As if to show what creatures heav'n doth breed,

Thereby to set the hearts of men on fire
To scorn the sordid world, and unto heav'n aspire?

X.
But oh why didst thou not stay here below
To bless us with thy heav'n-lov'd innocence, 65
To slake his wrath whom sin hath made our foe,
To turn swift-rushing black perdition hence,
Or drive away the slaughtering pestilence,

To stand 'twixt us and our deserved smart?
But thou canst best perform that office where thou art. 70

XI.
Then thou the mother of so sweet a child
Her false imagin'd loss cease to lament,
And wisely learn to curb thy sorrows wild;
Think what a present thou to God hast sent,
And render him with patience what he lent;

75 This if thou do, he will an offspring give, That till the world's last end shall make thy name to live.

68. Or drive away the slaughter. from a boy of seventeen, this ing pestilence,) It should be Ode is an extraordinary effort of noted, that at this time there was fancy, expression, and versificaa great plague in London, which tion. Even in the conceits, which gives a peculiar propriety to this are many, we perceive strong whole stanza.

and peculiar marks of genius, 68. The application to present I think Milton has here given circumstances, the supposition a very remarkable specimen of that the heaven-loved innocence of his ability to succeed in the Spenthis child, by remaining upon serian stanza. He moves with earth, might have averted the great ease and address amidst pestilence now raging in the the embarrassment of a frequent kingdom, is happily and beauti- return of rhyme. T. Warlon. fully conceived. On the whole,

II.

5

Anno ætatis 19. At a Vacation Exercise in the

College, part Latin, part English. The Latin

speeches ended, the English thus began.
HAIL native language, that by sinews weak
Didst move my first endeavouring tongue to speak,
And mad'st imperfect words with childish trips,
Half unpronounc'd, slide through my infant-lips,
Driving dumb silence from the portal door,
Where he had mutely sat two years before:
Here I salute thee, and thy pardon ask,
That now I use thee in my latter task:
Small loss it is that thence can come unto thee,
I know my tongue but little grace can do thee:
Thou need'st not be ambitious to be first,
Believe me I have thither pack'd the worst:
And, if it happen as I did forecast,
The daintiest dishes shall be serv'd up last.
I pray thee then deny me not thy aid
For this same small neglect that I have made:
But haste thee strait to do me once a pleasure,
And from thy wardrobe bring thy chiefest treasure,

10

15

These verses were made in Not those new-fangled toys, and 1627, that being the nineteenth trimming slight year of the author's

age;

and Which takes our lale fantastics they were not in the edition of

with delight.] 1645, but were first added in Perhaps he here alludes to Lilly's the edition of 1673.

Euphues, a book full of affected 13. --forecast,] See Sams. phraseology, which pretended to Agon. v. 254. T. Warton. reform or refine the English lan18. And from thy wardrobe guage; and whose effects, al

bring thy chiefest treasure, though it was published some

Not those new fangled toys, and trimming slight
Which takes our late fantastics with delight,

20
But cull those richest robes, and gay'st attire,
Which deepest spirits, and choicest wits desire:
I have some naked thoughts that rove about,
And loudly knock to have their passage out;
And weary of their place do only stay

25
Till thou hast deck'd them in thy best array;
That so they may without suspect or fears
Fly swiftly to this fair assembly's ears;
Yet I had rather, if I were to choose,
Thy service in some graver subject use,

30 years before, still remained. The 19. Not those new-fangled toys] ladies and the courtiers were all Dressed anew, fantastically de. instructed in this new style ; and corated, newly invented. Shakeit was esteemed a mark of igno- speare, Love's Lab. Lost, a. i. s. 1. rance or unpoliteness not to un- At Christmas I no more desire a rose, derstand Euphuism. He pro- Than wish a snow in May's neue ceeds,

fangled shows. But cull those richest robes, and In Cymbeline, we have simply gay'st attire,

fangled, a. v. s. 4. “ Be not, as Which deepest spirits, and choicest

" our fangled world, &c." “ NewFrom a youth of nineteen, these and Fletcher. In our Church

“ fangled work” occurs in B. are striking expressions of a

Canons, dated 1603. sect. 74. consciousness of superior genius, and of an ambition to rise above vation in dress and doctrine.

new fanglenesse is used for innothe level of the fashionable And so Spenser, F. Q. i. iv. 25. rhymers. He seems to have retained to the last this contempt

Full vaine follies and new.fangleness. for the poetry in vogue. In the See also Prefaces to Comm. Pr. Tractate on Education, p. 110. of Cerem. A. D. 1549. and our ed. 1673, he says, the study of Author's Prelatical Episcopacy, good critics “ would make them Pr. W. i. 37. and in Ulpian

soon perceive what despicable Fullwill's interlude, Like Wit to “ creatures our common rhymers like, Nichol Nervfangle is the vice. " and play-writers be: and shew T. Warton. “ what religious, what glorious 29. Yet I had rather, if I were “ and magnificent use might be to choose, “ made of poetry.” Milton's own Thy service in some graver subwritings are the most illustrious ject use, &c.] proof of this. T. Warton.

It appears by this address of

wits desire.

1

35

Such as may make thee search thy coffers round,
Before thou clothe my fancy in fit sound :
Such where the deep transported mind may soar
Above the wheeling poles, and at heav'n's door
Look in, and see each blissful deity
How he before the thunderous throne doth lie,
List’ning to what unshorn Apollo sings
To th' touch of golden wires, while Hebe brings
Immortal nectar to her kingly sire :
Then passing through the spheres of watchful fire,

40

Milton's to his native language, Pindar, Pyth. iii. 26. axiquixope that even in these green years Por@q. Hor. Od. i. xxi. 2. he had the ambition to think of Intonsum pueri dicite Cynthium. writing an epic poem; and it is 40. Then passing through the worth the curious reader's atten- spheres of watchful

fire, &c.] A tion to observe how much the sublime mode of describing the Paradise Lost corresponds in its study of natural philosophy, circumstances to the prophetic Compare another college exerwish he now formed. Thyer, cise, written perhaps about the Here are strong indications

same time. Nec dubitatis, auof a young mind anticipating ditores, etiam in cælos volare, the subject of the Paradise Lost, ibique ille multiformia nubium if we substitute Christian for

spectra, niviumque coacervatam Pagan ideas. He was now deep vim, contemplemini . . . . Granin the Greek poets. T Warton. dinisque exinde loculos inspicite,

36. -the thunderous throne] et armamenta fulminum perscruShould it not be the thunderer's ? temini. Pr. W. ï. 591. But the Jortin.

thoughts are in Sylvester's Du Thunderous more in Milton's Bartas, p. 133. ed. 1621. He manner, and conveys a new and supposes that the soul, while stronger image. Besides, the imprisoned in the body, often word is used in Par. Lost, X. springs aloft into the airy re702.

45

And misty regions of wide air next under,
And hills of snow and lofts of piled thunder,
May tell at length how green-ey'd Neptune raves,
In heav'n's defiance mustering all his waves ;
Then sing of secret things that came to pass
When beldam Nature in her cradle was;
And last of kings and queens and heroes old,
Such as the wise Demodocus once told
In solemn songs at king Alcinous feast:
· While sad Ulysses soul and all the rest
Are held with his melodious harmony

50

See also Sylvester's Job, ibid. p. The fields he passed then, whence

hail and snow, 944. Milton might here bave

Thunder and rain fall down from had an eye on a similar passage

clouds above. in Sir David Lyndesay's Dreme.

Fairfax. Compare Brewer's Lingua, 1607. Reed's Old Pl. vol. v. 162. Men- 42. green-ey'd Neptune) dacio says, having scaled the hea- Virgil, Georg. iv. of Proteus. vens,

Ardentes oculos intersit lumine glauco- In the province of the meteors I saw the cloudy shapes of hail and

T. Warton. rain, Garners of snow, and crystals full of

48. Such as the wise Demododew, &c.

cus &c.] Alluding to the eighth

T. Warton. book of the Odyssey, where Al40. —watchful fire.] See Ode cinous entertains Ulysses, and on Chr. Nativ. v. 21.

the celebrated musician and poet And all the spangled host keep watch Demodocus sings the loves of in order bright.

Mars and Venus, and the de

Hurd. struction of Troy; and Ulysses We have vigil famma, Ovid, and the rest are affected in the Trist. iii. 4. vigiles flammas, Ari. manner here described. Am. iii. 463. T. Warton.

48. He now little thought that 41. And misty regions of wide Homer's beautiful couplet of the air next under,

fate of Demodocus, could, in a And hills of snow and lofts of

few
years,

with so much propiled thunder,]

priety be applied to himself. So Tasso describes the descent He was but too conscious of his of Michael. Cant. ix. st. 61.

resemblance to some other Greek Vien poi da campi lieti, e fiammeg. the Paradise Lost. See b. iii. 33.