Yet Syrinx well might wait on her.

Such a rural Queen

All Arcadia hath not seen.*

This inftance almost ascertains one of Mr. Steevens's very rational conjectures, on a text which had been long incorrigible. LILLIED seems to have been no uncommon epithet for the banks of a river, So in Sylvefter, cited in ENGLAND'S PARNASSUS, 1600..p.479. [WORKS, ut fupr. p. 1201.]

By fome cleare river's LILLIE-PAVED fide.

Ibid. Sandy Ladon.-] Milton, as we have feen, has got Ovid's epithet ARENOSUS to Ladon. But this paftoral river had before been celebrated in English with the fame epithet, by Browne, BRIT. PAST. B. ii. S. iv. p. 107.

The filuer Ladon, on his SANDY fhore,

Heard my complaints.

But as Mr. Bowle observes, the river Ladon has the fame epithet in Sydney's ARCADIA, perhaps for the first time in English. B. ii. p. 293. edit. 1725. Ovid has alfo ARENOSUS for the Tiber. FAST. i. 242. And for Hebrus, ibid. iii. 737.

106. 107. Mr. Steevens thinks, that this couplet bears a striking resemblance to the concluding couplet of COMUS.

Or if Virtue feeble were

Heaven itself would stoop to her.

* ALICE, countefs dowager of Derby, was the lady before whom this Mask was presented at Harefield. She married Ferdinando Lord Strange; who on the death of his father Henry, in 1594, became earl of Derby, but died the next year. She was the fixth daughter of fir John Spenfer of Althorpe in Northamptonfhire. She was afterwards married to lord chancellor Egerton, who died in 1617. See PRELIM. N. on COMUS. And Dugd. BARON. iii. 414. 251. She died Jan. 26, 1635-6, and was buried at Harefield. ARCADES could not therefore have been acted after 1636. See MSS. WILLIS, Bibl. Bodl. fol. Num. viii. f. 54. Pedigr. Bucks. Harrington has an Epigram to this lady, B. iii. 47. In praife of the Counteffe of Derby, married to the Lord Chancellour. This noble counteffe lived many yeeres

With Derby, one of England's greatest peeres;
Fruitfull and faire, and of fo cleare a name
That all this region marvell'd at her fame:
But this brave peere extinct by haftned fate,
She staid, ah! too too long, in widowes state;
And in that state took fo fweet state upon her

All eares, eyes, tongues, heard, saw, and told, her honour, &c

A Dedication

A Dedication to this Lady Dowager Derby, full of the most exalted panegyric, is prefixed to Thomas Gainsforde's HISTORIE OF TREBIZONDE, a fet of tales. Lond. 1616. 4to. A countess of Derby acted in Jonfon's First Queene's Mafque at Whitehall, 1605. See WORKS ut fupr. p. 899. And in the Second Queenes Mafque at Whitehall, 1608. Ib. p. 908. And again, in the Mafque of Queenes at Whitehall, 1609. Ibid. p. 964. Perhaps, this is not our countess Dowager ALICE; but Elizabeth, eldest daughter of Edward earl of Oxford, the Countess of earl William, who fucceeded his brother Ferdinando. See alfo Birch's PRINCE HENRY, p. 196. An EPICEDIUM of Latin verses, on the death of earl Henry, abovementioned, containing much panegyric on earl Ferdinando, was printed at Oxford, 1593, 4to.

But Milton is not the only Great English poet who has celebrated this countefs dowager of Derby. She was the fixth daughter, as we have seen, of fir John Spenfer, with whofe family Spen-. fer the poet claimed an alliance. In his COLIN CLOUTS COME HOME AGAIN, written about 1595, he mentions her under the appellation of AMARILLIS, with her fifters PHILLIS, or ELIZABETH, and CHARILLIS, or Anne; thefe three of fir John Spenfer's daughters being best known at court. See v. 536.

Ne leffe praise-worthy are the Sifters three,

The honour of the noble familie,

Of which I meanest boast myself to be;

And moft that unto them I am so nie:

Phillis, Charillis, and fweet AMARILLIS.

After a panegyric on the two first, he next comes to AMARILLIS, or ALICE, our lady, the dowager of the abovementioned Ferdinando lord Derby, lately dead.

But AMARILLIS, whether fortunate,

Or elfe vnfortunate, as I aread,

That freed is from Cupids yoke by fate,
Since which, fhe doth new bands aduenture dread:
Shepheard, whatever thou haft heard to be

In this or that prayfd diuerfly apart,

In her thou maist them all affembled fee

And feald vp in the treasure of her heart.

And in the fame poem, he thus apostrophises to her late husband carl Ferdinand, under the name AMYNTAS.* See v. 432.

But if this poem, according to its dedication to Sir Walter Raleigh was printed in 1591, then Amyntas would be Henry lord Compton who died 1589, and AMARILLIS, ANNE his widow. Confequently, ALICE is not AMARILLIS, but another of the three fifters here celebrated. But I date the poem, for unanfwerable reasons, in 1595-6. See LIFE of Spenfer, prefixed to Mr. Ralph Church's edition of the FAERIE QUEENE, Lond. 8vo. 1758. vol. i. pp. xviii. xxx. And compare Upton's edition, vol. i. PREF. p. xi. And his note, iii. vi. 45. Where AMINTAS may mean fome other perfon. See Dugd. BARON. ii. 400. col. 2. 403. col. i. But this doubt does not affect the main purport of my argu

ment.

AMYNTAS

AMYNTAS quite is gone, and lies full lowe,
Having his AMARILLIS left to mone!
Helpe, o ye Shepheards, help ye all in this,
Her loffe is yours, your lofs AMYNTAS is;
AMYNTAS, flowre of Shepheards pride forlorne :
He, whilft he liued, was the noblest swaine
That euer piped on an oaten quill;

Both, did he other which could pipe maintaine ;
And eke could pipe himselfe with paffing skill.

And to the fame lady ALICE, when Lady Strange, before her husband Ferdinand's advancement to the earldom, Spenfer addreffes his TEARES OF THE MUSES, published in 1591, in a Dedication of the highest regard: where he speaks of, " your excellent "beautie, your virtuous behauiour, and your noble match with "that most honourable lorde the verie patterne of right nobilitie." He then acknowledges the particular bounties which he had conferred upon the poets. Thus the Lady who prefided at the representation of Milton's ARCADES, was not only the theme but the patronefs of Spenfer. The peerage-book of this most respectable countess is the poetry of her times.

VOL. I.

P

A

* This motto is delicately chofen, whether we confider it as being spoken by the author himself, or by the editor. If by the former, the meaning, I fuppofe, is this." I have, by giving way to "this publication, let in the breath of public cenfure on these early "bloffoms of my poetry, which were before fecure in the hands of my friends, as in a private inclofure." If we fuppofe it to come from the editor, the application is not very different: only to floribus we must then give an encomiaftic fenfe. The choice of such a motto, fo far from vulgar in itself, and in its application, was worthy Milton. H.

This motto, from Virgil's fecond Eclogue, omitted by Milton himself in the editions 1645, 1673, is brought hither from Lawes's first edition of the MASK, of which more will be faid hereafter.