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And oft, as if her head she bow'd,
Stooping through a fleecy cloud.
Oft, on a plat of rising ground,
I hear the far-off curfeu sound,
Over some wide-water'd shore,
Swinging slow with sullen roar:
Or, if the air will not permit,
Some still removed place will fit,
Where glowing embers through the room
Teach light to counterfeit a gloom;
Far from all resort of mirth,

Save the cricket on the hearth,
Or the bellman's drowsy charm,

To bless the doors from nightly harm.
Or let my lamp at midnight hour
Be seen in some high lonely tower,
Where I may oft outwatch the Bear,
With thrice-great Hermes, or unsphere
The spirit of Plato, to unfold

What worlds or what vast regions hold
The immortal mind, that hath forsook
Her mansion in this fleshly nook:
And of those Demons that are found
In fire, air, flood, or under ground,
Whose power hath a true consent
With planet, or with element.
Sometime let gorgeous Tragedy
In sceptred pall come sweeping by,
Presenting Thebes, or Pelops' line,
Or the tale of Troy divine;
Or what, though rare, of later age
Ennobled hath the buskin'd stage.

But, O, sad Virgin, that thy power
Might raise Musæus from his bower!
Or bid the soul of Orpheus sing
Such notes, as, warbled to the string,

78. Over some wide-water'd shore. Ob serve that the toll of bells always comes across a spreading water with extraordinary melancholy. Thus I have been long accustomed to listen to it cross the lake of Geneva with deep emotion. This mention of the curfeu is much finer even than the noble line which opens Gray's "Elegy," though that has always been so justly admired.-BRYDGES,

78. Removed place: That is, some quiet, remote, or unfrequented place will suit my purpose.

84. To bless the doors. Anciently the watchman, who cried the hours, used sundry benedictions.

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is created which strikes the imagination. T. WARTON. This is one of those happy observations so characteristic of Thomas Warton. When the midnight wanderer sees through the dark a distant light in a high tower, it much engages his eye, and moves his imagination, if he has any mind and sensitiveness: and this application of mind to the description of scenery, is what alone gives it the force of a high order of poetry.-BRYDGES.

93, Demons, &c. Undoubtedly, these notions are from Plato's "Timæus" and "Phædon," and the reveries of his old commentators; yet with some reference to the Gothic system of demons, which is a mixture of Platonism, school-divinity, and Christian superstition.-T. WARTON. 99. Thebes. Eschylus' "Seven before Thebes." Pelops line, the Electra of SoThough rare, Shakspeare.

86. Be seen, &c. The extraneous cir'umstance "be seen," gives poetry to a passage, the simple scene of which is only, "Let me study at midnight by a lamp in a lofty tower." Hence a picture phocles.

Drew iron tears down Pluto's cheek,
And made Hell grant what love did seek!
Or call up him that left half-told

The story of Cambuscan bold,
Of Camball and of Algarsife,
And who had Canace to wife,

That own'd the virtuous ring and glass,
And of the wonderous horse of brass,
On which the Tartar king did ride:
And if aught else great bards beside
In sage and solemn tunes have sung,
Of turneys, and of trophies hung;
Of forests and enchantments drear,
Where more is meant than meets the ear.

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Thus, Night, oft see me in thy pale career
Till civil-suited Morn appear,

Not trick'd and frounc'd as she was wont

But kercheft in a comely cloud,

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With the Attick boy to hunt,

While rocking winds are piping loud,
Or usher'd with a shower still,
When the gust hath blown his fill,
Ending on the russling leaves,

With minute drops from off the eaves.
And, when the sun begins to fling
His flaring beams, me, goddess, bring
To arched walks of twilight groves,
And shadows brown, that Sylvan loves,
Of pine, or monumental oak,

Where the rude axe, with heaved stroke,
Was never heard the nymphs to daunt,
Or fright them from their hallow'd haunt.

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109. Or call up him, &c. Chaucer, who left half-told the story of Cambuscan, in his Squier's tale.

116. Great bards, &c. From Chaucer, the father of English poetry, and who is here distinguished by a story remarkable for the wildness of its invention, our author seems to make a very pertinent and natural transition to Spenser, whose “Faerie Queene," although it externally professes to treat of tournaments and the trophies of knightly valour, of fictitious forests and terrific enchantments, is yet allegorical, and contains a remote meaning concealed under the veil of a fabulous action, and of a typical narrative which is not immediately perceived. -T. WARTON.

122. Civil-suited: Gravely, solemnly dressed. 123. F ounc'd, curled.

125. Kercheft: Wrapped up as with a handkerchief.

127. Or usher'd, &c. Dr. Johnson, from this to the 154th line inclusively, thus abridges our author's ideas :-"When the

morning comes, a morning gloomy with rain and wind, he walks into the dark trackless woods, falls asleep by some murmuring water, and, with melancholy enthusiasm, expects some dream of prognostication, or some music played by aerial performers." Never were fine imagery and fine imagination so marred. mutilated, and impoverished by a cold, unfeeling, and imperfect representation To say nothing, that he confounds two descriptions.-T. WARTON. Thus it is, that Johnson is commonly vague and full of pompous and empty sounds, when he attempts to describe; yet on such loose descriptions have his fond eulogi-ts given him credit for poetical imagination. Warton saw this with disgust, and here speaks out. How often must the nice and exquisite classical scholarship of this accomplished and genuine critic have been revolted by the rude pedant's coarse and unfeeling pomposity!-BRYDGES.

130. Minute drops, such as drop at intervals, indicating that the shower is over.

There in close covert by some brook,
Where no profaner eye may look,
Hide me from day's garish eye,
While the bee with honied thigh,
That at her flowery work doth sing,
And the waters murmuring,
With such consort as they keep,
Entice the dewy-feather'd Sleep;

And let some strange mysterious Dream
Wave at his wings in aery stream
Of lively portraiture display'd,
Softly on my eyelids laid:

And, as I wake, sweet musick breathe
Above, about, or underneath,
Sent by some Spirit to mortals good,
Or the unseen Genius of the wood.

But let my due feet never fail
To walk the studious cloysters pale,
And love the high-embowed roof,
With antick pillars massy proof,
And storied windows richly dight,
Casting a dim religious light:
There let the pealing organ blow,
To the full-voiced quire below,

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In service high, and anthems clear,

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

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And bring all heaven 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 heaven doth shew,
And every herb that sips the dew;
Till old experience do attain
To something like prophetick strain.

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

148. Ware is here, as Newton says, a verb neuter. The Dream is to wave at the wings of Sleep, in a display of lively portra ture.-BRYDGES.

156. Cloysters pale. Some would read cloyster's pale, that is, the enclosure or boundary of the cloyster. Others understand pale as an adjective, meaning sombre.

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157. High-embowed: Highly vaulted or arched.

159. Storied: Painted with stories.

160. Dim religious light. Many persons' religion seems to consist chiefly in dark, heavy Gothic architecture, and stained window-glass, as things well suited to the melancholy mind.

OF "L'Allegro" and "П Penseroso," I believe opinion is uniform; every man that reads them, reads them with pleasure. The author's design is not, what Theobald has remarked, merely to show how objects derive their colours from the mind, by representing the operation of the

same things upon the gay and the melancholy temper, or upon the same man as he is differently disposed; but rather how, among the successive variety of appearances, every disposition of mind takes hold on those by which it may be gratified.

The cheerful man hears the lark in the morning; the pensive man hears the nightingale in the evening. The cheerful man sees the cock strut, and hears the horn and hounds echo in the wood; then walks, "not unseen," to observe the glory of the rising sun, or listen to the singing milk-maid, and view the labours of the plowman and the mower; then casts his eyes about him over scenes of smiling plenty, and looks up to the distant tower, the residence of some fair inhabitant: thus he pursues rural gaiety through a day of labour or of play, and delights himself at night with the fanciful narratives of superstitious ignorance. The pensive man at one time walks, "unseen," to muse at midnight, and, at another, hears the solemn curfew. If the weather drives him home, he sits in a room lighted only by "glowing embers;" or by a lonely lamp outwatches the north star, to discover the habitation of separate souls; and varies the shades of meditation, by contemplating the magnificent or pathetic scenes of tragic and epic poetry. When the morning comes-a morning gloomy with rain and wind-he falls asleep by some murmuring water, and with melancholy enthusiasm expects some dream of prognostication, or some music played by aerial performers.

Both Mirth and Melancholy are solitary, silent inhabitants of the breast, that neither receive nor transmit communication; no mention is therefore made of a philosophical friend, or of a pleasant companion. The seriousness does not arise from any participation of calamity, nor the gaiety from the pleasures of the bottle. The man of cheerfulness, having exhausted the country, tries what "tower'd cities" will afford, and mingles with scenes of splendour, gay assemblies, and nuptial festivities; but he mingles a mere spectator, as, when the learned comedies of Jonson or the wild dramas of Shakspeare are exhibited, he attends the theatre. The pensive man never loses himself in crowds, but walks the cloister, or frequents the cathedral.

Both his characters delight in music; but he seems to think that cheerful notes would have obtained from Pluto a complete dismission of Eurydice, of whom solemn sounds procured only a conditional release. For the old age of Cheerfulness, he makes no provision; but Melancholy he conducts with great dignity to the close of life: his cheerfulness is without levity, and his pensiveness without asperity. Through these two poems the images are properly selected, and nicely distinguished; but the colours of the diction seem not sufficiently discriminated. I know not whether the characters are kept sufficiently apart: no mirth can, indeed, be found in his melancholy; but I am afraid that I always meet some melancholy in his mirth. They are two noble efforts of imagination.-JOHNSON.

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

"L'Allegro" and "Il Penseroso" may be called the two first descriptive poems in the English language. It is perhaps true, that the characters are not sufficiently kept apart; but this circumstance has been productive of greater excellences. It has been remarked, "No mirth, indeed, can be found in his melancholy, but I am afraid I always meet some melancholy in his mirth." Milton's is the dignity of mirth; his cheerfulness is the cheerfulness of gravity; the objects he selects in his "L'Allegro" are so far gay, as they do not naturally excite sadness; laughter and

jollity are named only as personifications, and never exemplified: “Quips, and cranks, and wanton wiles," are enumerated only in general terms. There is specifically no mirth in contemplating a fine landscape; and even his landscape, although it has flowery meads and flocks, wears a shade of pensiveness, and contains "russet lawns," "fallows gray," and "barren mountains," overhung with "labouring clouds:" its old turreted mansion, peeping from the trees, awakens only a train of solemn and romantic, perhaps melancholy reflection. Many a pensive man listens with delight to the "milk-maid singing blithe," to the "mower whetting his scythe," and to a distant peal of village-bells. He chose such illustrations as minister matter for new poetry and genuine description. Even his most brilliant imagery is mellowed with the sober hues of philosophic meditation. It was impossible for the author of "Il Penseroso" to be more cheerful, or to paint mirth with levity: that is, otherwise than in the colours of the higher poetry. Both poems are the result of the same feelings, and the same habits of thought.

Dr. Johnson has remarked, that in "L'Allegro" "no part of the gaiety is made to arise from the pleasures of the bottle." The truth is, that Milton means to describe the cheerfulness of the philosopher or the student, the amusements of a contemplative mind; and on this principle he seems unwilling to allow that Mirth is the offspring of Bacchus and Venus, deities who preside over sensual grauifications; but rather adopts the fiction of those more serious and sapient fablers, who suppose that her proper parents are Zephyr and Aurora; intimating, that his cheerful enjoyments are those of the temperate and innocent kind, of early hours and rural pleasures. That critic does not appear to have entered into the spirit, or to have comprehended the meaning, of our author's "L'Allegro.” -J. WARTON.

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