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Woods and groves are of thy dreffing,
Hill and dale doth boast thy bleffing.
Thus we falute thee with our early song,
And welcome thee, and wish thee long.

PALE PRIMROSES,

That die unmarried.

Again, in CYMBELINE, A. iv. S. ii.

The flower that's like thy face, PALE-PRIMROSE.

MISCELLANIES.

MISCELLANIE S.

ANNO ETATIS XIX.

At a VACATION EXERCISE in the COLLEGE, part Latin, part English. The Latin fpeeches ended, the English thus began.*

H

AIL native Language, that by finews weak
Didft move my firft endevouring tongue to

speak,

And mad'st imperfect words with childish trips,
Half unpronounc'd, flide through my infant-lips,
Driving dumb filence from the portal door,
Where he had mutely fat two years before :
Here I falute thee, and thy pardon ask,
That now I use thee in my latter task:
Small lofs it is that thence can come unto thee,
I know my tongue but little grace can do thee:
Thou need'ft not be ambitious to be first,
Believe me I have thither packt the worst:

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* Written 1627. It is hard to fay why they did not first appear in edition 1645. They were firft added, but misplaced, in edit. 1673. See table of ERRATA to that edition.

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And, if it happen as I did forecast,
The daintieft dishes shall be serv'd

I

up laft.

pray thee then deny me not thy aid

For this fame small neglect that I have made:
But hafte thee strait to do me once a pleasure,

15

And from thy wardrobe bring thy chiefest treasure, Not those new fangled toys, and trimming flight Which takes our late fantastics with delight,

13. Forecaft.] See Note on Coм. v. 360.
18. And from thy wardrobe bring thy chiefeft treasure,
Not thofe new-fangled toys, and trimming flight

20

Which takes our late fantaftics with delight.] This is an address to his native language. And perhaps he here alludes to Lilly's EUPHUES, a book full of affected phrafeology, which pretended to reform or refine the English language; and whose effects, although it was published fome years before, ftill remained. The ladies and the courtiers were all inftructed in this new ftyle; and it was esteemed a mark of ignorance or unpoliteneness not to understand EUPHUISM. He proceeds,

But cull thofe richest robes and gay'st attire,

Which deepest spirits, and choiceft wits defire.

From a youth of nineteen, these are ftriking expreffions of a consciousness of fuperiour genius, and of an ambition to rise above the level of the fashionable rhymers. At fo early an age, Milton began to conceive a contempt for the poetry in vogue; and this he feems to have retained to the last. In the TRACTATE ON EDUCATION, recommending to his pupils the ftudy of good critics, he adds, "This would make them foon perceive what defpicable creatures our common rimers and play-writers be: and fhew "what religious, what glorious and magnificent ufe might be made of poetry." p. 110. edit. 1673. Milton's own writings are the moft illuftrious proof of this. For he was, as Dante fays of Homer, INFERN. c. iv. 93.

66

-E la bella fchola

Di quel SIGNOR dell' ALTISSIMO CANTO.

19. Not thofe new-fangled toys.-] Dreffed anew, fantastically decorated, newly invented. Shakespeare, LovE's LAB. LOST,

A. i. S. i.

At Christmas I no more defire a rose,

Than wish a snow in May's NEW-FANGLED shows.

Where Theobald, inftead of SHOWs proposes abfurdly to read earth, because, fays he," the flowers are not new-fangled, but the

"earth

But cull those richest robes, and gay'ft attire
Which deepest spirits, and choicest wits defire:
I have fome naked thoughts that rove about,
And loudly knock to have their passage out;
And weary of their place do only stay
Till thou haft deck'd them in thy best array;
That so they may without fufpect or fears
Fly swiftly to this fair affembly's ears;
Yet I had rather, if I were to chufe,
Thy service in fome graver fubject use,

25

30

Such as may make thee search thy coffers round,

Before thou clothe my fancy in fit found:

"earth by their profufion and variety." By these shows the poet means May-games, at which a fnow would be very unwelcome, and unexpected. In CYMBELINE, we have fimply, FANGLED

A. v. S. iv.

A book? O, rare one!

Be not, as our FANGLED world, a garment
Nobler than that it covers.-

Somewhere in B. and Fletcher, "new-fangled work" occurs: where the commentators, not understanding what they reject, would read " new-Spangled." In our church-canons, dated 1603, Newfanglenesse is used for innovation in dress and doctrine, §. 74. See Spenfer, who explains the word. F. Q. i. iv. 25.

Full vaine follies and NEW-FANGLENESSE.

See alfo Prefaces to COMM. PR. Of CEREM. A. D. 1549.
Our author uses and explains the word in his PRELATICAL
EPISCOPACY, "To controul and NEW-FANGLE the Scripture."
PR. W. i. 37. In Ulpian Fullwill's interlude, Like wit
LIKE, "Nichol NEWFANGLE is the VICE."

29. Yet I had rather, if I were to chufe,
Thy fervice in fome graver fubject use,
Such as may make thee fearch thy coffers round,
Before thou clothe my fancy in fit found:
Such where the deep tranfported mind may foar
Above the wheeling poles, and at Heav'n's door

то

Look in, &c.] Here are ftrong indications of a young mind anticipating the fubject of the Paradife Loft, if we fubítitute chriftian for pagan ideas. He was now deep in the Greek poets.

Such

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Such where the deep transported mind may foar

Above the wheeling poles, and at Heav'n's door
Look in, and fee each blissful Deity

How he before the thunderous throne doth lie,
Lift'ning to what unfhorn Apollo fings

To th' touch of golden wires, while Hebe brings
Immortal nectar to her kingly fire:

Then paffing through the spheres of watchful fire,

36.

35

The thunderous throne.-] It has been proposed by Jortin to read" the Thunderer's throne." Thunderous, indeed, might be an errour of the prefs. But thunderous is more in Milton's manner, and conveys a new and a stronger image. Befides, the word is used in PARAD. L. x. 702.

Nature and ether black with THUNDROUS clouds. Thunderous is from Thunder, as Slumbrous from Slumber, PARAD, L. iv. 615. Wondrous, from Wonder, is obvious.

40. Then paffing through the spheres of watchful fire, &c.] This is a fublime mode of defcribing the ftudy of natural philofophy. In another college-exercise, perhaps written about the fame time, the fame thoughts appear. "Nec dubitatis, auditores, etiam in cœlos "volare, ibique illa multiformia nubium fpectra, niviumque coa"cervatam vim, contemplemini . . . Grandinifque exinde locu"los infpicite, et armamenta fulminum perfcrutemini.” PR. W. ii. 591. But they are in Sylvester's Du BARTAS, p. 133. edit. 1621. He fuppofes that the foul, while imprisoned in the body, of ten fprings aloft into the airy regions,

-And there fhe learns to knowe

Th' originals of winde, and hail, and fnowe;

Of lightning, thunder, blazing-ftars, and stormes,
Of rain and ice, and strange-exhaled formes:

By th' aire's fteep ftairs fhe boldly climbs aloft

To the world's chambers: heaven fhe vifits oft, &c.

See alfo Sylvefter's Jos, ibid. p. 944. I have elfewhere obferved, that Milton might here have had an eye on a fimilar passage in fir David Lyndefay's DREME.

Compare Brewer's LINGUA, 1607. Reed's OLD PL. vol. v. 162. Mendacio fays, having fcaled the heavens,

In the province of the meteors,

I faw the cloudy shapes of hail and rain,

Garners of fnow, and cryftals full of dew, &c.

40. —Watchful

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