My plaining verfe as lively as before; For fure fo well inftructed are my tears, Or should I thence hurried on viewlefs wing, 50 Might think th' infection of my forrows loud Had got a race of mourners on fome pregnant cloud. This fubject the Author finding to be above the years be ́ bad, when he wrote it, and nothing fatisfied with what was begun, left it unfinished, "the fight thereof. And oh, that I could retaine the effects that "it wrought with an unfainting perfeverance! Who then did "dictate this hyme to my redeemer, &c." TRAVELS. p. 167. edit. 1627. The first is, 1615. 50. -Hurried on viewless wing.] See Coм. v. 92. HUR, RIED is used here in an acceptation lefs familiar than at present. And in other places. PARAD. L. B. ii. 937. Of Satan's flight, -Some tumultuous cloud Inftinct with fire and vapour, HURRIED him Again, ibid. 603. The fallen angels are to pine for ages in frøft, "thence HURRIED back to fire." And, B. v. 778. -All this hafte Of midnight march, and HURRIED meeting here. In all these paffages it is applied to preternatural motion, the movements of imaginary beings. 51. Take up a weeping on the mountains wild.] This expreffion is from JEREMIAH, ix. 10. "For the mountains will I TAKE 66 UP A WEEPING and wailing, &c.” 53. Unbofom all their echoes mild.] In PARAD LOST, the flowers in the morning open their choiceft BOSOM'D fmells." B. v. 127. Hoarded, locked up as in a treafury of choice things, Compare Coм. v. 368. And the fweet peace that goodness BOSOMS ever. UPON UPON THE CIRCUMCISION. E flaming Pow'rs, and winged Warriors bright, That erft with mufic, and triumphant fong, First heard by happy watchful shepherds ear, So fweetly fung your joy the clouds along Through the foft filence of the lift'ning night; Now mourn, and if fad fhare with us to bear Your fiery effence can diftil no tear, Burn in your fighs, and borrow Seas wept from our deep forrow: He who with all heav'n's heraldry whilere Enter'd the world, now bleeds to give us eafe; 1. PARAD. L. ix. 156. Subjected to his fervice angel-wings, And FLAMING minifters. Again, xi. 101. Take to thee from among the Cherubims See also, iv. 576. Of the angel Gabriel. To whom the WINGED WARRIOR thus return'd. And vi. 102. "Inclos'd with FLAMING cherubim." 7. Your fiery effence can diftil no tear, 5 ΤΟ In Burn in your fighs.-] Milton is puzzled how to reconcile the tranfcendent effence of angels with the infirmities of men. PARADISE LOST, having made the angel Gabriel share in a repaft of fruit with Adam, he finds himself under a neceffity of getting rid of an obvious objection, that material food does not belong to intellectual or ethereal fubftances: and to avoid certain circumstances, humiliating and difgraceful to the dignity of the angelic nature, the natural confequences of concoction and digef tion, he forms a new theory of tranfpiration, fuggefted by the wonderful tranfmutations of chemistry. In the prefent inftance, he wishes to make angels weep. But being of the effence of fire, they cannot produce water. At length he recollects, that fire may produce burning fighs. It is debated in Thomas Aquinas whether Angels have not, or may not have, beards. 1 Alas, how foon our fin Sore doth begin His infancy to feize! O more exceeding love, or law more juft? Were loft in death, till he that dwelt above 10. He who with all Heav'n's heraldry whilere 15 Enter'd the world.] Great pomps and proceffions are proclaimed or preceded by heralds. It is the fame idea in PARAD. L. B. i. 752. Meanwhile the WINGED HERALDS by command Of fövran power, with aweful ceremony, And trumpets found, throughout the hoft proclaim Again, B. ii. 516. Towards the four winds five fpeedy cherubims By HERALDS Voice proclaim'd. Or HERALDRY may mean retinue, train, the proceffion itself. What he otherwife calls pomp. PARAD. L. B. viii. 564. While the bright pomp ascended jubilant. Again, B. v. 353. More folemn than the tedious POMP which waits So again, Eve goes forth, B. viii. 60. Not unattended, for on her as queen A POMP of winning graces waited still. Her train of regal attendants were winning graces. It is the fame, and it is the true, fenfe of POMP, in L'ALLEGR. V. 127. With POMP, and feast, and revelry. But I believe Jonfon, affecting claffical phrafeology, made the word technical in Mafques. See Note on SAMS. Agon. 1. 132. 17. Remedilefs.] PARAD. L. ix. 919. Submitting to what feem'd REMEDILESS. Emptied Emptied his glory, ev'n to nakedness; And that great covenant which we still tranfgrefs And the full wrath befide Of vengeful juftice bore for our excefs, And feals obedience firft, with wounding smart, Huge pangs and strong Will pierce more near his heart.* ON THE DEATH OF A FAIR INFANT, DYING OF A COUGH.+ I. Faireft flow'r, no fooner blown but blafted, Soft filken primrose fading timelesly, Summer's chief honour, if thou hadft out-lafted Bleak Winter's force that made thy bloffom dry; For he being amorous on that lovely dye That did thy cheek envermeil, thought to kifs, But kill'd, alas, and then bewail'd his fatal blifs. II. For fince grim Aquilo his charioteer By boisterous rape th' Athenian damsel got, 20 5 10. It is hard to fay, why these three odes on the three grand incidents or events of the life of Christ, were not at first printed together. I believe they were all written about the year 1629. + Written in 1625, and first inserted in edition 1673. He was now seventeen. 5. For he being amorous on that lovely dye, &c.] In ROMEO AND JULIET, Affliction, and Death, turn paramours. 8. Boreas ravished Orithyia. Ovid. METAM. vi. 677. VOL. I. Oo If If likewife he fome fair one wedded not, Of long-uncoupled bed, and childless eld, Which 'mongst the wanton Gods a foul reproach was held. III. So mounting up in icy-pearled car, Through middle empire of the freezing air 15 20 But all unwares with his cold-kind embrace Unhous'd thy virgin foul from her fair biding place, IV. Yet art thou not inglorious in thy fate; 15. So mounting up in icy-pearled car.] We should rather read ice-ypearled. And fo in the Mafk, rush-yfringed, v. 890. Otherwife, we have two epithets inftead of one, with a weaker sense. Milton himself affords an inftance in the Ode on THE NATIVITY, V. 155. Yet first to thofe YCHAIN'D in fleep. Of the prefixture of the augmenty, in a concatenated epithet, there is an example in the Epitaph on Shakespeare, v. 4. Under a STAR-YPOINTING Pyramid. 23. For fo Apollo, with unweeting hand, Whilome did flay his dearly-loved mate, Young Hyacinth.] From thefe lines one would fufpect, although it does not immediately follow, that a boy was the fubject of the Ode. The child is only called a fair infant in the edition 1673, where this piece firft appeared, although it was written in 1625. So alfo in Tonfon, 1705. Tickell's title is a Fair Infant, a NEPHEW of his, &c. This is adopted by Fenr ton. But in the last ftanza the poet fays exprefsly; But thou, the mother of so sweet a child, Yet |