Are but as flavish officers of vengeance, Such noise as I can make to be heard fartheft SWE SONG. 220 225 WEET Echo, sweetest nymph, that liv'ft unseen By flow Meander's margent green, 221. Was I deceiv'd, or did a fable cloud I did not err, there does a fable cloud 131 Turn forth her filver lining on the night.] Thefe lines are turned like that verfe of Ovid, FAST. L. v. 545. Fallor? An arma fonant? Non fallimur: arma fonabant. H. The repetition, arifing from the conviction and confidence of an unaccufing conscience, is inimitably beautiful. See Note on EL. v. 5. When all fuccour feems to be loft, heaven unexpectedly prefents the filver lining of a fable cloud to the virtuous. 226. I cannot hollow to my Brothers, &c.] So the Jaylor's Daughter in B. and Fletcher, benighted alfo and alone in a wood, whofe character affords one of the fineft female mad fcenes in our language. Two NOBLE KINSM. A. iii, S. ij. vol. x. p. 55. She is in fearch of Palamon. I cannot hallow, &c. -I have heard Strange howls this live long night, &c. 231. Within thy aery fhell.] The true reading is certainly fhell; meaning, as doctor Warburton fays, the Horizon, which, And in the violet-embroider'd vale, Where the love-lorn nightingale Nightly to thee her fad fong mourneth well; 235 in another place he calls the hollow ROUND of Cynthia's feat, ODE NATIV. ft. x. Nature that heard fuch found Beneath the hollow round Of Cynthia's feat the aery region thrilling. That is, "fuch found, piercing the aery region beneath the HOLLOW CIRCUMFERENCE of the heavens.' H. SHELL is vault. From TESTU DO. It is the fame vault which is intended in thefe lines on the ODE OF THE NATIVITY, ft.x. Beneath the HOLLOW ROUND Of Cynthia's feat the aery region thrilling. 233. Violet-embroider'd vale.] This is a beautiful compound epithet, and the combination of the two words that compofe it, natural and easy. Our poet has, in these his early poems, coined many others, equally happy and fignificant: fuch as, love-darting eyes, amber-dropping, flowery -kirtled, low-roofted, fnaky-headed, fiery-wheeled, white-handed, fin-worn, home-felt, ruby-fringed, pure-ey'd, tinfel-flipper'd. Dr. J. WARTON. See Peck for more inftances, in MEM. Milt. p. 117. And compare PARAD. L. B. iv. 700. Under foot the VIOLET, Crocus, and hyacinth, with rich inlay And Browne's SHEPH. PIPE, EGL. iv. Signat. D. 4. edit. 1614. EMBROIDER fhould the ground, &c. The allufion is the fame in LYCIDAS, V. 148. And every flower that fad EMBROIDERY wears. 234. Where the love-lorn nightingale.] Deprived of her mate. AS LASS-LORN in the TEMPEST, A. iv. S. ii. 236. Canft thou not tell me of a gentle pair That likeft thy Narciffus are?] So Fletcher, FAITH. SHEP. A. i. S. i. p. 117. A GENTLE PAIR Have promis'd equal love. Other petty borrowings of the fame kind might be pointed out, which prove Milton's intimate familiarity with Fletcher's play. That That likeft thy Narciffus are? O, if thou have Hid them in fome flow'ry cave, Tell me but where, 240 Sweet queen of parly, daughter of the sphere! So may'st thou be translated to the skies, And give refounding grace to all heav'n's harmonies. 237.-Likeft.-] Moft, or very like. "LIKEST to thee in fhape, &c." PARAD. L. ii. 756. "LIKEST heaven.” iii. 572. "LIKEST gods they feem'd." vi. 301. "To Pales, or Pomona, LIKEST fhe feem'd." ix. 394. See fupr. Note at v. 192. 238. O, if thou have 66 Hid them in fome flow'ry cave.] Here is a feeming inaccuracy for the fake of the rhyme. But the fenfe being hypothethetical and contingent, we will fuppofe an elleipfis of Shouldeft before have. A verfe in Saint John affords an appofite illuftration. "If thou HAVE born him hence, tell me where thou haft "laid him." xx. 15. We find another instance below, v. 887. And bridle in thy headlong wave, Till thou our fummons anfwer'd HAVE. In the mean time it must be allowed, that thou and you are abfolutely fynonimous. And fee bishop Lowth's GRAMMAR, PP. 67. 68. edit. 1775. Mr. Steevens fuggests, that part of the Address to the Sun which Southerne has put into the mouth of Oroonoko, is evidently copied from this paffage. Or if thy fifter goddess has prefer'd Her beauty to the skies to to be a star, 243. And give refounding grace to all heav'n's harmonies.} That is, "The grace of their being accompanied with an echo." Lawes, in fetting this Song, has thought fit to mar the found, fense, and elegance, of a most beautiful line, by making a pleafant profeffional alteration. And hold a cOUNTERPOINT to all heaven's harmonies. The goddess Echo was of peculiar fervice in the machinery of a Mafk, and therefore often introduced. Milton has here used her much more rationally than most of his brother mask-writers. She is invoked in a fong, but not without the usual tricks of furprifing the audience by ftrange and unexpected repetitions of found, in Browne's INNER TEMPLE MASQUE, to which I have fuppofed our author might have had an eye, p. 136. She often appears in Jonfan's mafks. This frequent introduction, however, of Echo in the masks of his time, seems to be ridiculed even by Jonfon Enter Comus. Com. Can any mortal mixture of earth's mold 245 Jonfon himself in CYNTHIA'S REVELLS, A. i. S. i. Mer cury invokes Echo, and wishes that she would falute him with her repercuffive voice, that he may know with certainty in what caverne of the earth her ayrie spirit is contained. "How or where "I may direct my fpeech, that thou maist heare." When she speaks, Mercury wondering that she is so near at hand, proceeds with great folemnity. Knowe, gentle foule then, I am fent from Ioue ; Commands that now, after three thousand yeeres He then, in burlefque of the fort of machinery ufual on the oc cafion, prepares to strike the obfequious earth thrice with his winged rod, to give thee way. And as a Song was always the fure confequence of Echo being raifed, a burlefque fong follows, which Mercury thus introduces. Begin, and more to grace thy cunning voice, The humorous aire fhall mixe her folemne tunes This play was first acted in 1600. 244. Can any mortal mixture of earth's mold Breathe fuch divine inchanting ravifhment?] This was plainly perfonal. Here the poet availed himself of an opportu hity of paying a juft compliment to the voice and skill of a real fongftrefs. Just as the two boys are complimented for their beauty and elegance of figure. And afterwards, the ftrains that "might "create a foul under the ribs of death," are brought home, and found to be the voice "of my moft honour'd Lady." v. 564. Where the real and affumed characters of the speaker are blended. 246. Sure fomething holy lodges in that breaft, And with thefe raptures moves the vocal air "Something Holy How fweetly did they flote upon the wings Of darkness till it fmil'd! I have oft heard 66 Holy inhabiting that breaft, courts the air the vehicle of found, to give it utterance, to discover the latent fource of its refi"dence, by means of these ravishing notes." 249. How fweetly did they flote. "tures." The effect for the cause. -] That is, My mother Circe, with the Sirens three, Culling their potent herbs and baleful drugs, "These rap Who, as they fung, would take the prifon'd foul, &c.] Originally from Ovid, METAM. xiv. 264. Of Circe. Nereides, Nymphæque fimul, quæ vellera motis See alfo ibid. v. zz. 34. Milton calls the Naiades, he fhould have faid Nereides, flowerykirtled, because they were employed in collecting flowers. But William Browne, the paftoral writer, had juft before preceded our author in this imitation from Ovid, in his INNER TEMPLE MASQUE On the ftory of Circe, p. 143. Call to a dance the fair Nereides, With other Nymphs, which do in every creeke, In woods, on plains, on mountains, SIMPLES feeke, Here, in SIMPLES, we have our author's " potent herbs and drugs." But fee Note on v. 50. It is remarkable, that Milton has intermixed the Sirens with Circe's Nymphs. Circe indeed is a fongstress in the Odyffey: but fhe has nothing to do with the Sirens. Perhaps Milton had this alfo from Browne's Mafque, where Circe uses the mufic of the Sirens in the process of her incantation. p. 134. Then, Sirens, quickly wend me to the bowre, |