Pegasus, the horse of the Muses, at the stroke of whose hoof sprang up the sacred Hippocrene. -Who, in 1646-7, were the harpies and unclean birds of England, in Milton's estimation, one can easily guess (see Sonnets XI. and XII., and On the New Forcers of Conscience, and Introductions and Notes to those pieces). Some of them had fastened especially on Oxford. But Milton must have had in view also the Royalists and Prelatists. 73-87. "Vos tandem . . . Roüsio favente." Warton and Mr. Keightley think that this Epode has in view chiefly the future fate of those of Milton's prose - writings that had been sent to Rous (see Introd.); but, though these are included, I do not see that he distinguishes between them and the poems he was now replacing in their companionship. IN SALMASII HUNDREDAM IN SALMASIUM. : On these two scraps see Introd.-Salmasius ranked as an Eques or Knight on the continent, having, as Todd notes, been presented with the Order of St. Michael by Louis XIII. of France.-Of " Mungentium cubito virorum Warton notes that this was a cant name among the Romans for fishmongers. SUPPLEMENTARY NOTE. Two RECOVERED SCRAPS OF LATIN VERSE ON Some years ago, Mr. Alfred J. Horwood, when examining the family papers of Sir Frederick U. Graham, of Netherby, Cumberland, Bart., for the purposes of the Historical Manuscripts Commission, came upon an old Latin Common-Place Book of Milton's, a good deal of it in his own handwriting, containing jottings of books he had read, and notes and suggestions from them at various times of his life. Together with this Common-Place Book there was found a single loose leaf of foolscap paper, "much damaged by damp," on which was a short Latin prose-essay, headed "MANE CITUS LECTUM FUGE," with some appended Latin verses on the same subject. As the leaf bore the name Milton still distinctly legible on its left margin, and as the handwriting bore in parts a strong resemblance to some of Milton's, Mr. Horwood concluded that the essay was a juvenile Academic Prolusion of Milton's on the subject of Early Rising, which he had not thought it worth while to print with the collection of his other Prolusiones Oratoria in 1674. Accordingly, when editing the Common - Place Book for the Camden Society in 1877, he appended the little essay and the verses, entitling the volume "A Common-Place Book of John Milton, and a Latin Essay and Latin Verses presumed to be by Milton." With the essay, as it is in prose, we have nothing to do here; but the verses, if only on the chance that they are an additional and accidentally recovered scrap of Milton's juvenile metrical composition in Latin, deserve reproduction. There are, in reality, two distinct pieces of verse, in different metres, though both on the subject of Early Rising, and both evidently intended as poetical appendages to the Prose Prolusion written on the same leaf: CARMINA ELEGIACA. Surge, age, surge! Leves, jam convenit, excute somnos ! Lux oritur; tepidi fulcra relinque tori. Jam canit excubitor gallus, prænuncius ales Et spargit nitidum læta per arva jubar. Cum premat imbellis lumina fessa sopor. Qui pote torpentem posse valere virum? Surge, age, surge! Leves, jam convenit, excute somnos ! [ASCLEPIADIC VERSES.] Ignavus satrapam dedecet inclytum Hinc cædes oritur clamor et absonus. The text in both pieces is given as it stands in Mr. Horwood's transcript, save that the punctuation is corrected. There seem to be errors in some of the lines of the first piece. Neglecting these, we may say (1) that the internal evidence on the whole confirms the strong external evidence that the pieces are Milton's, and (2) that the style proves that in that case they must have been very early compositions of his. In all probability, they, and the Latin Prolusion to which they were attached, were done as a Latin theme when he was at St. Paul's School. If they were done later, they must have been among his very first exercises in Latin at Christ's College, Cambridge. |