صور الصفحة
PDF
النشر الإلكتروني

Sent by some Spirit to mortals good, Or th' unseen Genius of the wood. But let my due feet never fail

To walk the studious cloister's pale, And love the high embowed roof, With antic pillars massy proof,

[blocks in formation]
[ocr errors][merged small]

Em

printed, highly-vaulted. bowed is arcuatus, arched. It is the same word in Comus, v. 1015.. Where the bow'd welkin slow doth bend.

See Gascoigne's Jocasta, act i. s. 2. fol. 78. a. edit. 1587.

The gilted roofes embow'd wyth curious worke.

That is, "vaulted with curious "work." See more instances in Observ. F. Qu. ii. 134. And Sylvester, edit. 1605. p. 70. 246.

Old Saint Paul's cathedral, from Hollar's valuable plates in Dugdale, appears to have been a most stately and venerable pattern of the Gothic style. Milton was educated at Saint Paul's school, contiguous to the church; and thus became impressed with an early reverence for the solemnities of the ancient ecclesiastical architecture, its vaults, shrines, isles, pillars, and painted glass, rendered yet more awful by the accompaniment of the choral service. Does the present modern church convey these feelings? Certainly not. We justly admire and approve Sir Christopher Wren's Grecian proportions. Truth and propriety gratify the judgment, but they do not affect the imagination. T. Warton.

Ff

And storied windows richly dight,
Casting a dim religious light.
There let the pealing organ blow,
To the full voic'd quire below,

159. And storied windows richly
dight,] Storied, or painted with
stories, that is, histories. That
this is precisely the meaning of
the word storied, we may learn
from Harrison's Description of
England, written about the year
1580, and prefixed to the first
volume of Hollinshead.
"As
"for our churches, all images,
"shrines, tabernacles, roodlofts,
" and monuments of idolatry,
are removed, taken downe,
"and defaced: onelie the stories
"in the glass-windowes

[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]

ex

cepted, which for want of suf"ficient store of new stuffe, and "by reason of extream charge "that should grow by the alter"ation of the same into white "panes throughout the realme,

[ocr errors]

are not altogether abolished in "most places at once, but by "little and little suffered to de"caie, that white glasse may be "provided and set up in their "roomes. B. ii. c. i. p. 138. col. 2. 30. In Comus we find the verb story, v. 516.

What the sage poets, taught by th' heavenly Muse,

Storied of old in high immortal verse. In Chaucer, storial occurs for historical. Leg. Cleopatr. v. 123. p. 343. edit. Ürr.

And this is storial sothe, it is no fable. Nathan. Chytraeus, a German, not an inelegant Latin poet, in his Iler Anglicum, describing the costly furniture of the houses in London, says that the walls of

160

the rooms were hung with storia, or histories, and painted tapestries. Poemata, Rostoch. 1579. p. 171. a. 12mo.

Totius ast urbis quam sit pretiosa
supellex;

Parietibus quam sint storia, pictique
tapetes,
Inducti..

[Unless the true reading be sto-
rea, i. e. mats, or carpets.]

In barbarous Latinity, storia is sometimes used for historia. "Item volo et ordino, quod liber Chronicarum et Storiarum

[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]

meus

Franciæ, scriptarum in Gallico, "&c." Prolog. ad Chron. Franc. tom. iii. Collect. Historic. Franc. p. 152. Again, of a benefactor to a monastery, "Fecit aliam "vestem cum storiis crucifixi "Domini." S. Anastas. in S. Leon. iii. Apud Murator. p. 200. tom. iii. To this extract many others from monastic_records might be easily added, which prove the frequent use of the word storia for scriptural history. T. Warton.

160. Casting a dim religious light.] Mr. Pope has imitated this in his Eloisa to Abelard, ver. 143.

Where awful arches make a noon

day night,

And the dim windows shed a solemn light.

161. There let the pealing organ blow, &c.] This shews that Milton, however mistaken in other respects, did not run into the enthusiastic madness of that fa

In service high, and anthems clear,

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

And bring all heav'n before mine eyes.

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;

natic age against Church music. Thyer.

Of this species of pensive pleasure, he speaks in a very different tone in the Answer to the Eikon Bas. s. xxiv. In his prayer he "[the king] remembered what "voices of joy and gladness there were in his chapel, God's house "in his opinion, between the singing men and the organs: "the vanity, superstition, and "misdevotion of which place,

was a scandal far and near; "wherein so many things were

[ocr errors]

sung and prayed in those songs "which were not understood, "&c." Again, with similar contempt, s. xxv. "His glory in the gaudy copes, and painted win"dows, and chaunted service"book, &c." Pr. W. i. 429. 531. T. Warton.

[ocr errors]

167. And may at last my weary age &c.] There is something extremely pleasing and proper in this last circumstance, not merely as it varies and enlarges the picture but as it adds such a perfection and completeness to it, by

:

165

170

[ocr errors]

conducting the Penseroso happily to the last scene of life, as leaves the reader's mind fully satisfied and if preferring the one would not look like censuring the other, I would say that in this respect this poem claims a superiority over the Allegro, which, although designed with equal judgment, and executed with no less spirit, yet ends as if something more might still have been added. Thyer.

It should be remarked, that Milton wishes to die in the character of the melancholy man. T. Warton.

172. And every herb that sips the dew.] It seems probable that Milton was a student in botany. For he speaks with great pleasure of the hopes he had formed of being assisted in this study by his friend Charles Deodate, who was a physician. Epitaph. Damon. 150.

Tu mihi percurres medicos, tua gra-
mina, succos, &c.
T. Warton.

Till old experience do attain

To something like prophetic strain.

173. Till old experience do attain

To something like prophetic

strain.]

This resembles what Cornelius Nepos says of Cicero, that his prudence seemed to be a kind of divination, for he foretold every thing that happened afterwards like a prophet. et facile existimari possit, prudentiam quodammodo esse divinationem. Non enim Cicero ea solum, quæ vivo se acciderunt, futura prædixit, sed etiam quæ nunc usu veniunt, cecinit, ut vates. Vita Attici, cap. 16. This ending is certainly very fine, but though Mr. Thyer thinks it perfect and complete, yet others have been of opinion that something more might still be added, and I have seen in Mr. Richardson's book some lines of Mr. John Hughes.

There let Time's creeping winter

shed

His reverend snow around my head;
And while I feel by fast degrees
My sluggard blood wax chill and
freeze,

Let thought unveil to my fix'd eye
A scene of deep eternity,
Till life dissolving at the view,
I wake and find the vision true.

179. But this addition was not made by Hughes, as I apprehend, from any peculiar predilection for Milton's poem. Hughes was a frequent and pro fessed writer of cantatas, masks, operas, odes, and songs for music. In particular, before the introduction of Italian operas on

the English stage, he wrote six cantatas, composed by Pepusch, which were designed as an essay or specimen, the first in its kind, for compositions in English after the Italian manner. He was also employed in fitting old pieces for music. In the year 1711, Sir Richard Steele, and Mr. Clayton a composer, established concerts in York-buildings; and there is a letter dated that year, written by Steele to Hughes, in which they desire him to "alter "this poem [Dryden's Alexan"der's Feast] for music, pre" serving as many of Dryden's "verses as you can. It is to be "performed by "performed by a voice well "skilled in recitative: but you "understand all these matters "much better than Yours, &c." [See ibid. p. xv. xvii. and p. 197. and vol. ii. p. 71.] The two projectors, we may probably suppose, were busy in examining for words to be set to music, for collections of published poetry their concerts; and stumbled in their search on one or both of Milton's two poems. These they requested Hughes, an old and skilful practitioner in that sort of business, to alter and adapt for musical composition. What he had done for Dryden, he might be desired to do for Milton. This seems to be the history of Hughes's supplemental lines. Hughes, however, has an expression from Comus, in his Thought on a Garden, written 1704. Poems, vol. i. p. 171. v. 3.

These pleasures Melancholy give, And I with thee will choose to live.

Here Contemplation prunes her wings.

See Com. v. 377, 378. and the note.

T. Warton.

Of these two exquisite little poems, I think it clear that this last is the most taking; which is owing to the subject. The mind delights most in these solemn images, and genius delights most to paint them. Hurd.

It will be no detraction from the powers of Milton's original genius and invention to remark, that he seems to have borrowed the subject of L'Allegro and Il Penseroso, together with some particular thoughts, expressions, and rhymes, more especially the idea of a contrast between these two dispositions, from a forgotten poem prefixed to the first edition of Burton's Anatomie of Melancholy, entitled, "The Author's "Abstract of Melancholy, or a Dialogue between, Pleasure and "Pain.'

Here Pain is Melancholy. It was written, as I conjecture, about the year 1600. I will make no apology for abstracting and citing as much of this poem, as will be sufficient to prove to a discerning reader, how far it had taken possession of

Milton's mind. The measure will appear to be the same; and that our author was at least an attentive reader of Burton's book, may be already concluded from the traces of resemblance which I have incidentally noticed in passing through the L'Allegro

and Il Penseroso.

When I goe musing all alone, Thinking of diverse thinges foreknown;

175

When I build castles in the ayre,
Voide of sorrow, voide of feare:
Pleasing myselfe with phantasmes
sweet,
Methinkes the time runnes very fleet.
All my joyes to this are folly,
Nought so sweet as Melancholy!
When to myself I act and smile,
With pleasing thoughts the time be-
guile,

By a brooke side, or wood so greene,
Unheard, unsought for, and unseene;
A thousand pleasures do me blesse,
&c.

Methinkes I hear, methinkes I see,
Sweet musicke, wondrous melodie;
Townes, palaces, and cities fine,
Rare beauties, gallant ladies shine:
Whatever is lovely or divine:
All other joyes to this are folly,
Nought so sweet as Melancholy!
Methinkes I heare, methinkes I see
Ghostes, goblins, fiendes: my phan-
tasie

Presents a thousand ugly shapes,-
Dolefull outcries, fearefull sightes,
My sad and dismall soule aftrightes:
All my griefes to this are folly,
Noughte so damnde as Melancholy!
&c. &c.

[blocks in formation]
« السابقةمتابعة »