who, like Jonson, abounded in the learning of his age, was neglected by his contemporaries, and yet has since been placed at the head of English classic literature by Dryden :

"Three poets, in three distant ages born,
Greece, Italy and England did adorn,
Homer in loftiness of thought surpass'd,
Virgil in majesty, in both the last.”

"And ever against eating cares,
Lap me in soft Lydian airs,
Married to immortal verse,

Such as the meeting soul may pierce,
In notes with many a winding bout,
Of linked sweetness long drawn out,
With wanton heed and giddy cunning,
The melting voice through mazes running,
Untwisting all the chains that tie

The hidden soul of harmony;

That Orpheus 'self may heave his head

From golden slumbers on a bed

Of heap'd Elysian flowers, and hear

Such strains as would have won the ear
Of Pluto, to have quite set free
His half-regain'd Euridice.

"And, to prevent the effects of care, let me hear divine poetry, set to soft music, such as may sink into the soul in lengthened notes, connected by a secret correspondence of sound, and, conducted by concealed skill, seem to wander in

inextricable mazes, letting loose as it were the very soul of harmony; such music as might waken Orpheus from his slumbers on a bed of flowers in Elysium, and might delight him with such strains as would have charmed Pluto, to have given back to him entirely his Euridice, who had been but half restored to him."

Lydian airs.-The Lydians were a nation much addicted to pleasure, and particularly to the pleasure of music. It is said that a certain king of Lydia, during a famine, instituted public games to divert the calls of appetite.

Milton, to fill up the measure of innocent amusement and cheerfulness, celebrates the charms of music joined to poetry :

"Many a winding bout,

Of linked sweetness long drawn out."

In these lines he alludes to the harmonic dependance of musical notes, which he compares to the links of a long and intricate chain, which, by the art of the composer, seems to be disentangled, to the ear of the skilful audience. Heed. Attention, care.

Cunning-was formerly used for skill. Cunning workmen, in the Old Testament, means skilful workmen.

Milton here means to describe music that ap

pears wild and artless, whilst, in reality, it is constructed with deep attention to the laws of harmony.

Golden slumbers.-Golden is a strong metaphor; but it is frequently applied to things seemingly discordant, as golden rule, golden verses of Pythagoras, golden dreams, or to any thing valuable.

The story of Orpheus and Euridice is too well known to require an explanation. The poet means to give the preference to modern music when he says,

"Such strains as would have won the ear

Of Pluto, to have quite set free

His balf-regain'd Euridice."

"These delights if thou canst give,

Mirth, with thee I mean to live."

"If, O goddess of mirth! thou canst give such delights as these, I mean to be thy votary, and to live with thee."

The poet thus concludes, promising only a conditional worship to the goddess of cheerful

ness.

In the next poem he decides that divine Melancholy really confers the pleasures which she promises, and to her he devotes himself.

IL PENSEROSO-(THE MELANCHOLY.)

THE following account of the origin and design of this poem is taken from Newton's Notes on Milton :

"Il Penseroso is the thoughtful, melancholy man; and Mr. Thyer concurred with me in observing, that this poem, both in its model and principal circumstances, is taken from a song in praise of melancholy, in Fletcher's comedy, called "The Nice Valour, or

Passionate Man." The reader will not be displeased to see it here, as it is well worth transcribing :

"Hence, all you vain delights,
As short as are the nights,

Wherein you spend your folly;
There's nought in this life sweet,
If man were wise to see't,

But only melancholy,
Sweetest melancholy.

Welcome folded arms and fixed eyes,
A sigh, that piercing mortifies,
A look that's fasten'd to the ground,
A tongue chain'd up, without a sound,
Fountain heads and pathless groves,
Places which pale Passion loves,
Moon-light walks, when all the fowls.

Are warmly hous'd, save bats and owls;

A midnight bell, a parting groan,

These are the sounds we feed upon; Then stretch our bones in a still gloomy valley ; Nothing's so dainty, sweet, as lovely melancholy." N.

Milton begins the Allegro in praise of mirth by exclaiming,

"Hence, loathed Melancholy!"

He begins the Penseroso in a similar manner :—

"Hence, vain, deluding joys!"

So that either of the poems might with equal propriety have been the first. It is however discernable that Milton preferred the melancholy; and his conclusion to the poem puts it out of doubt :

"Hence, vain, deluding joys!

The brood of Folly, without father bred, How little you bested,

Or fill the fixed mind with all your toys;

Dwell in some idle brain,

And fancies fond with gaudy shapes possess,

As thick and numberless

As the gay motes that people the sun-beams, Or likeliest hovering Dreams,

The fickle pensioners of Morpheus' train.”

"Begone, ye vain joys of Mirth! ye are the brood or offspring of Folly, spontaneously