is not dead, ne can it die, But lives for aye in blissful Paradise, &c. See fupr. at v. 50. 169. -Repairs his drooping head.] I have heard it observed, that the use of repairs in the following paffage of Gray's BARD is hard and uncommon. Hath Flames in the forehead of the morning sky: 171 So Lycidas funk low, but mounted high, 175 Thro' the dear might of him that walk'd the waves; Hath quench'd the orb of day? To morrow he REPAIRS the GOLDEN flood. 172. Through the dear might of him that walk'd the waves.] Of him, over whom the waves of the fea had no power. It is a defignation of our Saviour, by a miracle which bears an immediate reference to the fubject of the poem. 176. The unexpreffive nuptial fong.] So in the Latin poem AD PATREM, V. 37. Immortale melos, et INENARRABILE Carmen. 177. Even here, after Lycidas is received into heaven, Milton does not make him an angel. He makes him, indeed, a being of a higher order, the Genius of the shore, as at v. 183. If the poet in finally difclofing this great change of circumftances, and in thisprolix and folemn defcription of his friend's new fituation in the realms of blifs after fo difaftrous a death, had exalted him into an angel, he would not have foreftalled that idea, according to Thyer's interpretation, at v. 163. 179. In folemn troops, and fweet focieties.] Compare PARAD. LOST, B. xi. 80. From their blissful bowres Of amaranthine shade, fountain, or spring, In FELLOWSHIPS of JOY, the fons of light See alfo B. vii. 198. x. 86. 460. i. 128. 315. 360. ii. 11. 310. v. 591. 601. 772. 840. Milton's angelic fyftem, containing many whimsical notions of the affociations and fubordinations of these fons of light, is to be seen at large in Thomas Aquinas and Peter Lombard. But it was not yet worn out in the common theology of his own times. That fing, and finging in their glory move, 180 185 Thus fang the uncouth fwain to th' oaks and rills, While the still morn went out with fandals gray; He touch'd the tender stops of various quills, This doctrine, which makes such a figure in PARADISE LOST, he very gravely delivers in his CH. GOVERNM. B. i. ch. i. "The "Angels themselves are diftinguished and quaternioned into their "celeftial princedoms and fatrapies." PROSE WORKS, i. 41. The same system, which afforded fo commodious a machinery for modern christian poetry, is frequent in the Italian poets. "The 187. The fill morn went out with fandals gray, &c.] GRAY dawn," PARAD. L. vii. 373.-STILL, because all is filent at day-break. But though he began to fing at day-break, he was fo eager, fo intent on his fong, that he continued it till the evening. 188. He touch'd the tender ftops of various quills.] Some readers are here puzzled with the idea of fuch STOPS as belong to the Organ. By STOPS he here literally means what we now call the HOLES of a flute or any fpecies of pipe. Thus in Browne, BRITAN. PAST. B. ii. S. iii. p. 85. ut fupr. What muficke is there in a fhepherd's quill, And in HAMLET, where the Players Enter with Recorders." Haml. "Govern these ventages with your finger and thumb: --- Look "you, these are the STOPS. Guild. You would play upon me: you "would seem to know my STOPS, &c." A. iii. S. ii. And in the INDUCTION to the SECOND P. HENR. iv. Rumour is a pipe Blown by furmifes, jealoufies, conjectures ; That is, "so easily to be plaid upon." And Drayton, Mus. ELYS. Euterpe, next to thee will we proceed, That firft found'st out the muficke on the reed; With breath and fingers giving life To the fhrill cornet and the fife; VOL. I. E Teaching With eager thought warbling his Doric lay: At last he rose, and twitch'd his mantle blue: Teaching every STOP and kay To thofe that on the pipe do play. And our author in COM US, v. 345. Or found of pastoral reed with oaten STOPS. 191 He mentions the ftops of an organ, but in another manner, in PARAD. L. xi. 561. See alfo vii. 596. In Drummond, STOP is applied to a Lute, but I think metathetically for note. SONNETS, Edingb. 1616. 4to. Signat. H. 2. Thy pleafing notes be pleafing notes no more, But orphane wailings to the fainting eare; Each STOPPE a figh, each found draws forth a teare. Unless he means a CLOSE, or interval. 189. With eager thought warbling his Doric lay.] See Note on v. 2. This is a DORIC Lay, because Theocritus and Mofchus had respectively written a bucolic on the Deaths of Daphnis and Bion. And the name LYCIDAS, now firft imported into English pastoral, was adopted, not from Virgil, but from Theocritus, IDYLL. Vii. 27. - ΛΥΚΙΔΑ φίλε, φαντὶ τὸ πάντες Εμμεν ΣΥΡΙΚΤΑΝ μεγ ̓ ὑπείροχον, ἔντε νομεῦσι, Care Lycida, omnes te dicunt Effe eximium fiftulatorem, inter et paftores, His character is afterwards fully juftified in the Song of Lycidas. And he is styled "dear to the Mufes," v. 95. And our author's fhepherd Lycidas could "build the lofty rhyme." A Lycidas is again mentioned by Theocritus, IDYLL. Xxvii. 41. And a Lycidas fupports a Sicilian dialogue in one of Bion's Bucolics, vii. See EPITAPH. DAMON. V. 132. 193. To morrow to fresh woods, and pastures new.] So Ph. Fletcher, PURPLE ISL. C. vi. ft. 77. p. 84. edit. 1633. 4to. To morrow shall ye feaft in PASTURES NEW, And with the rifing funne banquet on pearled dew. * I fee no extraordinary wildness and irregularity, according to doctor Newton, in the conduct of this little poem. 'Tis true, there is a very original air in it, although it be full of claffical imitations : but this, I think is owing, not to any diforder in the plan, nor entirely to the vigour and luftre of the expreffion, but, in a good degree, to the looseness and variety of the metre. Milton's ear was a good fecond to his imagination. H. Addison fays, that He who defires to know whether he has a trye taste for History or not, should confider, whether he is pleased with Livy's manner of telling a ftory; fo, perhaps it may be faid, that He who wishes to know whether he has a true taste for Poetry or not, fhould confider whether he is highly delighted or not with the perufal of Milton's LYCIDAS. If I might venture to place Milton's Works, according to their degrees of Poetic Excellence, it fhould be perhaps in the following order; PARADISE LOST, COMUS, SAMSON AGONISTES, LYCIDAS, L'ALLEGRO, IL PENSEROSO. The three laft are in fuch an exquifite ftrain, fays Fenton, that though he had left no other monuments of his genius behind him, his name had been immortal. Dr. J. WARTON. Doctor Johnfon obferves, that LYCIDAS is filled with the heathen deities; and a long train of mythological imagery, fuch as a College eafily fupplies. But it is fuch also, as even the Court itself could now have eafily fupplied. The public diverfions, and books of all forts and from all forts of writers, more especially compofitions in poetry, were at this time overrun with claffical pedantries. But what writer, of the fame period, has made these obsolete fictions the vehicle of fo much fancy and poetical description? How beautifully has he applied this fort of allufion, to the Druidical rocks of Denbighshire, to Mona, and the fabulous banks of Deva! It is objected, that its paftoral form is disgufting. But this was the age of pastoral: and yet LYCIDAS has but little of the bucolic cant, now so fashionable. The Satyrs and Fauns are but just mentioned. If any trite rural topics occur, how are they heightened ! Together both, ere the high lawns appear'd Here the day-break is defcribed by the faint appearance of the upland lawns under the first gleams of light: the fun-fet by the buzzing of the chaffer: and the night sheds her fresh dews on their flocks. We cannot blame pastoral imagery, and pastoral allegory, which carry with them fo much natural painting. In this piece there is perhaps more poetry than forrow. But let us read it for its poetry. It is true, that paffion plucks no berries from the myrtle and ivy, nor calls upon Arethuse and Mincius, nor tells of rough Satyrs with cloven heel. But poetry does this; and in the hands of E 2 Milton, |