Or palmy hilloc; or the flow'ry lap Of fome irriguous valley spread her store, Of cool recefs, o'er which the mantling vine 255 * Luxuriant; mean while murm'ring waters fall 260 Down delicious tafte, thofe there had greffion, that it fhould bring forth none. Richardfon. Hume. 256. Flaw'rs of all bue, and without thorn the rofe:] Dr. Bentley rejects this verfe, because he thinks it a jejuine identity in the poet to fay The flow'ry lap Spread flow'rs: but, as Dr. Pearce obferves, tho' the expreffion be not very exact, it is not fo bad as Dr. Bentley reprefents it; for the conftruction and fenfe is, The flow'ry lap of Some valley Spread her ftore, which ftore was what? why flow'rs of every color or bue. Dr. Bentley objects too to the latter part of the verfe, and without thorn the rofe, and calls it a puerile fancy. But it fhould be remember'd, that it was part of the curfe denounced upon the earth for Adam's tranf T 2 thorns and thiftles. Gen. III. 18. and from hence the general opinion has prevailed that there were no thorns before; which is enough to justify a poet in saying the rose was without thorns or prickles. 257. Another fide, umbrageous grots and caves] Another fide of the garden was umbrageous grots and caves, &c. Or on another fide were fhady grots and caves, &c. the præpofition being omitted as is not unusual with our author. See I. 282. and 723. On one fide were groves of aromatics, others of fruit, and betwixt them lawns or downs. On another fide were fhady grotto's and caves of cool recefs. Our author indeed has not mention'd one fide before, but without that he often makes ufe of the expreffion, on th' other fide, as you may fee in II. 108, 706, IV. 985. IX. 888. as Virgil frequently fays in parte alia, in another part, though he has not faid exprefly in one part before, Æn. I. 474. VIII. 682. IX. 521. Down the flope hills, difpers'd, or in a lake, 262. difpers'd, or in a lake,] The waters fail difperfed, or unite their streams in a lake, that prefents her clear looking-glafs, holds her crystal mirror to the fringed bank crown'd with myrtle. He makes the lake we may obferve a perfon, and a critic like Dr. Bentley may find fault with it; but it is ufual with the poets to perfonify lakes and rivers, as Homer does the river Scamander and Virgil the Tiber; and Milton himself makes a person of the river of blifs, and a female perfon too, III. 359. as he does here of the lake. This language is certainly more poetical; and I fuppofe he thought Her cryftal mirror founded fmoother and better than Its cryftal mirror, or even His chryftal mirror. 266.—while univerfal Pan &c.] While univerial nature link'd with the graceful feafons danc'd a perpetual round, and throughout the earth yet unpolluted led eternal fpring. All the poets favor the opinion of the world's creation in the spring. Virg. Georg II.3 38 Ver illud erat, ver magnus age bat That the Graces were taken for the beautiful feafons in which all things feem to dance and finile in an univerfal joy is plain from Horace, Od. IV. VII. ì. Diffugere nives, redeunt jam gramina campis Gratia cum nymphis geminisque fororibus audet Ducere nuda choros. And Homer joins both the Graces and Hours hand in hand with Har mony, Youth, and Venus, in his Hume. Hymn to Apollo. The Ancients perfoniz'd every thing. Pan is nature, the Graces are the beautiful feafons, and the Hours are the time requifite for the production and perfection of things, Milton only fays in a moft poetical manner Knit with the Graces and the Hours in dance manner (as Homer in his Hymn to Apollo had done before him) that now all nature was in beauty, and every hour produc'd fomething new, without any change for the worse. Richardfen. 268. Not that fair field &c.] Not that fair field of Enna in Sicily, celebrated fo much by Ovid and Claudian for its beauty, from whence Proferpin was carried away by the gloomy God of Hell Dis or Pluto, which occafion'd her mother Ceres to feek her all the world over; nor that fweet grove of Daphne near Antioch, the capital of Syria, feated on the banks of the river Orontes, together with the Caftalian spring there, of the fame name with that in Greece, and extoll'd for its prophetic qualities; nor the iland Nfa, incompaf'd with the river Tryton in Africa, where Cham or Ham the fon of Noah, therefore called old, (who first peopled Egypt and Ly bia, and among the Gentiles gods by the name of Ammon or Lybian Jove) hid his mistress Amalthea and her beautiful fon Bacchus (therefore called Dionyfius) from his T 3 270 grove Of stepdame Rhea's eye, the stepdame of Bacchus, and wife of the Lybian Jove according to fome authors, particularly Diodorus Siculus, Lib. 3. and Sir Walter Raleigh's Hift. B. 1. ch. 6. fect. 5. tho' different from others; nor mount Amara, where the kings of Abaffinia or Abyffinia (a kingdom in the upper Ethiopia) keep their children guarded, a place of moft delightful profpect and fituation, inclos'd with alabaster rocks, which it is a day's journey to afcend, fuppofed by fome (tho' fo far diftant from the true Paradife) to be the feat of Paradife under the Ethiopian or equinoctial line near the fprings of the river Nile: Not any nor all of thefe could vy with this Paradife of Eden; this exceeded all that hiftorians have written or poets have feign'd of the most beautifui places in the world. By the way we should obferve his manner of pronouncing Proferpin with the accent upon the fecond fyllable, like the Latin, and as Spencer and the old English authors pronounce it. Faery Queen, Book 1. Cant. 2. St. 2. Of Daphne by Orontes, and th' inspir'd Girt with the river Triton, where old Cham, 275 280 Young Bacchus from his stepdame Rhea's eye; Saw And fad Proférpin's wrath, them and thofe emotions of envy, in to affright; which he is reprefented. There but not as it is commonly used at lines which follow, wherein they is a fine fpirit of poetry in the this time, as in Cato, So Pluto feiz'd of Proferpin convey'd. 285. Affyrian garden,] Milton here follows Strabo, who comprehends Mefopotamia in the ancient Affyria. Richardjon. 288. Two of far nobler shape &c.] The defcription of Adam and Eve, as they firft appeared to Satan, is exquifitely drawn, and fufficient to make the fallen Angel gaze upon them with all that aft nifhment are defcribed as fitting on a bed of flowers on the fide of a fountain, amidst a mixed assembly of animals. Addifon. 293. Truth, wisdom, fanctitude Whence true authority in men ;] The middle verfe ought to have been put thus in a parenthefis; for the true authority in men arifes not from filial freedom, but from their having truth, wildom, and fancti tude Saw undelighted all delight, all kind 290 Of living creatures new to fight and strange. : tude fevere and pure, that is ftri&t holinefs; which are qualities that give to magiftrates true authority, that proper authority which they may want who yet have legal authority. This is Milton's meaning and for explaining the word Jevere, he inferts a verfe to show that he does not mean fuch a fanctitude or holinefs as is rigid and auftere, but fuch as is plac'd in filial freedom; alluding to the fcriptural expreffions, which reprefent good Chriftians as free and as the Jons of God: on which foundation our obedience (from whence our fanctitude arifes) is a filial, and not a flavish one; a reverence ra 297. For contemplation he and va- grace,] The curious reader may pleafe to obferve upon these two charming Lines, how the numbers are varied, and how artfully be and he are placed in each verfe, fo as the tone may fall upon them, and yet fall upon them differently. The author might have given both exactly the fame tone, but every Ꭲ . ear |