And mifty regions of wide air next under,
And hills of fnow, and lofts of piled thunder,
May tell at length how green-ey'd Neptune raves,
In Heav'n's defiance muftering all his waves;
Then fing of fecret things that came to pass
When beldam Nature in her cradle was;
And laft of kings and queens and heroes old,
Such as the wife Demodocus once told
In folemn fongs at king Alcinous feast,
While fad Ulyffes' foul, and all the rest,
Are held with his melodious harmony,
In willing chains and sweet captivity.

But fie, my wand'ring Muse, how thou doft stray!
Expectance calls thee now another way,
Thou know'ft it must be now thy only bent
To keep in compass of thy predicament :
Then quick about thy purpos'd business come,
That to the next I may refign my room.

40. --Watchful fire.] See ODE CHR. NATIV. v. 21. And all the spangled hoft keep WATCH in order bright.

H.

4I

45

50

55

We have "VIGIL flamma" in Ovid, TRIST. iii. V. 4. And "VIGILES flammas," ART. Aм. iii. 463. --Green-ey'd Neptune.] Virgil, GEORG. iv. Of

42. Proteus.

Ardentes oculos interfit LUMINE GLAUCO.

48. Such as the wife Demodocus once told.] He now little thought that Homer's beautiful couplet of the fate of Demodocus could, in a few years, with fo much propriety be applied to himself. He was but too confcious of his refemblance to fome other Greek bards of antiquity, when he wrote the PARADISE LOST. See B. iii. 33. feq.

52. In willing chains and fweet captivity.] A line, as Mr. Bowle obferves, resembling one in Taffo, GIER. LIB. C. vi. 84. Giogo di fervitu dolce e leggiero.

Then

Then Ens is reprefented as father of the Predicaments his two fons, whereof the eldest stood for Substance with his canons, which Ens, thus Speaking, explains.

G

OOD luck befriend thee, Son; for at thy birth

The faery ladies danc'd upon the hearth; Thy drousy nurse hath fworn she did them spie Come tripping to the room where thou didst lie,

59. Good luck befriend thee, fon, &c.] Here the metaphyfical or logical ENS is introduced as a perfon, and addreffing his eldest fon Substance. Afterwards the logical QUANTITY, QUALITY, and RELATION, are perfonified, and fpeak. This affectation will appear more excufable in Milton, if we recollect, that every thing, in the masks of this age, appeared in a bodily shape. AIRY NOTHING had not only a local habitation and a name, but a visible figure. It is extraordinary, that the pedantry of king James the first fhould not have been gratified with the fyftem of logic reprefented in a mask, at some of his academic receptions. The Predicaments alone would have furnished a confiderable band of Dramatis Perfonæ. The long and hoary beard of father Ens might have been made to exceed any thing that ever appeared on the stage. James was once entertained at Oxford, in 1618, with a play called the Marriage of the Arts.

Ibid. -For at thy birth

The faery ladies danc'd upon the hearth.] This is the first and last time that the fyftem of the Fairies was ever introduced to illuftrate the doctrine of Ariftotle's ten categories. It may be remarked, that they both were in fashion, and both exploded, at the fame time.

60. -Danc'd upon the hearth.] I fear too much has been faid of domestic fairies in L'ALLEGRO, V. 103. Yet I cannot miss an opportunity of adding a few words on the fubject, which may tend to illuftrate Shakespeare through Milton. It is not yet fatisfactorily decided, what Shakespeare means by calling Mab the Fairies Midwife. Rom. JUL. A i. S. iv. Doctor Warburton would read the FANCY's Midwife: for, he argues, it cannot be understood that the performed the office of midwife to the fairies. Mr. Steevens, much more plaufibly, fuppofes her to be here called the Facries' Midwife, because it was her" department to deliver the fan"cies of fleeping men of their dreams." But I apprehend, and with no violence of interpretation, that the poet means The Mid

avift

And sweetly finging round about thy bed

Strow all their bleffings on thy fleeping head.

She heard them give thee this, that thou shouldst still
From eyes of mortals walk invifible:

Yet there is fomething that doth force my fear,
For once it was my dismal hap to hear
A Sibyl old, bow-bent with crooked age,
That far events full wifely could prefage,
And in time's long and dark profpective glafs
Forefaw what future days fhould bring to pass;
"Your fon, said fhe, (nor can you it prevent)
"Shall fubject be to many an Accident.
"O'er all his brethren he fhall reign as king,
"Yet every one shall make him underling,

70

75

wife among the Fairies, because it was her peculiar employment to fteal the new-born babe in the night, and to leave another in its place. The poet here ufes her general appellation and character, which yet has fo far a proper reference to the present train of fiction, as that her illufions were practised on perfons in bed or asleep; for the not only haunted women in childbed, but was likewife the incubus or night-mare. Shakespeare, by employing her here, alludes at large to her midnight pranks performed on fleepers: but denominates her from that most notorious one, of her perfonating the drowsy midwife who was infenfibly carried away into fome diftant water, and fubftituting a new birth in the bed or cradle. It would clear the appellation to read, under the sense affigned, The FAIRIE MIDWIFE. The poet avails himself of Mab's appropriate province in giving her this new nocturnal agency.

62. Come tripping to the room, &c.] So barren, unpoetical, and abstracted a subject, could not have been adorned with finer touches of fancy. See also, v. 69.

A Sibyl old, &c.

And in this illuftration there is great elegance, v. 83.

To find a foe, &c.

The address of Ens is a very ingenious enigma on SUBSTANCE. 74. Shall fubject be to many an Accident.] A pun on the logical Accidens.

75. O'er all his brethren he shall reign as king.] The PredicaVOL. I.

V

Rr

ments

"And thofe that cannot live from him afunder
Ungratefully fhall strive to keep him under,
"In worth and excellence he fhall out-go them,
"Yet being above them, he shall be below them; 80
"From others he shall stand in need of nothing,
"Yet on his brothers fhall depend for clothing.
"To find a foe it fhall not be his hap,

"And peace shall lull him in her flow'ry lap;
"Yet fhall he live in ftrife, and at his door

Devouring war fhall never cease to roar: "Yet it shall be his natural property

"To harbour thofe that are at enmity.

85

"What pow'r, what force, what mighty spell, if not "Your learned hands, can loose this Gordian knot ?"

:

ments are his brethren of or to which he is the Subje&um, although firft in excellence and order.

78. Ungratefully fhall strive to keep him under.] They cannot exist, but as inherent in Subftance.

81. From others he shall ftand in need of nothing.] He is ftill Subftance, with, or without, Accident.

82. Yet on his brothers shall depend for clothing.] By whom he is cloathed, fuperinduced, modified, &c. But he is ftill the fame. 83. Subftantia fubftantiæ nova contrariatur, is a school-maxim. 84. And peace hall lull him in her flow'ry lap.] So in Harrington's ARIOSTO, C. xlv. 1.

Who long were LUL'D on high in Fortune's LAP.

And in William Smith's CHLORIS, 1596.

Whom Fortune never dandled in her LAP.

And in Spenfer's Teares of the. Muíes, TERPSICH. ft. i..

Whofo hath in the LAP of foft delight

Been long time LUL'D.

We have "the FLOWERY LAP of fome irriguous valley." PA-
RAD. L. iv. 254.

88. To harbour those that are at enmity.] His Accidents.

The

The next Quantity and Quality Spake in profe; then Relation was called by his name.

R

IVERS arife; whether thou be the fon

Of utmost Tweed, or Oofe, or gulphy Dun, Or Trent, who like fome earth-born giant fpreads His thirty arms along th' indented meads, Or fullen Mole that runneth underneath, Or Severn swift, guilty of maiden's death,

95

91. Rivers arife, &c.] Milton is fuppofed in the invocation and affemblage of these rivers, to have had an eye on Spenfer's Epifode of the Nuptials of Thames and Medway, F. Q. iv. xi. I rather think he confulted Drayton's POLYOLBION. It is hard to fay, in what fenfe, or in what manner, this introductio

was to be applied to the fubject.

of the rivers

93. Or Trent, who like fome earth-born giant Spreads

His thirty arms along th' indented meads.] It is faid that there were thirty forts of fish in this river, and thirty religious houses on its banks. See Drayton, POLYOLB. S. xii. vol. iii. p. 906. Drayton adds, that it was foretold by a wifard,

And thirty several streames, from many a fundry way,
Unto her greatness fhall their watry tribute pay.

These traditions, on which Milton has raised a noble image, are a rebus on the name TRENT.

94. -Indented meads.] Indent, in this fenfe and context, in Sylvefter's Du BARTAS, D. iii. W. i.

Our filuer Medway, which doth deepe INDENT

The flowerie MEDOWES of my native Kent.

And Drayton fpeaks of " Creeks INDENTING the land." PoLYOLB. S. i.

To

95. Or fullen Mole that runneth underneath.] At Mickleham near Darking in Surrey, the river Mole during the fummer, except in heavy rains, finks through its fandy bed into a fubterraneous and invifible channel. In winter it conftantly keeps its current. This river is brought into one of our author's religious difputes, "make the word Gift, like the river MOLE in Surrey, to run un"der the bottom of a long line, and so to start up and to govern "the word prefbytery, &c." ANIMADV. REM. DEF. &c. Pr. W. yol. į. 92.

Rr 2

Or