1005

But far above in spangled sheen
Celestial Cupid her fam’d son advanc'd,
Holds his dear Psyche sweet intranc'd,
After her wand'ring labors long,
Till free consent the Gods among
Make her his eternal bride,
And from her fair unspotted side
Two blissful twins are to be born,
Youth and Joy; fo Jove hath sworn.

But now my task is smoothly done,
I can Ay, or I can run
Quickly to the green earth’s end,
Where the bow'd welkin slow doth bend,
And from thence can foar as soon

1015

To

2

1003. -- in spangled sheen] I think this several other places; and he makes sheeny the word is commonly used as an adjective, as in adjective, as in the verses On the death of a Spenser, Faery Queen. B. 2. Cant. 1. St. 10.

fair infant. St. 7. To spoil her dainty corse fo fair and seen : Or did of late earth's sons besiege the wall

Of seeny Heav'n, &c. and again Cant. 2. St. 40.

In using been for a substantive Milton has the That with her sovereign power and scepter authority of Shakespear, Hamlet, Act 3. Sc. 6.

6 fbeen All faery lond does peaceable susteen.

And thirty dozen moons with borrowed

jeen &c. But Milton uses it as a substantive both here 1012. But now my task is smoothly done, &c] and before in ver. 893. the azurn fbeen, and in He had written at first,

Now

a

To the corners of the moon.

Mortals that would follow me,
Love Virtue, she alone is free,
She can teach ye how to clime

IO20
Higher than the sphery chime;
Or if Virtue feeble were,
Heav'n itself would stoop to her.

Now my mesage (or business] well is done, 1018. Mortals that would follow me, &c] The
I can fly, or I can run & c.

moral of this poem is very finely summ’d up The Satyr in the Faithful Shepherdess sustains in these concluding fix verses ; the thought conmuch the same character and office as the at

tain'd in the two last might probably be sugtendent Spirit in the Mask, and he says to the gested to our author by a passage in the Table fame purpose, Act 1.

of Cebes, where Patience and perseverance are

represented stooping and ftretching out their I must go, and I must run

hands to help up those who are endevoring Swifter than the fiery sun:

to climb the craggy hill of Virtue, and yet and in the conclusion his taking leave is some. are too feeble to ascend of themselves. what in the same manner,

Thyer. shall I stray

1020. She can teach ye how to clime &c] In the middle air, and stay

These four concluding verses furnith'd Mr. The failing rack, or nimbly take

Pope with the thought for the conclusion of Hold by the moon, and gently make his ode on St. Cecilia's day. Warburton. Suit to the pale queen of night

1023 would stoop to her.] Would bow For a beam to give thee light ? &c.

to her, was at first in the Manuscript, and we But what follows in Milton is of a strain fupe- have been at the trouble of transcribing these rior to Fletcher.

variations and alterations more for the fatis1οΙ4.

tbe green earth's end, ) Cape de faction of the curious, than for any entertain: Verd Iles. Sympson.

ment that it afforded to ourselves,

a

480

XVII.

L Y CI DA S.

This poem was made upon the unfortunate

the unfortunate una cum navigio ab aquis absorptus, animam and untimely death of Mr. Edward King, fon Deo reddidit IIII. Eid. Sextileis, anno falutis of Sir John King Secretary for Ireland, a M.DC.XXXVII. ætatis XXV. The last fellow-collegian and intimate friend of our au- poem in the collection was this of Milton, thor, who as he was going to visit his relations which by his own Manuscript appears to have in Ireland, was drown’d on the roth of Au- been written in November 1637, when he was gust 1637, and in the 25th year of his almost 29 years old : and these words in age. The year following 1638 a small vo- the printed titles of this poem, and by oclume of poems Greek, Latin, and English, casion foretels the ruin of our corrupted clergy, was printed at Cambridge in honor of his then in their bigbth, are not in the Manumemory, and before them was prefix'd the script. This poem is with great judgment following account of the deceas’d. P. M. S. made of the pastoral kind, as both Mr. King Edovardus King, f. Joannis (equitis aurati, and Milton had been design'd for holy orqui SSS RRR Elisabethæ, Jacobo, Caro- ders and the pastoral care, which gives a pelo, pro regno Hiberniæ a secretis) col. Christi culiar propriety to several passages in it: and in Academia Cant. focius, pietatis atque eru- in composing it the poet had an eye particuditionis conscientia et fama felix, in quo nihil larly to Virgil's 10th Eclogue lamenting the immaturum præter ætatem ; dum Hiberniam unhappy loves of Gallus, and to Spenser's pacogitat, tračtus desiderio suorum, patriam, storal poems upon the death of the Mufes faagnatoś et amicos, præ cæteris fratrem, Do- vorite, Sir Philip Sidney. The reader cannot minum Robertum King (equitem auratum, but observe, that there are more antiquated virum ornatissimum) sorores (fæminas lectif- and obsolete words in this than in any other of simas) Annam, Dom. G. Caulfield, Baronis Milton's poems; which I conceive to be owde Charlemont; Margaretam, D. G. Loder, ing partly to his judgment, for he might summi Hiberniæ Justitiarii, uxorem ; vene

think them more rustic, and better adapted randum Præfulem, Edovardum King, Epi- to the nature of pastoral poetry; fcopum Elphinenfem (a quo facro fonte fuf- to his imitating of Spenser, for as Spenser's ceptus) reverendissimum et doctissimum vi- stile is most antiquated, where he imitates rum Gulielmum Chappel, Decanum ecclesiæ Chaucer most, in his Shepherds Calendar, so Cafeliensis, et collegii Sanctæ Trinitatis apud Milton's imitations of Spenser might have the Dublinienses præpofitum (cujus in Academia fame effect upon the language of this poem. auditor et alumnus fuerat) invisens ; haud pro- It is called a monody, from a Greek word figcul a littore Britannico, navi in scopulum alli- nifying a mournful or funeral song sung by a fi, et rimis et ictu fatiscente, dum alii vectores single person : and we have lately had two advitæ mortalis frustra fatagerent, immortalita- mirable poems publish'd under this title, one tem anhelans, in genua provolutus oransque, occafion'd by the death of Mr. Pope by a very

and partly

a

In this monody the author bewails a learned friend,

unfortunately drown'd in his passage from Chester on the Irish seas, 1637. and by occasion foretels the

ruin of our corrupted clergy, then in their highth. YET once more, O ye Laurels, and once more

Ye Myrtles brown, with Ivy never sere, I come to pluck your berries harsh and crude, And with forc'd fingers rude Shatter your leaves before the mellowing year. 5 Bitter constraint, and sad occasion dear,

Compels ingenious poet of Cambridge, and the other being one of the ever-greens. We have the to the memory of his deceas'd lady by a gen- word in Paradise Lost X. 1071. where it was tleman, whose excellent poetry is the least of explain’d and justified by parallel instances his many excellences.

from Spenser. 1. Yet once more -] The poem begins

somewhat like Virgil's Gallus,

3. I come to pluck your berries bars and crude,]

This beautiful allusion to the unripe age of his Extremum hunc, Arethusa, mihi concede friend, in which death shatter'd bis leaves before

the mellowing year, is not antique, I think, but and this yet once more is said in allusion to of those secret graces of Spenser. See his Echis former poems upon the like occasions, On logue of January in the Shepherd's Calendar. the death of a fair infant dying of a cough, The poet there says of himself under the name Epitaph on the Marchioness of Winchester, &c. of Colin Clout, Oye Laurels, and once more

Alfo lustful leaf is dry and sere, Ye Myrtles brown, with Ivy never fere,] The laurel, as he was a poet, for that was facred which explains too the old word in the second to Apollo; the myrtle, as he was of a proper

Richardjon. age for love, for that was the plant of Venus; 6. Bitter constraint, and sad occafion dear,] the ivy, as a reward of his learning. Hor. Od. So in Spenser, Faery Queen, B. 1. Cant. I.

laborem:

I.

my

Іо

Compels me to disturb your season due:
For Lycidas is dead, dead ere his prime,
Young Lycidas, and hath not left his

peer:
Who would not sing for Lycidas? he kņew
Himself to sing, and build the lofty rhime.
He must not flote upon his watry bier
Unwept, and welter to the parching wind,
Without the meed of some melodious tear.

Begin then, Sisters of the sacred well,
That from beneath the seat of Jove doth spring,
Begin, and somewhat loudly sweep the string.
,

Hence

15

3.

II.

Let me not seep, but waste the weary night 15. Begin then, Sisters of the sacred well,
In secret anguish, and unpitied plaint. That from beneath the seat of Jove doth spring,]

Richardson. He means Hippocrené, a fountain confecrated 10. Who would not sing for Lycidas ?] Virgil, of which was an altar of Heliconian Jupiter,

to the Muses on mount Helicon, on the side Ecl. X.

as Hesiod says in the invocation for his poem neget quis carmina Gallo ?

on the generation of the Gods. He knew - in Milton's Manuscript it is be Μεσαων Ελικωνιαδων αρχώμεθ' αειδειν, well knew.

“Αιθ’ ΕλικωνG εχεσιν ορG- μεγα τεζαθεονε, and build the lofty rhime.] A beautiful Latinism. Hor. Epift. I. III. 24.

Και τε σερι κρηνίω ιοειδεα σοσσ 'απαλοισιν

Ορχάν Παω, και βωμον εριθενεος Kegνιωνος. seu condis amabile carmen.