L'ALL
L'A LLEGRO.
E GRO.

Thus done the tales, to bed they creep,

By whispering winds foon lull'd afleep.
Towred cities please us then,

And the bufy hum of men,

Where throngs of knights and barons bold,
In weeds of peace high triumphs hold,

The native belman of the night,

The bird that warned Peter of his fall,

First RINGS HIS SILVER BELL t'each sleepy wight.

61

1115

120

It is certainly the fame allufion and metaphor, in PARAD. L. B. v. 7.

The fhrill MATIN-SONG

Of birds on every bough.

117. Towred cities please us then, &c.] THEN, that is at Night. The poet returns from his digreffion, perhaps difproportionately prolix, concerning the feats of fairies and goblins, which protract the converfation over the fpicy bowl of a village-fupper, to enumerate other pleasures or amusements of the night, or evening. THEN is in this line a repetition of the firft THEN. "Then to "the spicy nut-brown ale," v. 100. Afterwards, we have another THEN, with the fame fenfe and reference, "THEN to the well"trod stage, &c." v. 131. Here too is a tranfition from mirth in the country to mirth in the city.

118. And the bufy bum of men.] Shakespeare, HENR. v. A. iii. CHOR.

"

Through the foul womb of night

The HUм of either army ftilly founds.

A Full Change, as Mr. Bowle obferves, is the best comment on this line. Sylvefter describes the crouded ftreets of London by bufie-buzzing fwarms." DU BART. edit. ut fupr. p. 177. “Hi"deous HUM" occurs in the Ode on NATIVv. ft. xix. I take this opportunity of remarking, that the old practice of applauding favourite paffages in a fermon by a loud hum from the congregation, which was called humming a fermon, is remembered by our author, APOL. SMECTYMN. §. x. He fays, the established clergy feldom preached edifying fermons in the largest churches: " and "fuch as are moft HUMMED and applauded there, would scarce be "fuffered a second hearing, &c." PR. W. i. 127. I think HUMMING might be revived with fuccefs by the Methodists.

120. In weeds of peace high triumphs bold.] By TRIUMPHS Wẹ are to understand, Shews, fuch as masks, revels, &c. And here, that is in these exhibitions, there was a rich difplay of the moft

fplendid

With store of ladies, whofe bright eyes
Rain influence, and judge the prize
Of wit, or arms, while both contend
To win her grace, whom all commend,
There let Hymen oft appear

In faffron robe, with taper clear,

fplendid dreffes, of the WEEDS OF PEACE. AGON. V. 1312.

125

See Note on SAMS.

121. With ftore of ladies.-] An expreffion probably catched from Sydney's ASTROPHEL AND STELLA, ft. 106.

But here I doe STORE of faire LADIES meete.

122. Here Mr. Bowle points out a pertinent paffage from PERCEFOREST, V. 1. c. xii. fol. 109. "PRIS ne doit ne peult eftre "donne, fans les DAMES: car pour elles font toutes les proueffes "faictes, et par elles en doit eftre le PRIS DONNE." See alfo, c. cxxviii. Among the articles of the JUSTES at Westminster, 1509, is the following. "Item, yf yt is the pleasure of the Kynge, "the Queenes Grace and the Ladies, with the advice of the noble "and dyfcret juges, to give pryfes, after their defervings unto both "the parties." The Antiquarian Society have given a print of this ceremony from a Roll in the College of Arms. See Hardyng's CHRON. C. clv. And Robert of Gloucefter, of the tournaments at K. Arthur's Coronation, vol. i. 190.,

Upe the alures of the caftles the LADYES thare ftode,

And byhulde thys noble game, and wyche knyzts were gode, &c. The whole defcription is literally from Geoff. Monm. B. ix. c. xiv. 123. Both contend

To win her grace whom all commend.] See The Period of Mourning, by H. Peacham a writer familiar to Milton, edit. 1613. NUPT. HYMN. iv. of Venus's temple.

-Where art and coft with each contend

For which the eye the frame fhould most commend. 125. There let Hymen oft appear

In faffron robe, with taper clear, &c.] For, according to Shakespeare, LOVE'S LAB. LOST, A. iv. S. iii.

For revels, dances, masks, and merry hours,

Fore-run fair love, frewing her way with flowers.

Among these TRIUMPHS, were the masks, pageantries, spectacles, and revelries, exhibited with great splendour, and a waste of allegoric invention, at the nuptials of noble perfonages. Here, of courfe, the claffical HYMEN was introduced as an actor, property

And pomp, and feaft, and revelry,
With mask, and antique pageantry,
Such fights as youthful poets dream
On fummer eves by haunted stream.
Then to the well-trod stage anon,
If Jonfon's learned fock be on,

130

habited, and distinguished by his characteristic symbols. Thus in Jonfon's "HY MENEI, or the Solemnities of Masque and Bar"riers at a Marriage," there is this ftage-direction. "On the "other hand entered HY MEN the god of marriage, in a SAFFRON COLOURED robe, his undervestures white, his fockes yellow, a yellow veile of filke on his left arme, his head crowned with "rofes and marjoram, in his right hand a TORCH." WORKS, edit. 1616. MASQUES, p. 912. See also "The Description of "the Mafque with the Nuptiall Songs, At the Lord Vicount Hadington's Marriage at court on the fhrovetuesday at night, 1608." ·Ibid. p. 939. We have the fame representation of HYMEN in an Epithalamium, the usual indispensible accompaniment of a wedding, and often a part of the nuptial mask, in the POETICALL MISCELLANIES of Phineas Fletcher, Cambr. 1613. 4to. p. 58.

66

See where he goes how all the troop he cheereth,
Clad with a SAFFRON Coat, in's hand a light.

And in Spenfer's EPITHALAMION, where HYMEN'S MASK is alfo mentioned. ft. ii.

--Hymen is awake,

And long fince ready, forth his MASKE to moue,

With his bright TEADE, that flames with many a flake.

See also Beaumont and Fletcher's PHILASTER, A. v. S. i. vol. i. p. 158. 159. edit. ut fupr.

I'll provide a MASQUE shall make

Your HYMEN turn his SAFFRON into a fullen coat.

And HYMEN'S MASK, in the beginning of the Two NOBLE KINSMEN of Fletcher, A. i. S.i. p. 5. vol. x. And our author's EL. V. 107.

127. And pomp, and feaft, and revelry. &c.] See Note on SAMS. AGON. V. .449.

131. See Note on PARAD. REG. iv.

343.

132. If Jonson's learned fock be on.] This expreffion occurs in Jonfon's recommendatory verfes, prefixed to the first folio edition of Shakespeare's plays in 1623.

-Or when thy soCKS Were ON.

Or

Or sweetest Shakespeare, Fancy's child,
Warble his native wood-notes wild.
And ever against eating cares,
Lap me in foft Lydian airs
Married to immortal verfe;

Such as the meeting foul may pierce,

134. Or fweeteft Shakespeare, fancy's child,

135

Warble his native wood-notes wild.] Mr. Bowle adds to the obvious parallel from Shakespeare, "This CHILD OF FANCY, "that Armado hight," the following line from JUL. CES. A. v. S. iii.

Oh hateful Errour, Melancholy's CHILD!

There is good reason to fuppofe, that Milton threw many additions and corrections into the THEATRUM POETARUM, a book published by his nephew Edward Philips, in 1675. It contains criticisms far above the taste of that period: Among these is the following judgement on Shakespeare, which was not then, I believe, the general opinion, and which perfectly coincides both with the fentiment and words of the text. "In tragedy, never any expreffed a "more lofty and tragic heighth, never any represented nature more purely to the life: and where the polishments of art are most "wanting, as probably his learning was not extraordinary, he pleases with a certain WILD and NATIVE elegance, &c." MOD. POETS, p. 194.

134. Milton fhews his judgement here, in celebrating Shakefpeare's Comedies, rather than his Tragedies. For models of the latter, he refers us rightly, in his PENSEROSO, to the Grecian fcene, v. 97. H.

136. Dap me in foft Lydian airs.] An acute critic, Dr. Pemberton, on LEONIDAS, confiders the uncertain mixture of iambic and trochaic verfes, of which we have here an example, as a blemish in our poet's verfification. I own, I think this mixture has a good effest in the paffage before us, and in many others. As in IL PENSE

ROSO, V. 143.

That at her flowery work doth fing.

Which is an iambic verse, changing to trochaic in the next line, And the waters murmuring.

Again,

There let the pealing organ blow
To the full-voic'd quire below.

Dr. J. WARTON.

In hotes, with many a winding bout
Of linked sweetness long drawn out,
With wanton heed and giddy cunning;

The melting voice through mazes running,
Untwisting all the chains that tie

The hidden foul of harmony;

140

137. Married to immortal verfe.] So in Browne's BRITANNIA'S PASTORALS, of a fhepherd, B. i. S. v. p. 93.

MARRYING his fweet noates with their filuer found.

And in our author's Poem AT A SOLEMN MUSICK, V. I.
Bleft pair of Syrens, pledges of heaven's joy,

Sphere-born harmonious fifters, Voice and Verse,

WED your divine founds, &c.

And Sylvefter, of the birds in Paradife, DU BART. p. 172. edit.

fol. 1621.

MARRYING their sweet notes to the angels layes.

Again, of the birds, p. 105. ut fupr.

TO MARRIE myne immortal layes to theirs.

Philips, Milton's nephew, fays in the Preface to his THEATRUM POETARUM, that "the LYDIAN mood is now most in request." See Note on v. 134. In the fame metaphorical fenfe, Shakefpeare ufes MARRRIED, to exprefs the closest union. TROIL. CR. A. i. S. iii.

The Unity and MARRIED calm of states.

And he has MARRIED Lineaments, for harmony of features, in ROM. AND JULIET.

142. The melting voice through mazes running,

Untwisting all the chains that tie

The hidden foul of harmony.] Mr. Malone thinks that Milton has here copied Mariton's comedy, WHAT YOU WILL, 1607. SUPPL. Shakesp. vol. i. 588.

Cannot your trembling wires throw a chain

Of powerful rapture bout our mazed fenfe ?

But the poet is not difplaying the effect of mufic on the fenfes, but of a skilful musician on mufic. Milton's meaning, is not, that the fenfes are inchained or amazed by mufic, but that, as the voice of the finger runs through the manifold mazes or intricacies of found, all the chains are untwisted which imprison and entangle the hidden foul, the effence or perfection, of HARMONY. In common sense, let mufic be made to fhew all, even her most HIDDEN, powers.

VOL. I.

I

That