Thy droufy nurse hath fworn fhe did them spie She heard them give thee this, that thou fhouldt ftill Yet there is fomething that doth force my fear, A Sibyl old, bow-bent with crooked age, 66 7° 75 80 From the loves of Mars and Venus, and the de- reft are affected in the manner here defcrib'd. ftruction of Troy; and Ulyffes and the 56. of thy predicament:] What the Greeks From others he shall stand in need of nothing, Yet on his brothers fhall depend for clothing. To harbour those that are at enmity. 85 What pow'r, what force, what mighty spell, if not Your learned hands, can loose this Gordian knot? 90 The Greeks called a category, Boëthius firft named a predicament: and if the reader is acquainted with Ariftotle's Categories, or Burgerfdicius, or any of the old logicians, he will not want what follows to be explain'd to him; and it cannot well be explain'd to him, if he is unacquainted with that kind of logic. 91. Rivers arife; &c.] In invoking these rivers Milton had his eye particularly upon that admirable episode in Spenfer of the marriage of the Thames and the Medway, where the feveral rivers are introduc'd in honor of the ceremony. Faery Queen B. 4. Cant. 11. Of utmoft Tweed; fo Spenfer St. 36. And Twede the limit betwixt Logris land Or Oafe, either that in Yorkshire, or that in has its name; and Camden's account of this river fhows the propriety of the epithet gulphy. Danus, commonly Don and Dune, feems to be fo call'd, because it is carried in a low "deep channel; for that is the fignification of "the British word Dan." See Camden's Yorkfhire. Or Trent, who like fome earth-born giant &c. This defcription is much nobler than Spenfer's St. 35. And bounteous Trent, that in himself enfeams Both thirty forts of fish, and thirty fundry ftreams. The name is of Saxon original, but (as Camden obferves in his Staffordshire.) "fome ig"norant and idle pretenders imagin the cc name to be derived from the French word Trente, and upon that account have feign'd "thirty rivers running into it, and likewife "fo many kinds of fifh fwimming in it." However this notion might very well be adopted The next Quantity and Quality spake in profe, then Relation was call'd by his name. RIVERS arife; whether thou be the fon Of utmost Tweed, or Oose, or gulphy Dun, adopted in poetry. Or fulle Mole &c. Spenfer St. 32. 95 Or So Wall. St. 36. Or ancient hallow'd Dee; fo And following Dee, which Britons long ygone Did call divine, that doth by Chester tend. See Lycidas too ver 55. Or Humber loud &c. And nam'd the river of his wretched fate; And the Medway and the Thame are join'd to- Or Humber loud that keeps the Scythian's name, Or Medway smooth, or royal towred Thame. [The reft was profe.] III. On the MORNING of CHRIST'S NATIVITY. I "HIS is the month, and this the happy morn, THI Wherein the Son of Heav'n's eternal King, That he our deadly forfeit should release, II. That glorious form, that light unfufferable, And that far-beaming blaze of majesty, 100 5 Wherewith he wont at Heav'n's high council-table 10 To fit the midst of Trinal Unity, Thence doth by Huntingdon and Cambridge My mother Cambridge, whom as with a crown He With many a gentle Mufe, and many a learn ed wit. To the title of this Ode we have added the date, which is prefixed in the edition of He laid afide; and here with us to be, And chofe with us a darkfome houfe of mortal clay. III. Say heav'nly Mufe, fhall not thy facred vein 15 Haft thou no verfe, no hymn, or folemn ftrain, IV. See how from far upon the eastern road 1645, Compos'd 1629, fo that Milton was 20 25 And exercife at Cambridge; and there is not only Tt2 28. From |