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L'ALLEGRO.

Hence loathed melancholy,

Of Cerberus and blackest midnight born,

1. As the preceding pages of this volume are addressed chiefly to the lovers of Latin and Greek, it may be fit in conclusion to insert something that may interest the reader of English also, on which account I deviate from my first intention, and introduce here two more short pieces which are not 'to be explained but by a reference to the moon; namely, the Allegro and Penseroso of Milton; premising however, as I have throughout had occasion to do, that not half their beauties are to be understood without a knowledge of certain opinions of the ancients in respect to physics, the statement of which opinions is reserved. My plan in explaining these pieces will be somewhat different from that hitherto adopted; for, having in view a desire that the reader should exercise

In Stygian cave forlorn,

'Mongst horrid shapes, and shrieks, and sights unholy;

himself a little in this sort of research, (which he can scarcely fail to find highly amusing,) whenever the text shall happen to refer to a figure not hitherto drawn, I shall content myself with shortly pointing out in the moon the general situation of the prototype, and leave him to trace it out himself, giving a reference only to the numbers of such figures as have been before inserted. From the little which has already been said the reader has probably anticipated, that in the Allegro of Milton, the prototype of Hudibras's Ralph is again brought upon the scene, while in the graver character of II. Penseroso, we have the knight Hudibras himself. The term " Hence," in the sense of the text, might be naturally used by a person who threw behind him, or turned his back upon a thing disliked; and accordingly behind the back of l'Allegro (Ralph,) will be found, as representing melancholy, (properly enough, ex vi termini; μɛλas, black,) the black face of Hudibras's Magnano (fig. 19), with his lank ragged hair (line 9), formed out of the same pale lights as Lear's Edgar, or Hamlet's Rosencrantz (fig. 68),

Find out some uncouth cell,

5

Where brooding darkness spreads his jealous wings,

And the night-raven sings;

[rocks,

There under ebon shades and low-brow'd

As ragged as thy locks,

In dark Cimmerian desert ever dwell! 10 But come thou goddess fair and free, In heaven ycleap'd Euphrosyne,

And by men heart-easing mirth,

which lights also resemble a wing in shape (6). It is observable likewise that Magnano's person is like the head of a raven (fig. 107), and that it is formed out of a great part of the shadows which constitute the mastiff dog (fig. 105), which may justify the allusion to Cerberus (2).

12. By Euphrosyne I understand the same prototype as that of Osric in Hamlet (fig. 77), and of Jocasta in Œdipus Tyrannus (fig. 134), and by her two sister graces (15), the first, Glycerium in Terence's Andria (fig. 122), and the second, Portia in the Merchant of Venice, being the same as Cupid in Hudibras (fig. 22).

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Whom lovely Venus at a birth
With two sister graces more
To ivy-crowned Bacchus bore ;

Or whether (as some sager sing)

The frolic wind that breathes the spring,
Zephyr with Aurora playing,

As he met her once a Maying,

15

20

There on beds of violets blue,

And fresh-blown roses wash'd in dew,

Fill'd her with thee a daughter fair,

So buxom, blith, and debonair.

Haste thee nymph, and bring with thee 25

Jest and youthful jollity,

Quips and cranks, and wanton wiles,

Nods and becks, and wreathed smiles,
Such as hang on Hebe's cheek,

And love to live in dimple sleek ;
Sport that wrinkled care derides
And laughter holding both his sides.

30

16. Bacchus is drawn in fig. 116, ante.

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