Pours her long-levell'd rule of streaming light; While fullen facred filence reigns around,

Save the lone fcreech-owl's note, who builds his bow'r

Amid the mould'ring caverns dark and damp, Or the calm breeze, that ruftles in the leaves 35 Of flaunting ivy, that with mantle green Invefts fome wafted tow'r. Or let me tread

See Comus, ver. 340:

vifit us

With thy long-levell'd rule of ftreaming light...

And Warton's note upon it: to which may be added that the expreffion of the fun's levelling his rays, quoted by him from Par. Loft. iv. 543. may he found also in Sir H. Wotton;

-the Sun doth ftill

Level bis rays against the rifing hill.

Headley's Anc. Poet. ii. 24.

V. 31. While fullen facred filence reigns around,

Save the lone fcreech-owl's note, who builds his bower, &c.] Gray's Elegy:

And all the air a folemn ftillness holds,
Save that from yonder ivy-mantled tower
The moping owl does to the moon complain

Of fuch as wandering near her facred bower, &c.

The Pleafures of Melancholy was published in 1747: Gray's Elegy was written, according to Johnson, in 1750. Warton fupplies feveral instances of this use of the word "mantle." See Ode at Vale-royal, ver. 75. Ode on Summer, ver., 182. Paneg. on Oxford Ale, ver. 116.

V. 36. flaunting ivy,] Mr. Headley notices "flaunting honeyfuckle" in Comus, ver. 545. And "the bower, where woodbines flaunt," in Thomfon's Spring, ver. 976. But the epithet "gadding" ufed by our poet in Infcript. on a Hermitage is perhaps more defcriptive of the ivy.

Its neighb'ring walk of pines, where mus'd of old
The cloyster'd brothers: thro' the gloomy void

That far extends beneath their ample arch
As on I pace, religious horror wraps

40

My foul in dread repofe. But when the world
Is clad in Midnight's raven-colour'd robe,
'Mid hollow charnel let me watch the flame
Of taper dim, fhedding a livid glare

O'er the wan heaps; while airy voices talk

V. 41. As on I pace, religious horror wraps
My foul in dread repose.]

Lucretius, iii. 28:

V. 43.

His tibi me rebus quædam divina voluptas
Percipit, atque borror.

45

Midnight's raven-colour'd robe,] In Comus, ver. 251.

"the raven down of darkness."

Along the glimmering walls; or ghostly shape
At diftance feen, invites with beck'ning hand
My lonesome steps,-]

Pope's Eloifa, ver. 305:

In each low wind methinks a spirit calls,
And more than echos talk along the walls.

Comus, ver. 205:

-A thousand fantasies

Begin to throng into my memory,

Of calling bapes, and beck'ning fhadows dire,
And aery tongues, that fyllable men's names
On fands and fhores, and defert wilderneffes.

And ver. 270:

Such are those thick and gloomy fhadows damp
Oft seen in charnel vaults and fepulchres.

Along the glimm'ring walls; or ghostly shape
At distance seen, invites with beck'ning hand
My lonesome steps, thro' the far-winding vaults.
Nor undelightful is the folemn noon

Of night, when haply wakeful from my couch
I start lo, all is motionless around!
Roars not the rushing wind; the fons of men
And every beast in mute oblivion lie;
All nature's hush'd in filence and in fleep.
O then how fearful is it to reflect,

50

55

That thro' the still globe's awful folitude,
No being wakes but me! till stealing fleep
My drooping temples bathes in opiate dews.
Nor then let dreams, of wanton folly born, 60
My fenfes lead thro' flow'ry paths of joy;
But let the facred Genius of the night

See alfo Pope's Elegy on an unfortunate Lady:

What beckoning ghoft along the moonlight shade

Invites my steps, and points to yonder glade?

Which, as Dr. Warton has noticed in his edition of Pope, is from Ben Jonfon as the paffage quoted above from his Eloifa is from Milton.

V. 50.

:

the folemn noon

Of night,-] Midnight; it is fo ufed by Dryden, Pal. and Arc. B. iii.

'Twas ebbing darkness paft the noon of night.

V. 62. But let the facred Genius of the night
Such myftic vifions fend,-]

Such mystic vifions fend, as Spenfer faw,
When thro' bewild'ring Fancy's magic maze,
To the fell house of Busyrane, he led
Th' unfhaken Britomart; or Milton knew,
When in abstracted thought he first conceiv'd
All heav'n in tumult, and the Seraphim
Come tow'ring, arm'd in adamant and gold.

65

Let others love foft Summer's ev'ning smiles, 70 As lift'ning to the distant water-fall, They mark the blushes of the streaky weft; I choose the pale December's foggy glooms. Then, when the fullen fhades of ev'ning clofe, Where thro' the room a blindly-glimm'ring gleam

Sent by fome fpirit to mortals good,

Or th' unfeen Genius of the wood.

See Faerie Queene, B. III. Cant. xi, xii. and Par. Loft. B. vi. for the allufions, which follow.

V. 75. Where thro' the room a blindly-glimm'ring gleam.
The dying embers scatter,—]

Il Penf. ver. 79:

Where glowing embers thro' the room

Teach light to counterfeit a gloom.

Shakfpere's Midf. N. Dr. A&t. v.

Through this house give glimmering light;

By the dead and drowsy fire, &c.

It is fomewhat ftrange that neither Warton in his note on the

The dying embers scatter, far remote

From Mirth's mad fhouts, that thro' th' illumin'd

roof

80

Refound with feftive echo, let me fit,
Bleft with the lowly cricket's drowsy dirge.
Then let my thought contemplative explore sq
This fleeting state of things, the vain delights,
The fruitless toils, that ftill our search elude,
As thro' the wilderness of life we rove.
This fober hour of filence will unmafk
Falfe Folly's fmile, that like the dazzling fpells 85
Of wily Comus cheat th' unweeting eye

above from Il Penf. nor Newton on Par. Loft, i. 63, has noticed the excellent way in which Spenfer gives the image,

-A faint fhadow of uncertaine light,

Such as a lampe whofe lyfe doth fade awaie.

V. 76.

far remote

F.2. II. vii. 27.

From Mirth's mad fhouts, that thro' the illumin'd roof, &c.]

Il Penf. 81:

Far from all refort of Mirth,

Save the cricket on the hearth,

Or the belman's drowsy charm.

See alfo Shakspere's Macbeth, A&t iii.

The shard-born beetle with his drowsy hums.

V. 85. that like the dazzling spells

Of wily Comus, &c.]

Comus, ver. 153:

Thus I hurl

My dazzling Spells into the spungy air,
Of power to cheat the eye with blear illufion,
And give it false presentments.