Of riot and ill-managed merriment, Rose from the hindmost wheels of Phoebus' wain. This is the place, as well as I may guess, Whence even now the tumult of loud mirth Of calling shapes, and beckoning shadows dire, 175 180 185 190 195 200 205 177. Amiss. How much is expressed peare in "As you Like it," and Fletcher in this one little word! 178. Swill'd insolence, &c. In some parts of England it is still customary for a company of mummers to go about, in the evening of the Christmas-holidays, carousing from house to house, who are called wassailers. In Macbeth, "wine and wassel" mean, in general terms, feasting and drunkenness.-T. WARTON. Swill'd insolence is similar to flown with insolence. Par. Lost, i. 502. To swill, is to drink grossly or greedily; and hence swill'd insolence is insolence caused by intemperate drinking. 187. Hospitable woods. By laying the scene of his Mask in a wild forest, Milton secured to himself a perpetual fund of picturesque description, which, result ing from situation, was always at hand. The same happy choice of scene supplied Sophocles in "Philoctetes," Shaks in the "Faithful Shepherdess," with frequent and even unavoidable opportunities of rural delineation, and that of the most romantic kind. But Milton has had additional advantages: his forest is not only the residence of a magician, but is exhibited under the gloom of midnight.T. WARTON. 195. Thierish night. In the present age, would Milton have introduced this passage, where thievish Night is supposed, for some felonious purpose, to shut up the stars in her dark lantern? Certainly not. But in the present age, correct and rational as it is, had "Comus" been written, we should not perhaps have had some of the greatest beauties of its wild and romantic imagery.-T. WARTON. 207. Calling shapes, &c. The old books of voyages and travels, in which Milton And aery tongues that syllable men's names I see ye visibly, and now believe That He, the Supreme Good, to whom all things ill Such noise as I can make to be heard farthest, SONG. Sweet Echo, sweetest nymph, that liv'st unseen By slow Meander's margent green, And in the violet-embroider'd vale, Where the love-lorn nightingale Nightly to thee her sad song mourneth well; Canst thou not tell me of a gentle pair That likest thy Narcissus are? O, if thou have Hid them in some flowery cave, Tell me but where, Sweet queen of parly, daughter of the sphere! And give resounding grace to all Heaven's harmonies. 210 215 220 225 230 235 240 delighted, were filled with superstitious | tiful compound epithet, and the combistories. 208. Syllable, to pronounce distinctly. 214. Hovering. This word is here applied with peculiar propriety to the angel Hope, in sight, on the wing.-T. WARTON. 223. There does a sable cloud. The repetition arising from the conviction and confidence of an unaccusing conscience, is inimitably beautiful. When all suc cour seems lost, Heaven unexpectedly presents the silver lining of a sable cloud to the virtuous.-T. WARTON. 231. Shell. Hurd and Warburton observe that shell means the horizon, the hollow circumference of the heavens. 233. Violet-embroider'd. This is a beau nation of the two words that compose it, natural and easy.-J. WARTON. 234. Love-lorn, deprived of her mate. 241. Daughter of the sphere. Milton has given her a much bolder and more poetical original than any of the ancient mythologists. He supposes her to owe her first existence to the reverberation of the music of the spheres; in consequence of which he had just before called the horizon her aery shell. And from the gods (like other celestial beings of the classical order) she came down to men.-WAR BURTON. 243. Give, &c. What an exquisite fancy this of echo in heaven redoubling the divine music! Enter COMUS. Coм. Can any mortal mixture of earth's mould How sweetly did they float upon the wings Culling their potent herbs and baleful drugs; And chid her barking waves into attention, And she shall be my queen.-Hail, foreign wonder! To touch the prosperous growth of this tall wood. Not any boast of skill, but extreme shift Compell'd me to awake the courteous Echo To give me answer from her mossy couch. COM. What chance, good Lady, hath bereft you thus? 245 250 255 260 265 270 275 Coм. Could that divide you from near-ushering guides? 254. Flowery-kirtled, so called, because they were employed in collecting flowers. Newton remarks here, that kirtle is a woman's gown. 256. Would take the prison'd soul. The mermaidens of modern tale and story inherit all the powers of the sirens of classic song: they are described as women to the waist, and fair, with bright eyes, and locks which they are continually braiding; and they are represented as having great power to charm every beholder. 267. Unless the goddess. Comus' address to the lady is in a very high style of classical gallantry. As Cicero says of Plato's language, that if Jupiter were to speak 280 Greek, he would speak as Plato has written, so we may say of this language of Milton, that if Jupiter were to speak English, he would express himself in this manner. The passage is exceedingly beautiful in every respect; but all readers of taste will acknowledge that the style of it is much raised by the expres sion, unless the goddess, an elliptical expression, unusual in our language, though common enough in Greek and Latin. But if we were to fill it up, and say, "unless thou beest the goddess," how flat and insipid would it make the composition, compared with what it is.— LORD MONBODDO. LAD. To seek in the valley some cool friendly spring. In his loose traces from the furrow came, I saw them under a green mantling vine, That crawls along the side of yon small hill, Of some gay creatures of the element, And play in the plighted clouds. I was awe-struck, LAD. Gentle villager, What readiest way would bring me to that place? In such a scant allowance of star-light, Without the sure guess of well-practised feet. 285 290 295 300 305 310 Coм. I know each lane, and every alley green, Dingle, or bushy dell of this wild wood, But loyal cottage, where you may be safe LAD. 315 320 Shepherd, I take thy word, And trust thy honest offer'd courtesy, Which oft is sooner found in lowly sheds certain airy elemental beings are most 291. What time, a pure Latinism, quo | braided or embroidered clouds, in which tempore; and this notation of time is in the pastoral manner of Virgil and Ho-poetically supposed to sport, thus pro race. 293. Swink'd, tired, fatigued. 299. Element, used for the sky. 301. Plighted clouds. The lustre of Milton's brilliant imagery is half ob scured, while plighted remains unexplained. We are to understand the ducing a variety of transient and dazzling colours. I may observe that the modern word is "plaited."-T. WARTON. 313. Bosky bourn. Bosky is, woody or rather bushy, and a bourn is a winding, deep, and narrow valley, with a rivulet at the bottom. With smoky rafters, than in tap'stry halls I cannot be, that I should fear to change it.- 325 To my proportion'd strength!-Shepherd, lead on. [Exeunt. Enter the Two BROTHERS. EL. BR. Unmuffle, ye faint stars; and thou, fair moon, That wont'st to love the traveller's benison, Stoop thy pale visage through an amber cloud, And disinherit Chaos, that reigns here In double night of darkness and of shades; With thy long-levell'd rule of streaming light; Or Tyrian cynosure. SEC. BR. Or, if our eyes Be barr'd that happiness, might we but hear Or, while we speak, within the direful grasp Of savage hunger, or of savage heat? EL BR. Peace, brother; be not over-exquisite 332 335 340 345 350 355 To cast the fashion of uncertain evils: For grant they be so, while they rest unknown, 340. With thy long-levell'd rule of streaming light. What a perfect, as well as picturesque, description of a beam of light! 341. Our star of Arcady, &c. Our greater or lesser bear-star. Calisto, the daughter of Lycaon, King of Arcadia, was changed into the greater bear, called also 360 365 Helice, and her son Arcas into the lesser, called also Cynosura, by observing which the Tyrians and Sidonians steer'd their course, as the Grecian mariners did by the other.-NEWTON. 360. To cast the fashion: so in astrology "to cast a nativity"-to predict, to prefigure, to compute.-T. WARTON. |