And like a quiver'd Nymph with arrows keen With her, her fifter went, a warlike maid, 425 421. Is clad in complete fteele.] This phrafe is fuppofed to be borrowed from HAMLET. Critics muft fhew their reading, in quoting books: but I rather think it was a common expreffion for armed from head to foot." It occurs in Dekker's VNTRUSSING OF THE HUMOUROUS POET, Lond. for E. White, 1602. 4to. Signat. G. -Firft to arme our wittes With COMPLEAT STEELE of Iudgement, and our tongues This play was acted by the lord Chamberlain's fervants, and the choir-boys of faint Paul's, in 160z. HAMLET appeared at least before 1598. Again, in a play, THE WEAKEST GOETH TO THE WALL, 1618. 4to. Signat. H. At his first comming, arm'd in cOMPLETE STEELE The first edition of this play in 1600. 4to. Hence an expreffion in our author's APOLOGY, which also confirms what is here faid, §. i. "Zeal, whofe fubftance is ethereal, arming in COMPLEAT diamond, afcends his fiery chariot, &c." PR. W. i. 114. 66 423. May trace huge forefts, &c.] Shakespeare's Oberon, as Mr. Bowle obferves, would breed his child-knight to " TRACE the fo "refts wild." MIDS. N. DR. A. ii. S. iii. In Jonfon's MASQUES, a Fairy fays, vol. v. 206. Ibid. Only We are free to TRACE -Huge forefts, and unharbour'd heaths, Infamous hills, and fandy perilous wilas, &c.] Perhaps there is more merit-in Horace's particularifations, OD. xxii. 5. Sive per Syrtes iter æftuofas, Sive facturus per inhofpitalem Caucafum, &c.. 425. Where through the facred rays of chastity, No favage fierce, bandite, or mountaneer, No favage fierce, bandite, or mountaneer, Yea there, where very defolation dwells, By grots, and caverns fhagg'd with horrid fhades, 427. Will dare to foil her virgin purity.] So Fletcher, FAITH. SHEPH. A. i. S. i. vol. iii. p. 109. A Satyre kneels to a virginshepherdess in a forest. 426. --Why should this rough thing, who never knew That break their confines: then, ftrong Chastity, &c. Bandite, or mount aneer.] A Mountaneer feems to have conveyed the idea of fomething very favage and ferocious. In the TEMPEST, A. iii. S. iii. Who would believe that there were MOUNTAINEERS In CYMBELINE, A. iv. S. ii. Yield, ruftic MOUNTAINEER. Again, ibid. Who call'd me traitor, MOUNTAINEER. Again, A. iv. S. ii. That here by MOUNTAINEER lies flain. In Drayton, Mus. ELYS. vol. iv. p. 1454. This Cleon was a MOUNTAINEER, And of the wilder kind. 428 Where very defolation dwells.] "The feat of defolation." PARAD. L. i. 181. 429. By grots, and caverns fhagg'd mith horrid fhades.] Pope appears to have adverted to this line, ELOIS. ABEL. V. 20. Ye grots, and caverns, fhagg'd with horrid thorn. Again, in the fame poem, v. 24. I have not yet forgot myself to stone. Almost as evidently from our author's IL PENS. V. 42. Forget thyself to marble. Pope again, ibid. v. 244. And low-brow'd rocks hang nodding o'er the deeps. From She may pass on with unblench'd majesty, From IL PENS. V. 244. There under ebon fhades, and low-brow'd rocks. And in the MESSIAH, V. 6. —Touch'd Ifaiah's hallow'd lips with fire. So in the ODE, NATIV. V. 28. -Touch'd with hallow'd fire. 430 See fupr. at v. 26. 380. And infr. at v. 861. And ESSAY ON POPE, p. 307. §. vi. edit. z. This is the firft instance of any degree even of the flightest attention being paid to Milton's fmaller poems by a writer of note fince their first publication. Milton was never mentioned or acknowledged as an English poet till after the appearance of PARADISE LOST and long after that time, these pieces were totally forgotten and overlooked. It is ftrange that Pope, by no means of a congenial fpirit, fhould be the first who copied COMUS or IL PENSEROSO. But Pope was a gleaner of the old English poets; and he was here pilfering from obfolete English poetry, without the leaft fear or danger of being detected. 430. With unblench'd majesty.] Unblinded, unconfounded. See Steevens's Note on BLENCH, in HAMLET, at the close of the second Act. And Upton's GLOSS. Spenfer, V. BLEND. And Tyrwhitt's GLOSS. Ch. V. BLENT. In B. and Fletcher's PIL-^ GRIM, A. iv. S. iii. vol. v. p. 516. - -Men that will not totter Nor BLENCн much at a bullet. 432. Some fay, no evil thing that walks by night, Hath burtful pow'r o'er true virginity.] Milton had Shake speare in his head, HAMLET, A. i. S. i. Some SAY, that ever 'gainst that season comes Wherein our Saviour's birth is celebrated, &c. But then they SAY no SPIRIT WALKS abroad, &c. But the imitation is more immediately from the fpeech of the virgin-fhepherdefs in Fletcher, juft quoted. Ibid. p. 108. Yet I have heard, my mother told it me, And now I do believe it; if I keep VOL. I. My In fog, or fire, by lake, or moorish fen, Blue meager hag, or stubborn unlaid ghost, My virgin-flower uncropt, pure, chaste, and fair; Through mire and standing pools to find my ruin, &c. Another fuperftition is ushered in with the fame form, in PARAD. L. B. x. 575. Yearly injoin'd, SOME SAY, to undergo This annual humbling, certain number'd days. Where, doctor Newton fays, "I know not, nor can recollect, "" from what author or what tradition Milton borrowed this no"tion." But doctor Warburton faw, it was from old romances. And the fame form occurs in the defcription of the physical effects of Adam's fall. Ibid. B. x. 668. SOME SAY, he bid his angels turn ascanse The poles of earth twice ten degrees, &c. 434. Blue meager hag, &c.] Perhaps from Shakespeare's Blue-eyed hag." TEMP. A. i. S. ii. Ibid. Stubborn unlaid ghost, That breaks his magic chains at Curfew time.] An UNLAID GHOST was among the moft vexatious plagues of the world of fpirits. It is one of the evils deprecated at Fidele's grave, in CYMBELINE, A. iv. S. ii. No exorcifer harm thee, Nor no witchcraft charm thee, GHOST UNLAID forbear thee! The metaphorical expreffion is beautiful, of breaking his magic chains, for being fuffered to wander abroad." And here too the fuperftition is from Shakespeare, K. LEAR, A. ii. S. iv. "This "is the foul Flibertigibbet: he begins at CURFEW, and walks "till the first cock." Compare also Cartwright, in his play of the ORDINARY, where Moth the antiquary fings an old fong, A. ii. S. i, p. 36. edit. 1651. He wishes, that the house may remain free from wicked fpirits, From Curfew time Compare Hath hurtful pow'r o'er true virginity. Do ye believe me yet, or fhall I call Antiquity from the old schools of Greece Compare Note on IL PENS. V. 83. Profpero, in the TEMPEST, invokes thofe elves, among others, -That rejoyce To hear the folemn curfew. A. v. S. i. That is, They rejoice at the found of the Curfew, because at the clofe of day announced by the Curfew, they are permitted to leave their feveral confinements, and to be at large till cock-crowing. MACBETH, A, ii. S. iii. Good things of day begin to droop and drowfe, While night's BLACK AGENTS to their prey do roufe. 436. Swart faery of the mine.] In the Gothic fyftem of pneumatology, mines were supposed to be inhabited by various forts of fpirits. See Olaus Magnus's Chapter de METALLICIS DEMONIBUS, HIST. GENT. SEPTENTRIONAL. vi. x. In an old tranflation of Lavaterus De Spectris et Lemuribus, is the following paffage. "Pioners or diggers for metall do affirme, that in many "mines there appeare ftraunge Shapes and Spirites, who are apparelled like vnto the laborers in the pit. These wander vp and "downe in caues and underminings, and feeme to befturre them"felves in all kinde of labor; as, to digge after the veine, to car"rie together the oare, to put into basketts, and to turne the winding wheele to drawe it vp, when in very deed they do nothinge leffe, &c.". "Of GHOSTES and SPIRITES walking "by night, &c." Lond. 1572. Bl. Lett. ch. xvi. p. 73. And hence we see why Milton gives this fpecies of Fairy a fwarthy or dark complexion. Georgius Agricola, in his tract De SUBTERRANEIS ANIMANTIBUS, relates among other wonders of the fame fort, that these Spirits fometimes affume the moft terrible shapes; and thut one of them, in a cave or pit in Germany, killed twelve miners with his peftilential breath. Ad calc. De RE METALL. P. 538. Bafil. 1621. fol. Drayton personifies the Peak in Derbyfhire, which he makes a witch fkilful in metallurgy. POLYOLB. S. xxvi. vol. iii. p. 1176. cr The Sprites that haunt the mines fhe could correct and tame, And bind them as fhe lift in Saturne's dreaded name. Compare Heywood's Hierarchie of Angels, B. ix. p. 568. edit. 1635. fol. A correfpondent informs me, This paffage of G. Agricola is quoted by Hales of Eton, in a Sermon on Roм. xiv. 1. And by bishop Taylor, in his fecond Sermon on TIT. ii. 7. By both, |