'Mongft horrid shapes, and fhrieks, and fights unholy, Find out some uncouth cell,

5

Where brooding darkness spreads his jealous wings, And the night-raven fings;

There under ebon fhades, and low-brow'd rocks, As ragged as thy locks,

In dark Cimmerian defert ever dwell..

But come thou Goddess fair and free,

In Heav'n ycleap'd Euphrofyne,

And

often joined together, as in Hefiod, Theog. caufe darkness fets the imagination on work,

ver. 123.

Ex Epel&
Εκ Χα@ ρε ( τε μέλαινα τε Νυξ εχε
τε μελαινα τε Νυξ εγε-
voylo.

Nux7® ♫ Our Aionp te nou 'Hμepn eseyevovlo, Ους τεκε, κυαταμενη Ερεβει φιλοτητι μιγείσα. And several of their children, enumerated by Cicero, are much of the fame nature and complexion as Melancholy. De Nat. Deor. III. 17. - eorumque fratres & forores, qui a genealogis antiquis fic nominantur, Metus, Labor, Invidentia, Tenebræ, Miferia, Querela, &c. quos omnes Erebo et Notte natos ferunt. I find Mr. Upton in his letter to Mr. Weft on Spenfer's Faery Queen has propofed the fame conjecture.

4. 'Mong ft horrid fhapes, &c.] He has this paffage of Virgil in his eye. Æn. VI, 285 to 289.

Multaque præterea variarum monftra ferarum &c. Warburton.

6. Where brooding darkness] Called fo be

to create ideal forms and beings. Warburton. 10. In dark Cimmerian defert] The Cimmerians were a people who liv'd in caves under ground, and never faw the light of the fun. See Homer Odyff. XI. 14. and Tibullus IV. I. 65.

12. In Heav'n ycleap'd Euphrofyne,] Cleaped is called, named; Spenfer. Faery Queen B. 3,Cant. 12. St. 19.

The other cleaped Cruelty by name. The letter y is fometimes prefixed to lengthen it a syllable. B. 3. Cant. 5. St. 8..

And is ycleaped Florimel the fair

Euphrofyne is the name of one of the three
Graces mention'd by Hefiod. Theog. 909.

Αγλαΐω, και Ευφροσωίω, Θαλιωτ' ερατει

And by men, heart-easing Mirth,

Whom lovely Venus at a birth

With two fifter Graces more

15

To ivy-crowned Bacchus bore;

Or whether (as some fager fing)

The frolic wind that breathes the spring,
Zephyr with Aurora playing,

As he met her once a Maying,
There on beds of violets blue,

And fresh-blown rofes wafh'd in dew,
Fill'd her with thee a daughter fair,
So buxom, blithe, and debonair.

The first of them hight mild Euphrofyne, Next fair Aglaia, last Thalia merry. The poet, in saying that she was called EuphroLyne in Heaven, and Mirth by men, imitates Homer's manner of fpeaking, where the names in ufe among the learned are ascribed to the Gods, and those in vulgar use are attributed to men. See Paradise Loft, V. 761. and the note there.

14. Whom lovely Venus at a birth &c] The more ancient opinion, as we find it in Heliod's Theogony, was that the Graces were the daughters of Jupiter and Eurynome, and this Spenfer adopts in his Faery Queen. B. 6.

Cant. 10. St. 22.

They are the daughters of sky-ruling Jove,
By him begot of fair Eurynome.

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Hafte

But Milton with great judgment and a very allowable liberty follows the account of their being fprung from Bacchus and Venus, because the mythology of it fuited the nature of his fubject better. Thyer.

17. Or whether (as fome fager fing) &c] No mythologist either ancient or modern that I can meet with gives this account of the birth of Euphrofyne; nevertheless we must do Milton the juftice to own, that he could not poffibly have invented better allegorical parents for her than Zephyrus and Aurora, or the gentle western gales of a fine morning in the spring, which to ufe his own words in his Paradife Loft, IV. 154.

to the heart inspire Vernal delight and joy, able to drive All fadness but despair.

Haste thee Nymph, and bring with thee

25

Jeft and youthful Jollity,

Quips and Cranks, and wanton Wiles,
Nods and Becks, and wreathed Smiles,
Such as hang on Hebe's cheek,

And love to live in dimple fleek;
Sport that wrinkled Care derides,
And Laughter holding both his fides.
Come, and trip it as you go
On the light fantastic toe,
And in thy right hand lead with thee,
The mountain nymph, sweet Liberty;

His pretence of authority in the parenthesis
(as fome fager fing) is introduc'd in my opinion
only to give a more venerable authoritative air
to his poem and I have often fufpected, that
that paffage in the 10th book of Paradife Loft,
where the evil Angels are describ'd turn'd into
ferpents, and as the poet adds ver. 575-

Yearly injoin'd, fome fay, to undergo This annual humbling certain number'd days, is an inftance of the fame fort. Thyer. As fome fager fing. It is fages in Mr. Fenton's edition, but the old editions have fager. Both these genealogies were probably of the poet's own invention, but he rather favors the latter.

32. And Laughter bolding both his fides] A fine improvement upon Shakespear. A Midfummer Night's Dream A&t 2. Sc. 1.

30

35

And

And then the whole quire hold their hips, and loffe.

33. Come, and trip it as you go

of Shakespear. Tempest Act 4. Sc. 2. Ariel to
On the light fantastic toe,] Another imitation
the Spirits

-Come, and go,
Each one tripping on his toe.

36. The mountain nymph, fweet Liberty; ] I fuppofe 'Liberty is called the mountain nymph,. because the people in mountainous countries. have generally preferved their liberties longest, as the Britons formerly in Wales, and the inhabitants in the mountains of Switzerland at this day.

And if I give thee honor due,
Mirth, admit me of thy crew

To live with her, and live with thee,
In unreproved pleasures free;
To hear the lark begin his flight,
And finging startle the dull night,
From his watch-tow'r in the skies,
Till the dappled dawn doth rise;
Then to come in spite of forrow,

And at my window bid good morrow,
Through the sweet-briar, or the vine,
Or the twisted eglantine:
While the cock with lively din

41. To hear the lark begin his flight, &c.] At the fame time that Milton delights our imagination with this charming scene of rural chearfulness, he gives us a fine picture of the regularity of his life, and the innocency of his own mind. The principal circumstances are taken from the earliest dawn of the morning, and prove the truth of what he fays of himself in his Apology for Smectymnuus, " that he "was up and stirring, in winter often ere the "found of any bell awake men to labor, or "to devotion; in fummer as oft with the “bird that first rouses, or not much tardier, "to read good authors &c": And few minds, I believe, but such as are innocent and un

40

45

Scatters

ftain'd with guilty pleasures have any great tafte for these pure and genuin ones which the poet describes. Thyer.

44. — the dappled dawn] The word is ufed and explain'd in Shakespear. Much Ado about Nothing. Act 5. Sc. 8.

and look the gentle day,

Before the wheels of Phoebus, round about
Dapples the droufy eaft with spots of gray.

45. Then to come in spite of forrow,] These two poems, L'Allegro and II Penferofo, are certainly the best of Milton's productions in rime, for the rimes in Lycidas are irregular: but yet we may observe that several things are

Scatters the rear of darkness thin,
And to the stack, or the barn-door,
Stoutly ftruts his dames before:

Oft list'ning how the hounds and horn
Chearly rouse the slumb'ring morn,
From the fide of fome hoar hill,
Through the high wood echoing fhrill:
Some time walking not unfeen
By hedge-row elms, on hillocs green,
Right against the eastern gate,
Where the great fun begins his state,
Rob'd in flames, and amber light,
The clouds in thousand liveries dight,

faid, which would not have been faid but only for the fake of the rime, and we have an inftance, I conceive, in the line before us. Mr. Pope, I have been inform'd, had remark'd feveral defects of the fame kind in these two

poems; and there may be fome truth and juftnefs in the observation, which Dryden has made in the dedication of his Juvenal, that "rime was not Milton's talent, he had neither "the ease of doing it, nor the graces of it;" but then it must be faid, that he had talents for greater things, and there is more harmony in his blank verfe than in all the riming poetry in the world.