Poems Upon Several Occasions

Till thou our fummons anfwer'd have.

Liften and fave.

SABRINA rifes, attended by water-nymphs, and fings.

By the ruthy-fringed bank,

Where

grows

the willow and the ofier dank,

My fliding chariot stays,

Thick fet with agat, and the azurn sheen

899

889. Liften and fave.] Thus Amarillis, in the FAITHFUL SHEPHERDESS, invokes the priest of Pan to protect her from the Sullen Shepherd, A. v. S. i. p. 184.

Hear me, and fave from endless infamy

My yet unblafted flower, virginity:

By all the garlands that have crown'd that head,
By thy chafte office, &c.

890. By the rushy-fringed bank.] See PARAD. L. iv. 262. "The FRINGED BANK with myrtle crown'd." So Browne, BRIT. PAST. B. ii. S. v. p. 122.

To tread the FRING'D banks of an amorous flood.

Again, B. i. S. iv. p. 68.

The tuftes which FRING'D the fhoare about.

And Drayton, POLYOLB. S. ii. vol. ii. p. 685.

Upon whose moisted skirts with sea-weed FRING'D about.

And Carew, Milton's contemporary, PoEмs, p. 149. edit. 1651. With various trees we FRINGE the rivers brinke.

I would read RUSH-YFRINGED. In Fletcher, we have rushy "banke." ubi fupr. p. 121.

891. Where grows the willow and the ofier dank.] Milton's perpetual and palpable imitations of the FAITHFUL SHEPHER DESS will not permit us to doubt, that he had a retrospect to the rifing of the river god, who alfo affords other correspondencies, in that drama. A. iii. S. i. p. 153.

And 'twixt two banks with ofier fet

That only profper in the wet,
Through the meadows do I glide, &c.

892. My fliding chariot stays ;

Thick jet with agat, and the azurn sheen,
VOL. I.

H h

895

Of turkis blue, and emrald green,
That in the channel strays;
Whilft from off the waters fleet,
Thus I fet my printless feet
O'er the cowflip's velvet head,

That bends not as I tread;
Gentle Swain, at thy request
I am here.

Sp. Goddess dear,

Of turkis blue, and emrald green,

900

That in the channel ftrays.] Milton perhaps more immediately borrowed the idea of giving Sabrina a rich chariot, from Drayton's POLYOLBION, so often quoted: and more especially as he discovers other references to Drayton's Sabrina. And the celebrity of Drayton's poem at that time better authorifed fuch a fiction. POLYOLB. S. v. vol. ii. p. 752.

Now Sabrine, as a queen miraculously fair,

Is abfolutely plac'd in her imperial Chair

Of crystal richly wrought, that gloriously did shine, &c. Then comes a wasteful luxuriance of fancy. It is embossed with the figures of all the Nymphs that had been wooed by Neptune, all his numerous progeny, all the nations over which he had ruled, and the forms of all the fish in the ocean. Milton is more temperate. But he rather unfuitably supposes all the gems, with which he decorates her car, to be found in the bottom of her stream.

As in Milton, Sabrina is raised to perform an office of folemnity, fo in Drayton fhe appears in a fort of judicial capacity, to decide fome of the claims and privileges of the river Lundy, which the does in a long and learned fpeech. See alfo S. viii. vol. iii. p. 795. Where again the turns pedant, and gives a laboured hiftory of the antient British kings. In Milton, the rifes " attended by waternymphs," and in Drayton her car is furrounded by a groupe of the deities of her neighbouring rivers.

896. Whilft from off the waters fleet,

Thus I fet my printless feet.] So Profpero to his elves, but in a style of much higher and wilder fiction. TEMP. A. v. S. i. ye that on the fands with PRINTLESS FOOT

And

Do chase the ebbing Neptune, and do fly him
When he comes back.-

898. O'er the cowflip's velvet head.] See ENGLANDS HELICON, ed. 1614. Signat. F. 4. By W.H.

910. Brightest Lady, look on me.] In the manufcript, Virtuous. But BRIGHTEST is an epithet thus applied in the FAITHFUL SHEPHERDESS.

912. Drops that from my fountain pure

I have kept of precious cure.] Calton proposed to read ure, that is, ufe. The word, it must be owned, was not uncommon. Thus in Browne's BRIT. PAST. B. i. S. v. p. 88.

The ftairs of rugged ftone feldom in VRE.

Again, ibid. p. 89.

More riche array'd

In earth's delight than thought could put in VRE.

In Sackville's GORDOBUCKE, A. i. S. v.

Be brought in VRE of fkillfull ftayedness.

See more proofs in OBSERVAT. on Spenfer's F. Q. ii. 241. But the rhymes of many couplets in the FAITHFUL SHEPHERDESS, relating to the fame bufinefs, fhew that CURE was Milton's word. S. ult. p. 191.

That may raise thee, and recure

All that in thee was impure.

Again, ibid. p. 187.

Take example of this maid,
Who is heal'd ere you be pure,
So hard it is lewd lust to cure.

Hh 2

Again,

Thefe drops are fprinkled thrice. So Michael purging Adam's eye, PARAD. L. B. xi. 416.

And from the well of life THREE DROPS instill'd.

66 He

All this ceremony, if we look higher, is from the ancient practice of luftration by drops of water. Virg. Æn. vi. 230. "thrice moistened his companions with pure water,"

Spargens RORE levi.→→→→→→

And Ovid, METAM. iv. 479.

RORATIS luftravit aquis Thaumantias Iris.

The water of the river Choafpes was highly esteemed for lustration, See Note on PAR. REG. iii. 288.

914. Thrice upon thy finger's tip, &c.] Compare Shakespeare, MID. N. DR. A. ii. S. vi.

I throw

All the power this charm doth owe, &c.'

But Milton, in most of the circumftances of diffolving this charm, is apparently to be traced in the following paffages of the FAITHFUL SHEPHERDESS, which are thrown together at one view from various parts of the play. Amarillis fays of a facred fountain, A. i. S.i. p. 135.

This holy well, my grandame that is dead,

Right wife in charms, hath often to me faid,
Hath power to change the form of any creature,
Being thrice dipt o'er the head, &c.-

-Cafting them thrice asleep,

Before I trusted them into this deep.

And the Old Shepherd fays, A. i. S. i. p. 109.

-As the priest

With powerful hand shall sprinkle on your brows

Next this marble venom'd feat,

Smear'd with gums of glutenous heat,

I touch with chafte palms moift and cold:
Now the spell hath loft his hold;

His pure and holy water, ye may be

From all hot flames of luft and loose thoughts free,

The river god rifing, with Amoret in his arms, asleep, wounded, and inchanted, thus fpeaks. A. iii. S. i. p. 150. 151.

If thou be'ft a virgin pure

I can give a present cure:
Take a drop into thy wound,
From my watery locks, more round
Than orient pearl, and far more pure
Than unchafte flesh may endure.-
From my banks I pluck this flower
With holy hand, whofe virtuous power
Is at once to heal and draw.
The blood returns. I never faw

A fairer mortal. Now doth break

Her deadly flumber. Virgin, speak.

Clorin the fhepherdefs heals the wounded fhepherd Alexis: but not

till he has for ever renounced all impure defires. A. iv. S. i. p. 161.