There with thee, new welcome Saint,
Like fortunes may her soul acquaint,
With thee there clad in radiant sheen,
No Marchioness, but now a Queen*.

IX.

Song. On May Morning.

NOW the bright morning star, day's harbinger,
Comes dancing from the east, and leads with her
The flow'ry May, who from her green lap throws
The yellow cowslip, and the pale primrose.

*There is a pleasing vein of lyric sweetness and ease in Milton's use of this metre, which is that of L'Allegro and Il Penseroso. He has used it with equal success in Comus's festive song, and the last speech of the Spirit, in Comus, 93, 922. From these specimens we may justly wish he had used it more frequently. Perhaps in Comus's song it has a peculiar propriety: it has certainly a happy effect. T. Warton.

1. Now the bright morning-star, day's harbinger,] So Shakespeare, Mids. N. Dr. a. iii. s. ult.

in Niccols's Cuckow, 1607. and in G. Fletcher's Christ's Victory, c. i. 82. T. Warton.

3. who from her green lap throws &c.] This image seems to be borrowed from Shakespeare, Richard II. act v. sc. 4.

-who are the violets now

That strow the green lap of the newcome spring?

3. So Niccols, in the description just cited, of May,

Hail bounteous May that dost inspire Mirth and youth and warm desire; Woods and groves are of thy dressing, Hill and dale doth boast thy blessing. Thus we salute thee with our early song, And welcome thee, and wish thee long.

Hast built thyself a live-long monument.

For whilst to th' shame of slow-endeavouring art
Thy easy numbers flow, and that each heart
Hath from the leaves of thy unvalued book
Those Delphic lines with deep impression took;
Then thou our fancy of itself bereaving,
Dost make us marble with too much conceiving;

X.

On Shakespeare. 1630*.

WHAT needs my Shakespeare for his honour'd bones

The labour of an age in piled stones,

Or that his hallow'd reliques should be hid
Under a star-ypointing pyramid?

Dear son of memory, great heir of fame,

What need'st thou such weak witness of thy name?
Thou in our wonder and astonishment

* This copy of verses on Shake speare being made in 1630, our poet was then in the twentysecond year of his age: and it was printed with the poems of that author at London in 1640.

5. Dear son of memory,] He honours his favourite Shakespeare with the same relation as the Muses themselves. For the Muses are called by the old poets

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5

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And so sepulchred in such pomp dost lie,
That kings for such a tomb would wish to die*.

XI.

On the University Carrier, who sickened in the time of his vacancy, being forbid to go to London, by reason of the plague†.

HERE lies old Hobson; Death hath broke his girt, And here, alas, hath laid him in the dirt,

15. And so sepulchred] We have the word with the same accent in Fairfax, cant. i. st. 25.

As if his work should his sepulchre be. Milton has pronounced it otherwise, as in Samson, ver. 103.

Myself, my sépulchre, a moving grave. *This is but an ordinary poem to come from Milton on such a subject. But he did not know his own strength, or was content to dissemble it, out of deference to the false taste of his time. The conceit of Shakespeare's lying sepulchred in a tomb of his own making is in Waller's manner, not his own. But he made Shakespeare amends in his L'Allegro, v. 133. Hurd.

This poem first appeared among other recommendatory verses, prefixed to the folio edition of Shakespeare's plays in 1632, but without Milton's name or initials. This therefore is the first of Milton's pieces that was published. It was with great difficulty and reluctance, that Milton first appeared as an author. He could not be prevailed upon to put his name to Comus, his first perform

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ance of any length that was printed; notwithstanding the singular approbation with which it had been previously received in a long and extensive course of private circulation. Lycidas in the Cambridge collection is only subscribed with his initial. Most of the other contributors have left their names at full length.

The title of this piece in the second folio of Shakespeare was, An Epitaph on the admirable dramaticke Poet W. Shakespeare. T. Warton.

+ We have the following account of this extraordinary man in the Spectator, No. 509. “Mr. "Tobias Hobson was a carrier, " and the first man in this island "who let out hackney horses. "He lived in Cambridge, and "observing that the scholars rid 'hard, his manner was to keep

68

a large stable of horses, with "boots, bridles, and whips, to "furnish the gentlemen at once, "without going from college to

college to borrow, as they "have done since the death of "this worthy man: I say Mr. "Hobson kept a stable of forty

Or else the ways being foul, twenty to one,
He's here stuck in a slough, and overthrown.
'Twas such a shifter, that if truth were known,
Death was half glad when he had got him down;
For he had any time this ten years full,

Dodg'd with him, betwixt Cambridge and the Bull.
And surely Death could never have prevail'd,
Had not his weekly course of carriage fail'd;
But lately finding him so long at home,
And thinking now his journey's end was come,
And that he had ta'en up his latest inn,
In the kind office of a chamberlin

"good cattle, always ready and "fit for travelling; but when a "man came for a horse, he was "led into the stable, where there "was great choice, but he "obliged him to take the horse "which stood next to the stable"door; so that every customer was alike well served accord"ing to his chance, and every "horse ridden with the same "justice: from whence it be

66

came a proverb, when what 66 ought to be your election was "forced upon you, to say Hob"son's choice. This memorable 66 man stands drawn in fresco at "an inn (which he used) in Bishopsgate-street, with an "hundred pound bag under his "arm, with this inscription "upon the said bag,

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5

Mr. Ray, in his Collection of English Proverbs, says that he raised himself to a great estate, and did much good in the town,

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relieving the poor, and building
a public conduit in the market-
place. The inscription on the
conduit is as follows.
"Thomas
"Hobson, late carrier between
"London and this town, in his
"life-time was at the sole charge
"of erecting this structure, A. D.
"1614. He departed this life

"c

'January 1, 1630, and gave by "will the rent of seven lays "of pasture-ground lying in St. "Thomas's Lays towards the "maintenance of this conduit "for ever. Moreover at his death "he gave £10. towards the fur"ther beautifying the same." I cannot say much in commendation of these verses upon his death: they abound with that sort of wit, which was then in request at Cambridge.

"The fruitful_mother of an hun chamberlin, &c.] I believe the 14. In the kind office of a

dred more."

chamberlain is an officer not yet discontinued in some of the old inns in the city. But Chytræus, a German, who visited England about 1580, and put his travels

Show'd him his room where he must lodge that night, 15
Pull'd off his boots and took away the light:
If any ask for him, it shall be said,
Hobson has supp'd, and's newly gone to bed.

XII.

Another on the same.

HERE lieth one, who did most truly prove
That he could never die while he could move;
So hung his destiny, never to rot

While he might still jog on and keep his trot,
Made of sphere-metal, never to decay
Until his revolution was at stay.

Time numbers motion, yet (without a crime
'Gainst old truth) motion number'd out his time:
And like an engine mov'd with wheel and weight,
His principles being ceas'd, he ended strait.
Rest that gives all men life, gave him his death,
And too much breathing put him out of breath;
Nor were it contradiction to affirm

Too long vacation hasten'd on his term.
Merely to drive the time away he sicken'd,
Fainted, and died, nor would with ale be quicken'd;

into Latin verse, mentions it as an extraordinary circumstance, that it was the custom of our inns to be waited upon by women, In Peele's Old Wives' Tale, Fantastique says, "I had " even as live the chamberlaine "of the White Horse had called "me up to bed," a. i. s. 1. Peck,

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at the end of his Memoirs of Cromwell, has printed Hobson's will, which is dated at the close of the year 1630. He died Jan. 1, 1630, while the plague was in London. This piece was written that year. Milton was now a Student at Cambridge. T. Warton.