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without the author's name, in 1637, with a dedication to the Lord Brackly by Mr. H. Lawes, who composed the music, and played the part of the attendant Spirit. It was printed likewise at Oxford at the end of Mr. R.'s poems, as we learn from a letter of Sir Henry Wotton to our author; but who that Mr. R. was, whether Randolph the poet or who else, is uncertain, It has lately, though with additions and alterations, been exhibited on the stage several times; and we hope the fine poetry and morality have recommended it to the audience, and not barely the authority of Milton's name; and we wish for the honour of the nation, that the like good taste prevailed in every thing.

In 1637 he wrote another excellent piece, his Lycidas, wherein he laments the untimely fate of a friend, who was unfortunately drowned that same year in the month of August on the Irish seas, in his passage from Chester. This friend was Mr. Edward King, son of Sir John King, Secretary of Ireland under Queen Elizabeth, King James I. and King Charles I. and was a Fellow of Christ's College, and was so well beloved and esteemed at Cambridge, that some of the greatest names in the University have united in celebrating his obsequies, and published a collection of

Mr. Warton determines that Mr. R. was Thomas Randolph, M. A. Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, who died March 17, 1634. His poems were printed at Oxford in 1638. But neither to this edition, nor to a second printed in 1640, was Comus attached. Warton imagines that Rouse had stitched Lawes's edi

tion of Comus to the copy of Randolph's poems which he sent to Sir Henry Wotton. Oldys, however, in a MS. note on Langbaine's sketch of Milton's Life, preserved among the late Mr. Malone's books in the Bodleian Library, mentions that Comus was often bound up with the first edition of Randolph's poems. E.

poems, Greek and Latin and English, sacred to his memory. The Greek by H. More, &c; the Latin by T. Farnaby, J. Pearson, &c; the English by H. King, J. Beaumont, J. Cleaveland, with several others; and judiciously the last of all, as the best of all, is Milton's Lycidas. On such sacrifices the Gods themselves "strow incense;" and one would almost wish so to have died, for the sake of having been so lamented. But this poem is not all made up of sorrow and tenderness; there is a mixture of satire and indignation; for in part of it the poet taketh occasion to inveigh against the corruptions of the clergy, and seemeth to have first discovered his acrimony against Archbishop Laud, and to have threatened him with the loss of his head, which afterwards happened to him through the fury of his enemies. At least I can think of no sense so proper to be given to the following verses in Lycidas,

Besides what the grim wolf with privy paw
Daily devours apace, and nothing said;
But that two-handed engine at the door

Stands ready to smite once, and smite no more.

About this time, as we learn from one of his familiar epistles, he had some thoughts of taking chambers at one of the Inns of Court, for he was not very well pleased with living so obscurely in the country?: but

1 The letter is dated from London, and only expresses that his quarters there appeared to him aukward, and inconvenient. Dicam jam nunc serio quid cogitem, in hospitium juridicorum aliquod immigrare, sicubi amoena et umbrosa ambulatio est, quod

et inter aliquot sodales, commodior illic habitatio, 'si domi manere, et όρμητηριον ευπρεπεστερον quocunque libitum erit excurrere: ubi nunc sum, ut nosti, obscure et anguste sum. Hayley.

The passage immediately preceding this has been represented

his mother dying, he prevailed with his father to let him indulge a desire, which he had long entertained, of seeing foreign countries, and particularly Italy: and having communicated his design to Sir Henry Wotton, who had formerly been ambassador at Venice, and was then Provost of Eton College, and having also sent him his Mask, of which he had not yet publicly acknowledged himself the author, he received from him the following friendly letter, dated from the College the 10th of April 1638'.

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"SIR,

"It was a special favour, when you lately bestowed upon me here the first taste of your acquaintance, though no longer than to make me know, that I "wanted more time to value it, and to enjoy it rightly. "And in truth, if I could then have imagined your "farther stay in these parts, which I understood after"wards by Mr. H.3, I would have been bold, in our

as intimating that the object of Milton's thoughts was already an immortality of fame. It expresses this, no doubt, but in a jesting manner. Multa solicitè quæris, etiam quid cogitem. Audi, Theodote, verum in aurem ut ne rubeam, et sinito paulisper apud te grandia loquar; quid cogitem quæris? ita me bonus Deus, immortalitatem. Quid agam vero? TigoQua, et volare meditor: sed tenellis admodum adhuc pennis evehit se noster Pegasus, humilè sapiamus. Dicam jam nunc serio quid cogitem, &c. He afterwards speaks of his studies. Græcorum res continuata lectione deduximus us

quequo illi Græci esse sunt desiti: Italorum in obscura re diu versati sumus sub Longobardis, et Francis, et Germanis, ad illud tempus quo illis ab Rodolpho Germaniæ Rege concessa libertas est; exinde quid quæque civitas suo marte gesserit, separatim legere præstabit. Pr. W.ii. 570. ed. 1753. E.

Abeuntem vir clarissimus, Henricus Woottonus, qui ad Venetos orator Jacobi regis diu fuerat, et votis et præceptis eunti peregre utilissimis, eleganti epistola perscriptis, amicissime prosequutus est. Def. Sec. p. 383. vol. ii. ed. 1753.

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"vulgar phrase, to mend my draught, for you left me "with an extreme thirst, and to have begged your "conversation again jointly with your said learned "friend, at a poor meal or two, that we might have "banded together some good authors of the ancient "time, among which I observed you to have been fa"miliar.

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"Since your going, you have charged me with new obligations, both for a very kind letter from you, "dated the sixth of this month, and for a dainty piece "of entertainment, that came therewith; wherein I "should much commend the tragical part, if the lyrical "did not ravish with a certain Doric delicacy in your

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songs and odes, wherein I must plainly confess to "have seen yet nothing parallel in our language, Ipsa "mollities. But I must not omit to tell you, that I "now only owe you thanks for intimating unto me, "how modestly soever, the true artificer. For the "work itself I had viewed some good while before "with singular delight, having received it from our "common friend Mr. R." in the very close of the late

Samuel Hartlib, whom I have seen mentioned in some of the pamphlets of this period as well acquainted with Sir H. Wotton. T. Warton.

'Sir H. Wotton was himself a writer of English odes, and with some degree of elegance. He had also written a tragedy called Tancredo. See his Life by Walton. Cowley wrote an elegy on his death. Donne has testified his friendship for Wotton in three copies of verses; and he is celebrated, both as a

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scholar and a patron, by Bastard the Epigrammatist. T. Warton. "Mr. R." was probably Rouse, the Bodley Librarian, see note (†) on the ode Ad J. Rousium. "The late R." may be T. Randolph, see note p, p. viii. supra. "M. B." Dr. Symmons suspects should be " W. B." for William Bedell, who was chaplain to Sir H. Wotton during his embassy to Venice, and afterwards became Provost of Trinity College, Dublin, and Bishop of Kilmore. E.

"R.'s poems printed at Oxford; whereunto it is added, " as I now suppose, that the accessory might help out "the principal, according to the art of stationers, and "leave the reader con la bocca dolce.

"Now, Sir, concerning your travels, wherein I may "challenge a little more privilege of discourse with 66 you; I suppose, you will not blanch Paris in your Therefore I have been bold to trouble you "with a few lines to Mr. M. B. whom you shall easily "find attending the young Lord S. as his governor; and

66 way.

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you may surely receive from him good directions for "shaping of your farther journey into Italy, where he "did reside by my choice some time for the king, after "mine own recess from Venice.

"I should think, that your best line will be through "the whole length of France to Marseilles, and thence by sea to Genoa, whence the passage into Tuscany "is as diurnal as a Gravesend barge. I hasten, as ་ you do, to Florence or Sienna, the rather to tell you a short story, from the interest you have given me in

46 your safety.

"At Sienna I was tabled in the house of one Al"berto Scipione, an old Roman courtier in dangerous "times, having been steward to the Duca di Pagliano, "who with all his family were strangled, save this only "man, that escaped by foresight of the tempest. With "him I had often much chat of those affairs; into "which he took pleasure to look back from his native "harbour; and at my departure toward Rome, which "had been the centre of his experience, I had won "confidence enough to beg his advice, how I might

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carry myself securely there, without offence of others,

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