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Compels me to disturb your season due:

For Lycidas is dead, dead ere his prime,
Young Lycidas, and hath not left his peer:
Who would not sing for Lycidas? he knew
Himself to sing, and build the lofty rhime.
He must not float upon his wat❜ry bier
Unwept, and welter to the parching wind,

10. Who would not sing for Lycidas?] Virgil, Ecl. x. 3.

-neget quis carmina Gallo?

He knew, in Milton's Manuscript it is he well knew.

10. He knew Himself to sing, &c.] At Cambridge, Mr. King was distinguished for his piety, and proficiency in polite literature. He has no inelegant copy of Latin iambics prefixed to a Latin Comedy called Senile Odium, acted at Queen's College Cambridge, by the youth of that society, and written by P. Hausted, Cantab. 1633. 12mo. From which I select these lines, as containing a judicious satire on the false taste, and the customary mechanical or unnatural expedients, of the drama that then subsisted.

Non hic cothurni sanguine insonti rubeat,

Nec flagra Megæræ ferrea horrendum

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giacs, in the Genethliacum Acad. Cantabrig. ibid. 1631. 4to. p. 39. Of Latin iambics in Rex Redux, ibid. 1633. 4to. p. 14. See also EYNOAIA, from Cambridge, ibid. 1637. 4to. Signat. C. 3. I will not say how far these performances justify Milton's panegyric on his friend's poetry. T. Warton.

11. --and build the lofty rhime.] A beautiful Latinism. Hor. Epist. i. iii. 24.

-seu condis amabile carmen.

De Arte poet. 436.

-si carmina condes.

11. Euripides says still more boldly, because more specifically, σε Αοιδας ΕΠΥΡΓΩΣΕ." Suppl. ν. 997. Hurd.

The lofty rhyme is "the lofty "verse." See P. L. b. i. 16. T. Warton.

12. He must not float upon his wat'ry bier.] So Johnson, in Cynthia's Revells, acted by the boys of Queen Elizabeth's Chapel, 1600, a. i. s. 2.

-Sing some mourning straine.
Over his watrie hearse.

T. Warton.
13. Unwept, and welter, &c.]
Thus in our author's Epitaphium
Damonis, v. 28.

Indeplorato non comminuere sepul.
chro.
T. Warton.

Without the meed of some melodious tear.

Begin then, sisters of the sacred well,
That from beneath the seat of Jove doth spring,
Begin, and somewhat loudly sweep the string.
Hence with denial vain, and coy excuse,

So may some gentle Muse

With lucky words favour my destin'd urn,
And as he passes turn,

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14. Without the meed] With- Jupiter, as Hesiod says in the out the reward. Spenser, Faery Queen, b. ii. cant. iii. st. 10.

-but honour, virtue's meed,
Doth bear the fairest flow'r in ho-

nourable seed.

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14. melodious tear.] For song, or plaintive elegiac strain, the cause of tears. Euripides in like manner, Suppl. v. 1128. 6. Πα δακρυα φερεις φιλα-ολωλότων. "Where do you bear the tears of "the dead, i. e. the remains or "ashes of the dead, which occa"sion our tears?" Or perhaps the passage is corrupt. See note on the place, edit. Markland. The same use of tears, however, occurs, ibid. v. 454. " Aangvad ετοιμαζουσι." Hurd.

The passage is undoubtedly corrupt; I is superfluous, and mars the context. The late Oxford editor seems to have given the genuine reading, “Nar dangva Pigus Piλa,” [v. 1133.] T.War

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15. Begin then, sisters of the sacred well,

That from beneath the seat of

Jove doth spring,] He means Hippocrené, a fountain consecrated to the Muses on mount Helicon, on the side of which was an altar of Heliconian

invocation for his poem on the generation of the Gods.

Μουσάων Ελικωνιάδων αρχωμεν αείδειν, Αιθ' Ελικωνος εχουσιν όρος μεγα σε ζα θεοντε,

Και σε περι κρηνην ιοιιδια ποσσ' απαλοι

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18. Hence with denial vain, and coy excuse,] The epithet coy is at present restrained to Person. Anciently, it was more generally combined. Thus Drayton,

Shepherd, these things are all too coy for me,

Whose youth is spent in jollity and mirth.

That is, "This knowledge is too "hard for me, &c." Eclogues, vii. Milton has the same use of coy in the Apology for Smectymnuus. "Thus lie at the mercy of a coy flurting style, &c." Pr. W. i. 105. ed. 1738. T. Warton.

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21. And as he passes turn,] He for the muse seems extraordinary. See Mr. Jortin's note on ver. 973,

And bid fair peace be to my sable shroud.
For we were nurst upon the self-same hill,

Fed the same flock by fountain, shade, and rill.
Together both, ere the high lawns appear'd
Under the opening eyelids of the morn,
We drove a field, and both together heard

of Samson Agonistes, where this change of the gender is considered.

21. It is probably a corrupt reading. The muse is feminine further on at ver. 58 and 59. And the mistake may have been caused by the concluding letter of the preceding word as being the same as the first of the word she. E.

22. And bid] So altered in the Manuscript from To bid &c.

23. For we were nurst &c.] This is assigned as a reason for what he had said before,

Hence with denial vain, and coy ex

cuse.

25. Together both, &c.] Here a new paragraph begins in the edition of 1645, and in all that followed. But in the edition of 1638, the whole context is thus pointed and arranged.

For we were nurst upon the selfsame hill,

Fed the same flock, by fountain,
shade, and rill;
Together both, ere the high lawns
appear'd, &c.

T. Warton.

25. Probably the new paragraph should begin at ver. 23. "For we &c." E.

26. the opening eyelids of the morn,] This personizing every thing that is the subject of imagination is a great part of the merit of ancient poetry. The

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present place is from Job, the most poetical of all books. Job curses the day in which he was born. Let the stars of the twilight thereof be dark, let it look for light but have none, neither let it see the dawning of the day. The Hebrew (that Milton always follows) hath neither let it see the eyelids of the morning, iii. 9. Richardson.

The opening eyelids was altered in the Manuscript from the glimmering eyelids.

26. Perhaps from Thomas Middleton's Game at Chesse, an old forgotten play, published about the end of the reign of James the First, 1625.

-Like a pearl,

Dropp'd from the opening eyelids of the morn

Upon the bashful rose.

Shakespeare has "the morning's "eye," Rom. and Jul. act iii. s. 5. Again, act ii. s. 3.

The grey-eyed morn smiles on the
frowning night.
T. Warton.

27. "We continued together "till noon, and from thence, &c." The gray-fly is called by the naturalists, the gray-fly or trumpetfly. Here we have Milton's horn, and sultry horn is the sharp hum of this insect at noon, or the hottest part of the day. But by some this has been thought the chaffer,

What time the gray-fly winds her sultry horn,
Batt'ning our flocks with the fresh dews of night,
Oft till the star that rose, at evening, bright,

which begins its flight in the
evening. T. Warton.

27. We drove afield,] That is, "we drove our flocks afield." I mention this, that Gray's echo of the passage in the Churchyard Elegy, yet with another meaning, may not mislead many careless readers.

How joyous did they drive the team afield.

See the note, P. R. ii. 365. on Milton's delight in painting the beauties of the morning. In the Apology for Smectymnuus he declares,Those morning haunts

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cocting the surfeits of an irre66 gular feast, but up and stirring, 66 in winter often before the "sound of any bell awakens

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men to labour or devotion; in 66 summer, as oft as the bird that "first rouses, or not much tardier, to read good authors, "&c." Prose Works, i. 109. In L'Allegro, one of the first delights of his cheerful man, is to hear the "lark begin her flight." His lovely landscape of Eden always wears its most attractive charms at sun-rising. In the present instance, he more particularly alludes to the stated early hours of a collegiate life, which he shared, on the self-same hill, with his friend Lycidas at Cambridge. T. Warton.

28. What time the gray-fly winds her sultry horn,] By the gray-fly in this place is meant no doubt a brownish kind of beetle powdered with a little white,

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commonly known by the name of the cock-chaffer or dor-fly. These in the hot summer months lie quiet all the day feeding upon the leaves of the oaks and willows, but about sunset fly about with just such a sort of noise as answers the poet's description. The author could not possibly have chosen a circumstance more proper and natural for a shepherd to describe a summer's evening by, nor have expressed it in a more poetical manner.

Thyer.

the same kind in his Macbeth, Shakespeare has an image of but he has expressed it with greater horror suitable to the occasion, act iii. s. 3,

ere to black Hecate's summons The shard-born beetle with his drowsy hums

Hath rung night's yawning peal, &c.

29. Batt'ning our flocks with the fresh dews of night,] To batten is both neutral and active, to grow or to make fat. The neutral is most common. Shakespeare, Haml. act iii. s. 4.

Could you on this fair mountain leave to feed,

And batten on this moor?

And Drayton, Ecl. ix. vol. iv. ut supr. p. 1431.

Their battening flocks on grassie leas to hold.

Milton had this line in his eye. Batfull, that is plentiful, is a frequent epithet in Drayton, especially in his Polyolbion. T. Warton.

30. Oft till the star &c.] These two lines were thus in the Manu

Tow'ard heav'n's descent had slop'd his west'ring wheel. Mean while the rural ditties were not mute,

Temper'd to th' oaten flute,

Rough Satyrs danc'd, and Fauns with cloven heel
From the glad sound would not be absent long,
And old Damætas lov'd to hear our song.

But O the heavy change, now thou art gone,
Now thou art gone, and never must return!
Thee, Shepherd, thee the woods, and desert caves
With wild thyme and the gadding vine o'ergrown,

script before Milton altered
them,

Oft till the ev'n-star bright
Toward heav'n's descent had slop'd
his burnish'd wheel.

31. his west'ring wheel] Drawing toward the west. Chaucer, Troilus and Creseide, b. ii. ver. 905.

-the sonne

Gan westrin fast, and dounward for to wrie.

31.] And Spenser has to west. F. Q. v. Introd. S.

And twice hath risen where he now doth west

And wested twice where he ought rise aright.

T. Warton.

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To th' waters fall their tunes attemper right.

So P. L. vii. 598.

Temper'd soft tunings.

T. Warton.

34. Rough Satyrs danc'd, and Fauns &c.] Virg. Ecl. vi. 27.

Tum vero in numerum Faunosque ferasque videres

Ludere

Mr. Thyer adds another instance. Ye sylvans, Fauns, and Satyrs, that emong

These thickets oft have daunc'd after
his pipe ; &c.

Past. Ecl. on the death of Sir P.
Sidney.

36. And old Damætas lov'd to hear our song.] He means pro33. Temper'd to th' oaten flute,] bably Dr. William Chappel, who

Boethius III. Metr. 12.

Illic blanda sonantibus
Chordis carmina temperans.

Richardson.
So Phineas Fletcher, a popular
author in Milton's days, Purpl.
Isl. c. ix. st. 3.

Tempering their sweetest notes unto thy lay.

And again, Poeticall Miscel. Camb. 1638. p. 55, Spenser also has, of birds.

had been tutor to them both at Cambridge, and was afterwards Bishop of Cork and Ross in Ireland.

39. Thee, Shepherd, thee the woods, &c.] This line was thus given in the edition of 1638.

Thee shepherds, thee the woods, and desert caves. T. Warton. 40. With wild thyme, and the gadding vine o'ergrown,] Tully,

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