That thou hast banish'd from thy tongue with lies.
Was this the cottage, and the safe abode

Thou told'st me of? What grim aspects are these,
These ugly-headed monsters? Mercy guard me! 695
Hence with thy brew'd inchantments, foul deceiver;
Hast thou betray'd my credulous innocence
With vizor'd falsehood, and base forgery?
And wouldst thou seek again to trap me here
With liquorish baits fit to insnare a brute?
Were it a draft for Juno when she banquets,

I would not taste thy treasonous offer; none
But such as are good men can give good things,
And that which is not good, is not delicious
To a well-govern'd and wise appetite.

COMUS.

O foolishness of men! that lend their ears To those budge doctors of the Stoic fur,

694. —What grim aspects are these,] So Drayton, Polyolb. S. xxvii.

Her grim aspect to see.
And Spenser, F. Q. v. ix. 48.
-With griesly grim aspect
Abhorred Murder.

T. Warton.

695. These ugly-headed monsters?] In Milton's Manuscript, and in his editions, it is ougly or oughly, which is only an old way of writing ugly, as appears from several places in Sir Philip Sidney's Arcadia, and from Shakespeare's Sonnets in the edition of the year 1609: and care must be taken that the word be not mistaken, as some have mistaken it, for owly-headed, Comus's train

VOL. IV.

700

705

And fetch their precepts from the Cynic tub,
Praising the lean and sallow Abstinence.
Wherefore did Nature pour her bounties forth,
With such a full and unwithdrawing hand,
Covering the earth with odours, fruits, and flocks,
Thronging the seas with spawn innumerable,
But all to please, and sate the curious taste?
And set to work millions of spinning worms,

710

715

That in their green shops weave the smooth-hair'd silk
To deck her sons, and that no corner might
Be vacant of her plenty, in her own loins

She hutch'd th' all-worshipp'd ore, and precious gems
To store her children with: if all the world
Should in a pet of temp'rance feed on pulse,

720

These verses were thus at first in the Manuscript,

Covering the earth with odours, and with fruits,

Cramming the seas with spawn in. numerable,

The fields with cattle, and the air with fowl, &c.

717. To deck her sons,] So he had written at first, then altered it to adorn, and afterwards to deck again.

719. She hutch'd,] That is, coffered. Warburton.

Hutch is an old word, still in use, for coffer. Abp. Chichele gave a borrowing chest to the University of Oxford, which was called Chichele's hutch. T. Warton.

721. feed on pulse,] So it was at first, then fetches: but I suppose the allitteration of f's offended, and then he restored pulse again.

Drink the clear stream, and nothing wear but frieze,
Th' all-giver would be' unthank'd, would be unprais'd,
Not half his riches known, and yet despis'd,

And we should serve him as a grudging master,
As a penurious niggard of his wealth,

And live like Nature's bastards, not her sons,

725

Who would be quite surcharg'd with her own weight, And strangled with her waste fertility,

Th' earth cumber'd, and the wing'd air dark'd with plumes,

The herds would over-multitude their lords,

730

The sea o'erfraught would swell, and th' unsought diamonds

Would so imblaze the forehead of the deep,
And so bestud with stars, that they below

727. And live like Nature's bastards, not her sons,] In the Manuscript it was at first,

Living as Nature's bastards, not her

sons,

which latter is an expression taken from Heb. xii. 8. then are ye bastards, and not sons.

730. dark'd with plumes,] The image taken from what the ancients said of the air of the northern islands, that it was clogged and darkened with feathers. Warburton.

731. The herds, &c.] Mr. Bowle observes, that the tenour of Comus's argument is like that of Clarinda, in B. and Fletcher's Sea-Voyage, a. ii. s. 1.

Should all women use this obstinate abstinence,

In a few years the whole world would be peopled

Only with beasts.

Would grow inur'd to light, and come at last
To gaze upon the sun with shameless brows.
List Lady, be not coy, and be not cozen'd
With that same vaunted name Virginity.
Beauty is Nature's coin, must not be horded,
But must be current, and the good thereof
Consists in mutual and partaken bliss,
Unsavory in th' enjoyment of itself;

If you let slip time, like a neglected rose
It withers on the stalk with languish'd head.

735

740

Beauty is nature's brag, and must be shown
In courts, in feasts, and high solemnities,
Where most may wonder at the workmanship;
It is for homely features to keep home,
They had their name thence;

745. Beauty is nature's brag, and must be shewn

In courts, in feasts, and high solemnities, &c.]

So Fletcher, Faith. Sheph. a. i. s. 1. vol. iii. p. 124.

Give not yourself to loneness, and those graces

Hide from the eyes of men, that were intended

To live among us swains. But this argument is pursued more at large in Drayton's Epistle above quoted. I will give some of the more palpable resemblances.

Fie, peevish girl, ungratefull unto nature,

Did she to this end frame thee such

a creature,

That thou her glory should increase thereby,

And thou alone should'st scorne society?

Why, heaven made beauty, like her-
self, to view,

Not to be shut up in a smoakie mew.
A rosy-tinctur'd feature is heaven's

gold,

Which all men joy to touch, and to behold, &c.

Here we have at least our author's "What need a vermeil"tinctured lip for that?" And again,

All things that faire, that pure, that glorious beene,

coarse complexions

745

Offer themselves on purpose to be seene, &c.

But a parallelism is as perceptibly marked, in this passage from Daniel's Complaint of Rosamond, st. 74. Works, Lond. 1601. fol. Signat. M. iiij.

What greater torment ever could have beene,

Than to inforce the faire to live re-
tir'd?

For what is beautie, if not to be seene,
Or what is't to be seene, if not ad-

mir'd,