16. 103. See Merry Wives of Windsor, V. v. 95: "As you trip, still pinch him to your time." According to the old ballad of Robin Goodfellow, servant-maids were only so pinched if they deserved it: "When house or hearth doth sluttish lie, I pinch the maids both black and blue, Pull off, and lay them nak'd to view." See also Butler's Hudibras, III. i. 1413; and especially Ben Jonson's Entertaynment at Althorpe : "When about the cream-bowles sweete," &c. On the other hand, clean and tidy servants were rewarded. See Dryden's Fables, The Wife of Bath, her tale: "The dairy maid expects no fairy guest To skim the bowls, and after pay the feast; On which Bell quotes from Bishop Corbett's ballad, The Faerye's Farewell: "And though they sweepe theyr hearths no less Than mayds were wont to doe, Yet who of late for cleanliness Finds sixpence in her shoe? Compare particularly in Midsummer Night's Dream, II. i., the conversation between Fairy and Puck. 104. Two stories seem here run into one as regards the grammar: (1) the story of how Will o' the Wisp misled the swain; (2) the story of the servant spirit. Otherwise, if led is to be taken as a predicate, there is no subject to tells. But the confusion of the two stories is so awkward, that it is perhaps better to take led so. Milton might use "tells" for "he tells,"that is, might regard the pronoun as superfluous, as indeed it etymologically is (for the final s is the sign of the third person in the present tense), and in Latin and Greek is practically. In Par. Reg. i. 85 he uses am for I am. So dost is used for dost thou; so hast, didst, &c. The 1645 Edition reads: "And by the Friar's lantern led." "It was friars lanthorn. According to Mr. Keightley, Milton is guilty here of confounding two very different beings, viz. Friar Rush and Jack o' the Lanthorn. probably the name Rush, which suggested rushlight, which caused Milton's error." Scott, in a note on Marmion, makes a like blunder: "Friar Rush, alias Will o' the Wisp." Friar Rush "haunted houses, not fields." "He is the Brüder Rausch of Germany, the Broder Ruus of Denmark." For Jack o' the Lanthorn (the Scotch Spunkie) see Comus, 432; Paradise Lost, ix. 634-42. This ignis fatuus was also called Meg with the Wad. 105. Comp. Butler's Hudibras, III. i. 1407: "Thou art some paltry blackguard spright Condemn'd to drudgery in the night," &c. Burton's Anat. Mel. I. ii. 1, subsect. 1: "A bigger kind there is of them ["terrestrial devils"], called with us hobgoblins and Robin Goodfellows, that would in those superstitious R times grind corn for a mess of milk, cut wood, or do any kind of drudgery work," &c. &c. Comp. Scotch "brownie." See Reginald Scott's Discoverie of Witchcrafte, IV. ch 10; Warner's Albion's England, ch. 91. 16. 105. [Swet. Explain this form of the pret.] 107. ere. See note, Hymn Nat. 86. 108. hath. The old Southern inflection survived in this word after it had for the most part disappeared from the written language. Milton does not use the form has. In Grim, the Collier of Croydon, Robin Goodfellow "enters with a flail.” 109. [What does end mean here?] 110. lies him down. So "sits him down," &c. See above, line 25. lubbar. See Fairy Myth. The fairy in Midsummer Night's Dream addresses Puck as "Thou lob of spirits," II. i. 16. In Fletcher's Knight of the Burning Pestle, III. i.: "There is a pretty tale of a witch that had a giant to be her son, that was called Lob Lie-bythe-fire." (Comp. "stretch'd out all the chimney's length.") Connect with it loby, looby, lubbard, lubberkin, lob-cock, lob-coat. III. chimney = fire-place. Comp. chimney-piece. So Shakspere, Cymbeline, II. iv. 80: "The chimney is south the chamber." The word comes to us through the French, from the Latin caminus. In the Turke and Gowin (Bishop Percy's MS. Fol. i. 98) it is used for a grate, a sort of huge brazier : "Then there stood amongst them all A chimney in the kinges hall With barres mickle of pride; Then was laid on in that stond Coals and wood that cost a pound, 113. crop-full. Specially, crop is the craw or first stomach of fowls. 115. Thus don the tales. I. ii. 379. For grammatical construction compare Shakspere, Tempest, 116. [In what grammatical relation does this verse stand to creep?] 117. Milton himself showed this variety of taste. His residence at the “upland hamlet" of Horton was diversified by visits to the "towered city" of London. then (not when the tales are over and the tellers in bed, but) = at some other time. He is not describing one long day, but the pleasures which one day or another might entertain L'Allegro. 120. weeds. This word was not confined to a widow's dress in the seventeenth century. See Shakspere, passim. The phrase "weeds of peace occurs in Troilus and Cressida, III. iii. 239. triumphs = "public shows or exhibitions, such as masques, pageants, processions. Lord Bacon, describing the parts of a palace, says of the different sides: 'The one for feasts and triumphs, and the other for dwelling.'" (Nares.) See Bacon's Essay on Masques and Triumphs. Sams. Agon. 1312. 121. store. See Prothal. I. 33. 122. influence. See note, Hymn Nat. 71. 17. 123. Probably the poet is here drawing from what he had read rather than from anything he had seen or heard. What the Tournaments were for "arms "in the old Romance days, that were the Parliaments of Love for "wit." 125. As a specimen of the marriage gaieties here referred to, see Ben Jonson's Hymenæi, or the Solemnities of Masque and Barriers at a Marriage. See also the last scene of As You Like It. 126. See Jonson's Hymen.: "Entered Hymen. . . in a saffron-coloured robe, his under vestures white, his socks yellow, a yellow veil of silk on his left arm, his head crowned with roses and marjoram, in his right hand a torch of pine-tree." 17. 126. taper. See Hymn Nat. 202. 127. Pomp, &c. These were various forms of entertainment highly popular in the early part of the seventeenth century. They were all the rage at the court. Inigo Jones, Ben Jonson, and others, each in his way, assisted in the "getting-up" of them. The Queen of James I. delighted to take a part in them. See especially Jonson's Entertainments. See also Shakspere, Tempest, IV. i. ; Henry VIII. I. iv.; Romeo and Juliet, I. iv. ; Winter's Tale, IV. iv. "The King," says Armado, in Love's Labour Lost, V. i. 117, "would have me present the princess, sweet chuck, with some delightful ostentation, or show, or pageant, or antique, or firework." See also Milton's own Comus and Arcades. Revelry. Revels was both a special and a generic term. In the general sense, “a master of the revels was appointed at the court in 1546." Todd quotes Minshen's definition of revels: sports of dauncing, masking, comedies, tragedies, and such like, used in the king's house, the houses of court or of other great personages.' 66 128. See Warton's Hist. Eng. Poet. ii. 130. See Hymn Nat. 183. 132. Jonson, educated at Westminster School, and for a time at Cambridge, and much given to classical studies subsequently, was held in high esteem for his learning. He had attempted to introduce into the English drama the observance of the so-called unities, so great was his affection for the classical drama. His learning is not unfrequently so lavishly displayed as to render him liable to the charge of pedantry. At the time L'Allegro was written, he had outlived his popularity as a play-writer. His New Inn, brought out in 1630, was received with derision. But he was still the leading figure in the world of letters. He died in 1637. sock. Lat. soccus. Contrast "buskin'd stage," Il Pens. 102. "Or when thy socks were on occurs, as Warton notes, in Ben Jonson's recommendatory verses prefixed to the Shakspere Folio of 1623. 133. Gray writes in the same strain. See Progress of Poesy, 1. 84. The one recognised form of learning in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries was the classical. Shakspere, having comparatively little of that, was regarded as altogether unlearned. He was "Fancy's child." The romantic drama, of which he was the supreme master, differed much from that drama which the scholarship of Milton's day admired: it seemed lawless and rude. Hence "his native wood-notes wilde" are spoken of. At the same time, that Milton admired him profoundly appears from his Epitaph on the admirable dramatic poet William Shakspeare. See also what is said of Shakspere in the Theatrum Poetarum, by Milton's nephew, who was probably assisted by his uncle, 1675. See Pope's Imitat. of Horace's Ep. II. i.: "Not one but nods and talks of Jonson's art, Of Shakespear's nature, and of Cowley's wit." 134. warble. See Hymn Nat. 97. 135. eating cares. Horace's "mordaces sollicitudines." 136. lap. "Lapt in proof," Macbeth, I. ii. 54, &c. Spenser, too, uses the word. Lydian aires. Of the three prevailing Greek modes," or musical styles (the Lydian, the Phrygian, the Dorian), the Lydian was soft and voluptuous. Alexander's Feast, 1. 79. Spenser's Faerie Queene, III. i. 40: "And all the while sweet Musicke did divide Her looser notes with Lydian harmony." 137. Comp. Horace's "Verba loquor socianda chordis " (Od. IV. ix. 4). 140. [What part of the sentence is long?] 141. [How would you explain the apparent contradiction between "heed," between "giddy" and "cunning?"] See Dryden's 17. 143. In every soul-indeed in all creation-there is harmony, but for the most part it lies imprisoned and bound, so that it cannot be heard. The sweetness of the music described in the text is to be such that it shall set free this prisoner, and make its voice audible. See Hooker's Eccles. Pol. v. 38: "Touching musical harmony, whether by instrument or voice, it being but of high and low in sounds a due proportionable disposition, such notwithstanding is the force thereof, and so pleasing effects it hath in that very part of man which is most divine, that some have been hereby induced to think that the soul itself by nature is, or hath in it, harmony." By "some" Hooker means Plato. See Phæd. cap. xxxviii. Merchant of Venice, V. i. 61: "There's not the smallest orb which thou behold'st But in his motion like an angel sings, Still quiring to the young-eyed cherubins; Such harmony [i.e. a like harmony] is in immortal souls. Doth grossly close it, we cannot hear it.' See also Hymn Nat. stanza 13. " 145. self is here, as it seems to be primarily, a substantive. heave his head. Samson Agonistes, 197; Paradise Lost, i. 211; Comus, 885. 149. In our older English writers, as in our modern colloquial language, the perfect infinitive is used to express a result or a purpose which has not been attained. See Hamlet, V. i. 268: "I thought thy bride-bed to have deck'd, sweet maid.” Paradise Lost, i. 40: "He trusted to have equall'd the most High, If he opposed." Ivanhoe: "It was his purpose to have rendered the experiment as complete as possible." 150. Eurydice. See Il Pens. The story is exquisitely told by Virgil in Georg. iv. It is prettily retold by some old late medieval poet in a strange romantic form. 151. Comp. close of Marlowe's Passionate Shepherd to his Love, in the Golden Treasury. IL PENSEROSO. 1. BOWLE quotes from Sylvester, the translator of Du Bartas: 'Hence, hence, false pleasures, momentary joyes, 2. That is, the offspring of unmixed folly. So in Hesiod's Theogony the brood born of Night have no father: "She bare loathed Fate and black Destiny, and Death; and she bare Sleep, and ever and anon the tribe of Dreams." “ οὔτινι κοιμηθεῖσα θεὰ τέκε Νυξ ερεβεννή.” (Theog. 211-13.) She bare others also; and so too, it would seem, one of her daughters, Eris, bare children, having neither husband nor paramour. 3. bested. This word is usually a participle, as in Isaiah viii. 21: "They shall pass through it, hardly bestead and hungry." So in Chaucer, Gower, Spenser, Shakspere, &c. See Bible Word-Book. In the sense of it the simple verb also is commonly used, as in Shakspere, Two Gentlemen of Verona, II. i. 119; Measure for Measure, I. iv. 18, &c.; or to stand instead, as in 1 Henry VI. IV. vi. 31: "The help of one stands me in little stead." Except in certain phrases, stead, both as a substantive and a verb, has fallen out of use. It survives in compos. in steadfast, homestead, steady, instead, Hampstead, bedstead. 17. 4. fixed. See Faerie Queene, IV. vii. 16. = = 6. fond foolish, as usually in Old English, and still in the North. "Thou fond mad woman. " (Richard II. V. ii. 95.) So Coriol. IV. i. 26. "Fondling" is used both as a term of endearment, and for a fool. In Wickcliffe and in Chaucer occurs the form fonned, which is the participle of fonnen, to be foolish (found in Chaucer, the Townley Mysteries, &c. Scotch fon). Then fond foolishly affectionate, "loving not wisely." In our present usage the word has acquired a better meaning, the idea of folly originally so predominant in it being diminished. The first meaning of dote is to be silly. "Most loving mere folly," sings Amiens, in As You Like It, II. vii. 181. As to the passive participle being used (i.e. fonned, not fonnend, or fonning), comp. "doted ignorance," in Faerie Queene, I. viii. 34. On the other hand, from mad," to be mad, we have "madding," as in Paradise Lost, vi. 210; Gray's Elegy, &c. shapes. See L'Allegro, 4. 18. 7. Warton refers to Sylvester's Cave of Sleep in Du Bartas. thick. Comp. Knolles apud Johnson: "They charged the defendants with their small shot and Turkey arrows as thick as hail." [What other meanings has thick?] does not in our present English form its 9. likest. Like, though a monosyllable, degrees of comparison by inflection. 10. Morpheus. See Class. Dict. xi. 634). = what Ovid calls "populus natorum mille suorum (Metam. pensioners. See Midsummer Night's Dream, II. i. 10. 12. Bowle thought that Milton took the idea of his Melancholy from Albert Dürer's design of Melancholia. 15. Comp. Exod. xxxiv. 29-35. 18. Prince Memnons sister: i.e. some beautiful Ethiopian princess. Another son of Tithonus and Eos, viz. Emathion, is mentioned, but, it would seem, no daughter. Memnon was famous for his beauty. 19. = Cassiepea, Cassiopea, or Cassiope, as the name is variously written. The usual story is that it was her daughter Andromeda's beauty that she declared to surpass that of the Nereides, for which presumption her country was visited with a deluge and a sea monster, and these curses withdrawn only on the condition that Andromeda should be given up to the monster. See Ovid Met. iv. 670: "The unpitying Ammon had bidden that innocent Andromeda should there pay the penalty for her mother's tongue." The story, as told by Milton, is given by Apollodorus. For so boasting of herself "she was represented, when placed among the stars, as turning backwards." Manilius, in his Astronomics (i. 352), speaks of her punishment, not of her crime : starr'd, not star-crowned, but made or transformed into stars. constellation. See Cicero's translation, 187 et seq. Aratus describes this 22. higher far. [What part of speech is higher here? Comp. "high-born."] 23 Milton here mythologizes for himself. See L'Allegro, 1. 2. of yore. Comp. "of late," "of old," &c. 25. Solitary Saturn. According to the old story he made himself so, as a father, by devouring his offspring. Hesiod, in his Theogony, 454, mentions Histia as one of his children by Reia. 29. Ida. See Class. Dict. There were several mountains of this name. [Which one is meant here?] 30. yet. In our present English when yet, in the sense it has here, [what is that? and |