And let some strange mysterious dream

Wave at his wings in aëry stream

Of lively portraiture display'd,

But let

my

due feet never fail

To walk the studious cloysters pale,
And love the high embowed roof,

With antic pillars massy proof,

155

seem to be referable to the middlemost of the three outlines of Hudibras's prototype, which has a sleepy cast of countenance.

148. Wave at. Ought this not to be written waviate, by analogy to the words expatiate, invalidate, ingratiate, &c., as formed from space, invalid, and grace?

151. The music may allude to that which is brought into action in Edipus Tyrannus by the chorus there (fig. 127,) or perhaps to that the spheres noticed in the conclusion of l'Allegro.

And storied windows richly dight,
Casting a dim religious light.
There let the pealing organ blow,

To the full voic'd quire below,

In service high, and anthems clear,

160

As may with sweetness, through mine ear, Dissolve me into extasies,

And bring all Heav'n before mine eyes,

165

158. The window I take to be the opening of light between the two prototypes of l'Allegro and il Penseroso; and the organ of 161 I should refer to the same opening, marked as it is by the several streaks of pale shadow which may be fancied to be the organ-pipes, while its bellows may be found in the streaks of light (of that shape) so often noticed as marking the person of Talgol (fig. 17.) The prototypes of Voltimand and Cornelius in Hamlet (fig. 56 and 34,) and of other characters, either drawn or pointed out in former notes as lying in their region of the moon, may constitute the quire of line 162.

166. This line scarcely needs a comment, any

And may at last my weary age
Find out the peaceful hermitage,
The hairy gown and mossy cell,
Where I may sit and rightly spell
Of every star that Heav'n doth shew,

And every herb that sips the dew;
Till old experience do attain

To something like prophetic strain,
These pleasures Melancholy give
And I with thee will choose to live.

170

175

more than the 171st, both being particularly applicable to the moon. Nor can the reader be at any loss to trace out the hairy gown and mossy cell of 169, in reference to the prototype of Il Penseroso.

173. This and the next line relate to the common practice of foretelling the weather from the age, the changes, or appearances of the moon.

If I should seem to have gone into great length on the subject of the moon, (though the volumes on the same subject might be very greatly multiplied,) no other justification of it can be thought

necessary, than a restatement of the opinion of the Ancients as already expressed (in a note towards the close of the third volume) in the words of Pliny, the Naturalist, concerning the moon: viz. haud scio an omnium quæ in cœlo pernosci potuerunt magistra; but as in the next volume I am about to quit for a while the consideration of the moon, the reader may expect that, after four on the

Fig. 144.

L

same subject, it should at length appear what connection there is between the moon and the title of the book as regarding hieroglyphics. To satisfy, though but in a small degree at present, what must be admitted to be so reasonable an expectation, I would first beg leave to direct his attention to the Bird drawn in fig. 13, and to the Sphynx in fig. 126; both of which (being of such shapes as drawn) are well known to be very common hieroglyphic symbols: in addition to these I think it cannot be denied that figures 144 and 145

Fig: 145.