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And if your ftray-attendance be yet lodg'd
Or shroud within these limits, I fhall know,
Ere morrow wake, or the low-roofted lark
From her thatcht pallat roufe; if otherwife,

315

is, this chalky Boundary of England towards France. A, iv. S. vi. See Furetiere in BORNE, and Du Cange in BORNA, Lat. GLOSS. In Saxon, BURN, or BURNA, is a stream of water, as is BOURN at prefent in fome counties: and as rivers were the moft diftinguishable aboriginal separations or divifions of property, might not the Saxon word give rife to the French BORNE? There is a paffage in the FAERIE QUEENE, where a river, or rather ftrait, is called a BOURNE, ii. vi. 10.

My little boate can fafely paffe this perilous BOURNE. But feemingly alfo with the fenfe of divifion or feparation. For afterwards this Bourne is ftiled a SHARD.

When late he far'd

In Phedria's flitt barck over the perlous SHARD.

Here, indeed, is a metathefis; and the active participle SHARING is confounded with the paffive SHARED. This perilous BOURNE was the Boundary or divifion which parted the main land from Phedria's ifle of blifs, to which it ferved as a defence. In the mean time, SHARD may fignify the gap made by the ford or frith between the two lands. But fuch a fenfe is unwarrantably catachreftical and licentious.

Ibid. — Bofky bourne.] That is woody, or rather bushy. As in the TEMPEST, A. iv. S. i.

My BOSKY acres, and my unfbrubb'd down.

Where unfrubbed is used in contraft. And in Peele's Play of EDWARD THE FIRST, 1593.

In this BOSKY wood

Bury his corpfe.

It is the fame word in FIRST P. HENR. iv. A. v. S. i.

How bloodily the fun begins to peer

Above yon BUSKY hill!

Spenser has anglicised the original French word bofquet, in May,

V. 10.

To gather May BUSKETS and fmelling breere.

If busket be not there the French bouquet, now become English. Chaucer ufes BUSKE, "For there is neither BUSKE nor hay." ROM. R. v. 54. Where hay is hedge row. Again, ibid. v. 120. Of the birds" that on the BUSKIS fingin clere." Boscus is middle Latin for Wood,

I can conduct you, Lady, to a low

But loyal cottage, where you may be safe
Till further quéft. >!

Lad. Shepherd, I take thy word,
And trust thy honeft offer'd courtesy,
Which oft is fooner found in lowly sheds

With Imoaky rafters, than in tap'stry halls

320

In courts of princes, where it firft was nam'd 325 And yet it is most pretended; in a place

321. See Note on the ARCADES, V. 34.

322. Courtesy, &c.] Probably as Milton was fo familiarised to the Italian poets, from Ariosto, OR L. FUR. xiv, 62.Erano pastorali allogiamenti,

Miglior ftanza, e più commoda, che bella.
Quiui il gardian cortefe de gli armenti
Onoro il cavaliero e la donzella,

Tanto che fi chiamar da lui contenti :

Che non par per CITTADI, e per CASTELLA,

Ma par TUGURI ancora e par FENILI

Speffo fi trovan gli uomini gentili.

A ftanza which has received new graces from Mr. Hoole's tranflation. But Milton, as Mr. Bowle had long ago concurred with doctor Newton in obferving, perhaps remembered Harrington's old verfion, however fhort of the original, St. 52.

As courtefie oftimes in fimple bowres

Is found as great as in the ftately towres.

The mode of furnishing halls or state-apartments with tapestry, had not ceased in Milton's time. Palaces, as adorned with tapestry, are here contrafted with lowly fheds, and fmoaky rafters. A modern poet would have written STUCCOED Halls. Shakefpeare fays of lord Salisbury, SECOND P. K. HENRY vi. A. v.

S. iii.

And like RICH HANGINGS in a bomely house,
So was his will in his old feeble body.

Compare Browne BRIT. PAST. B. i. S. ii. p. 6o.

Their homely cotes deck'd trim in low degree,
As now the court with richest tapistry.

Hence Cowley may be illuftrated, Ode to LIBERTY, ft. iii.
To the falfe foreft of a WELL-HUNG room

For honour and preferment come.

That

Lefs warranted than this, or lefs fecure,

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I cannot be, that I should fear to change it.
Eye me, bleft Providence, and fquare my trial
To my proportion'd strength, Shepherd, lead on.

Enter The Two BROTHERS.

E. Br. Unmuffle ye faint ftars, and thou fair moon, That wont'ft to love the traveller's benizon.

That is," a room in the houfes of the great, hung with tapestry, "the fubject of which is fome romantic flory, and the scene a "foreft." And Drayton, who speaks contemptuously of this article of finery. ECL. iv. vol. iv. p. 1400.

The tender graffle was then the safest bed,

The pleasantft fhades efteemde the ftatelyeft halls:
No belly churl with Bacchus banquetted,

"Nor painted rags then covered rotten walls."

And Shakespeare in CYMBELINE, where Imogen says, A. iii. S. iv.

Poor I am ftale, a garment out of fashion ;

And, for I am richer than to HANG BY THE WALLS,
I must be ript.

And B. and Fletcher, SEA VOYAGE, A. i. S. i. vol. ix. p. 99. You must not look for down-beds here, nor HANGINGS. There is another reference to tapestry in our author, which is not immediately felt or understood by many of the readers of the prefent age. ELEG. vi. 39.

Auditurque chelys SUSPENSA TAPETIA circum,

Virgineos tremula quæ regat arte pedes.

Mr. Steevens fuggefts, that Drayton, here cited, is not speaking contemptuously of tapestry, but of what Falftaffe calls," the "German-hunting in Waterwork," i. e. canvafs coarsely painted over with water-colours: and that this furniture was imported largely from Holland. See Holinsh. Chron. p. 840. &c.

331. Unmuffle ye faint ftars, and thou fair moon.] MUFFLE was not fo low a word as at prefent. Drayton, HEROIC EPIST. vol. i. p. 251. Of night.

And in thick vapours MUFFLE up the world.

Again, POLYOLB, S. xxii. vol. iii. p. 1093. Of the fun.

But fuddenly the clouds which on the winds do fly,
Do MUFFLE him againe with them.-

1

And

Stoop thy pale visage through an amber cloud,
And difinherit Chaos, that reigns here

In double night of darkness and of shades;
Or if your influence be quite damm'd up
With black ufurping mists, some gentle taper,
Though a rush-candle, from the wicker-hole

Of fome clay habitation, visit us

335

With thy long-levell'd rule of streaming light; 340 And thou shalt be our ftar of Arcady,

Or Tyrian Cynofure.

El. Br. Or if our eyes

Be barr'd that happiness, might we but hear,

1

And S. xii. p. 891. "MUFFLED them in clowds." And in
Browne's SHEPHERD'S PIPE, edit. 1614. Signat. C. 4.

If it chanc'd night's fable throwds
MUFFLED Cynthia up in clowds.

And in the fame author's INNER TEMPLE MASQUE, p. 129. edit.
Davies, 1772. Of Circe.

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She that can pull the pale moone from her fpheare,
And at midday, the world's all-glorious eye,

MUFFLE the world in long obscuritie.

And Sylvefter, immediately in the fenfe before us, DU BART. p. 198. fol. edit. 1621. ut fupr.

While nights black MUFFLER boadeth up the skies.

333. Stoop thy pale visage through an amber cloud.] Mr. Bowle, together with a paffage from the FAERIE QUEENE, first cited by Richardfon, refers to B. and Fletcher's MAID'S TRAGEDY, in the Mafque, A. i. S. i. vol. i. p. 12.

Bright Cinthia, hear my voice!

Appear, no longer thy pale vifage shroud,

But ftrike thy filver horns quite through a cloud.

534. Difinherit Chaos.-] This expreffion fhould be animadverted upon, as hyperbolical and bombast, and akin to that in SCRIBLERUS, "Mow my beard." Dr. J. WARTON. 335. See Note on PAR. REG. i. 500.

340.-Long-levell'd rule of ftreaming light.] : A ray of the fun, in the fame manner, is called, is KANON ZADHE, in the IKE

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345

350

The folded flocks penn'd in their watled cotes,
Or found of paft'ral reed with oaten ftops,
Or whistle from the lodge, or village cock
Count the night watches to his feathery dames,
'Twould be fome folace yet, fome little chearing
In this close dungeon of innumerous boughs.
But O that hapless virgin, our lost Sister,
Where may she wander now, whither betake her
From the chill dew, among rude burs and thistles?
Perhaps fome cold bank is her bolster now,
Or 'gainst the rugged bark of fome broad elm
Leans her unpillow'd head, fraught with fad fears.
What, if in wild amazement, and affright?
Or, while we speak, within the direful grasp
Of favage hunger, or of favage heat?
El. Br. Peace, Brother, be not over-exquifite
To caft the fashion of uncertain evils;

360

TIAEE of Euripides, v. 650. Which his late editor [Markland] had not imagination enough to conceive the meaning of. See Note on the place, edit. Lond. 1763, 4to. H.

The fun is faid to "LEVEL his evening rays," PARAD. L. iv. 543.

339.

Vifit us

With thy long-levell'd rule of ftreaming light.] See PARAD. L. iii. 23. And ii. 398.

-Not UNVISITED of heaven's fair LIGHT.

S. Luke i. 78. "The DAY-SPRING from on high hath viSITED us."

66

344.Watled cotes.] "Pen their flocks at eve in hurdled "cotes." PARAD. L. iv. 186.

PA

349. -Innumerous boughs.] Innumerous is uncommon. RAD. L. vii. 455. INNUMEROUS living creatures." The expreffion innumerous boughs has been adopted into Pope's Odyssey. 359. Be not over exquifite, &c.] EXQUISITE was not now uncommon in its more original fignification. B. and Fletcher, LITTLE FR. LAW. A. v. S. i. vol. iv. p. 253.

VOL. I.

They're EXQUISITE in mischief.
A a

For

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