COM U S. Shall I inform my unacquainted feet All the young men and maids of many a cote, 180 Selden mentions the " yearlie wAS-HAILE in the country, on the vigil of the new year." NOTES on POLYOL B. S. ix. vol. iii. p. 838. Compare LOVE'S LAB. LOST, A. v. S. ii. He is wit's pedlar, and retails his wares At wakes, and wASSELS, meetings, markets, fairs. And Jonfon, of a rural feast in the Hall of fir R. Wroth. FOREST, ii. iii. The iolly WASSAL walks the often round. In MACBETH, "Wine and waffel," mean, in general terms, feasting and drunkenness. A. i. S. vii. Jonfon perfonifies WASSEL, "her page bearing a brown bowl." MASQUES, vol. vi. 3. In ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA, we have "lafcivious WASSELS." See alfo HAMLET, A. i. S. vii. In B. and Fletcher's BEGGAR'S BUSH, it is proposed to make a WASSEL of "ftrong lufty London "Beer." A. iv. S. iv. vol. ii. p. 414. In the Song cited in Laneham's NARRATIVE, 1575, "For wine and waftell he had at will," we are not to understand waffail, but WASTEL-BREAD, Waftellum, a fpecies of fine or white bread, mentioned in Chaucer. In the text, fill'd infolence, is fimilar to flown with infolence and wine, in PARAD. L. i. 502. Read fwqln. 66 180. Shall I inform my unacquainted feet In the blind mazes of this tangled wood?] The expreffion unacquainted feet is a little hard. H. In the FAITHFUL SHEPHERDESS, Amoret wanders through a wild wood in the night, but under different circumstances, yet not without fome apprehenfions of danger. We have a parallel expreffion in SAMs. Agon. v. 335. They feek the dark, the bushy, i. 13. So "6 TANGLING bushes "had perplex'd." PARAD. L. iv. 176. 184. Under the fpeading favour of these pines.] This is like Virgil's "HOSPITIIS teneat FRONDENTIBUS arbos." GEORG. iv. 24. An inversion of the same sort occurs in Cicero, in a Latin verVOL. I. X fion Stept, as they faid, to the next thicket fide They left me then, when the gray-hooded Even, 185 Rofe from the hindmoft wheels of Phoebus' wain. 190 fion from Sophocles's TRACHINIÆ, of the Shirt of Neffus. Tusc. DISP. ii. 8. Ipfe inligatus PESTE interimor TEXTILI. 185. To bring me berries, or fuch cooling fruit As the kind hofpitable woods provide.] So Fletcher, FAITH. SHEP. A. i. S. i. vol. iii. p. 105. Where, fays the virgin-fhepherdefs Clorin, My meat shall be what these wild woods afford, BERRIES, and chefnuts, plantanes on whose cheeks Pull'd from the fair head of the ftrait-grown-pine. By laying the scene of his Mask in a wild foreft, Milton secured to himself a perpetual fund of picturesque description, which, refulting from fituation, was always at hand. He was not obliged to go out of his way for this ftriking embellishment: it was fuggefted of neceffity by prefent circumftances. The fame happy choice of fcene fupplied Sophocles in PHILOCTETES, Shakespeare in AS YOU LIKE IT, and Fletcher in the FAITHFUL SHEPHERDESS, with frequent and even unavoidable opportunities of rural delineation, and that of the most romantic kind. But Milton has additional advantages: his foreft is not only the refidence of a magician, but is exhibited under the gloom of midnight. Fletcher, however, to whom Milton is confeffedly indebted, avails himself of the latter circumstance. 189. A fad votarift, &c.] See Note on PAR. REG. iv. 426. A votarift is one who had made a religious vow, here perhaps for a pilgrimage, being in palmer's weeds. Leland fays, that Ela countess of Warwick was buried in Ofeney abbey, her image in "the habite of a vowes," that is, a Nun. ITIN. vol. ii. fol. 19. VOTARIST But where they are, and why they came not back, To the misled and lonely traveller? This is the place, as well as I may guess, 200 VOTARIST Occurs in its more general and modern acceptation, in his treatife of REFORMATION. "To the VOTARISTS of antiquity I fhall think to have fully answered." PR. W. i. 6. 189. Palmer's weed.] Guy, difguised like a pilgrim, when about to engage Colbrond the giant, "Puts off his PALMER'S WEED, &c." Drayton, POLYOL B. S. xii. vol. iii. p. 898. 192. 'Tis likelieft.] Milton is fond of this fuperlative. LIKELIEST was. 5 PARAD. L. vi. 688. "Where LIKELIEST “he might find," ix. 414. "Where he may LIKELIEST find." ii. 525. "And here art LIKELIEST like honour to obtain." iii: 659. See below, at v. 237. -O thievifh Night.] Ph. Fletcher's PISC. ECL. p. 34. -The THIEVISH night Steals on the world, and robs our eyes of light. Euripides has, "xλeπlãv yàg ʼn vù§.” IPHIGEN. TAUR. V. 1033, But quite under another fenfe. As alfo Homer, IL. iii. 11. In the prefent age, in which almoft every common writer avoids palpable abfurdities, at leaft monftrous and unnatural conceits, would Milton have introduced this paffage, where THIEVISH Night is fuppofed, for fome felonious purpose, to fhut up the stars in her dark lantern? Certainly not. But in the prefent age, correct and rational as it is, had COMUS been written, we fhould not perhaps have had fome of the greatest beauties of its wild and ro mantic imagary. 203. See Note on SAMS. AGON. v. 866. X 2 Yet Yet nought but fingle darkness do I find. Of calling fhapes, and beck'ning fhadows dire, 205. -A thousand fantafies 205 per Begin to throng into my memory, &c.] Milton had here haps a remembrance of Shakespeare, KING JOHN, A. v. S. vij. With many LEGIONS of ftrange FANTASIES, Which in their THRONG and press to that last hold 207. Of calling fhapes, and beck'ning fhadows dire, And aery tongues, that fyllable mens names On fands, and fhores, and defert wilderneffes.] I remember thefe fuperftitions, which are here finely applied, in the antient Voyages of Marco Paolo the Venetian. He is speaking of the vast and perilous defert of Lop in Afia. "Cernuntur et audiuntur in eo, “interdiu, et sÆPIUS NOCTU, dæmonum variæ illufiones. Unde "viatoribus fumme cavendum eft, ne multum ab invicem feipfos "diffocient, aut aliquis à tergo fefe diutius impediat. Alioquin, quamprimum propter montes et calles quifpiam comitum fuorum "afpectum perdiderit, non facile ad eos perveniet: nam audiuntur "ibi voces dæmonum qui folitarie incedentes PROPRIIS appel"lant NOMINIBUS, VOCES FINGENTES illorum quos comitari se putant, ut a recto itinere abductos in perniciem deducant. Audiuntur interdum in aere concentus muficorum inftrumentorum, "&c." De REGIONIB. ORIENTAL. L. i. c. xliv. But there is a mixture from Fletcher's FAITHFUL SHEPHERDESS, A. i. S. i. p. 108. The fhepherdess mentions, among other nocturnal terrours in a wood, Or voices calling me in dead of night. These fancies, from Marco Paolo, are adopted in Heylin's COSMOGRAPHIE, I am not fure if in any of the three editions printed before Coмus appeared. See Lib. iii. p. 201. edit. 1652. fol. From Heylin, however, Milton feems to have gleaned his intelli, gence in the following lines, PARAD. L. iii. 437. 46 -The barren plains Of Sericana, where Chineses drive With fails and wind their cany waggons light. Heylin fays, the fouthern part of China is "fo plain and level, " and fo unfwelled with hills at all, that they have carts and "coaches driven with fails, &c." Lib. iii. p. 208. For Sericana, or Serica, fee ibid. p. 199. See alfo Note on PARAD., REG, 212.252: Sylvefter, And aery tongues, that fyllable mens names. I fee ye vifibly, and now believe 215 That he, the Supreme Good, t'whom all things ill ́Sylvester, in DU BARTAS, has alfo the tradition in the text, edit. fol. ut fupr. p. 274.. And round about the defart Lop, where oft By strange phantafmas passengers are scoft. "Yet 208. Syllable mens names.] Pronounce diftinctly. As in Ph. Fletcher's POET. Misc. ad calc. PURPL. ISL. p. 85. SYLLABLED in flesh-spell'd characters." 213. -White-handed Hope, Thou hovering angel girt with golden wings.] Thus in Shakespear's LOVERS COMPLAINT, Malone's SUPPL. i. p.759. Which like a cherubim above them HOVER'D. But HOVERING is here applied with peculiar propriety to the angel Hope. In fight, on the wing; and if not approaching, yet not flying away. Still appearing. Contemplation foars on GOLDEN WING, IL PENS. v. 52. Mr. Bowle directs us to Ariofto, OR L. FUR. C. xiv. 80. - Moffe Con maggior fretta le DORATE PENNE. And we have " that GOLDEN-WINGED hoft," in the ODE ON THE DEATH OF AN INFANT, ft. ix. 215. And thou unblemish'd form of Chastity, &c.] In the fame ftrain, Fletcher's SHEPHERDESS in the foliloquy just cited, ibid. p. 109. -Then, ftrongest Chastity, Be thou my strongest guard, for here I'll dweil, 215.-Unblemish'd form of Chastity.] May, of Rofamond in her virgin ftate, HENR. SEC. Lib. v. edit. Lond. 1633. 12mo, When that unblemish'd forme, so much admir'd, &c., Are |