Though Erymanth your lofs deplore, A better foil shall give ye thanks. 100 an occafion, in declaring that he was planet-ftruck, is alfo indirectly intended to ferve the purpose of ridiculing the prevailing fondness for aftrology. At leaft, without confidering the popular fuperftitions about the influence of the planets, Bobadil's pretence is forced, unnatural, and almoft unintelligible. 97. By fandy Ladon's lillied banks.] Doctor Newton obferves, that this river "might properly be faid to have lilied banks, fince Diony"fius, as I find him quoted by Farnaby, has called it, σε Εὐκάλαμον ποταμον καὶ ἐϋτέφανον Λαδώνα.” I know not that Dionyfius mentions the river Ladon any where, but in the following verfe of the PERIEGESIS, V. 417. Ηχι δὲ ἀγύγιος μηκύνεται ύδασι Λάδων. Ubi etiam prifcis porrigitur aquis Ladon. Ovid mentions Ladon more than once, but without its lilies. METAM, i. 702. Arenofi placitum LADONIS ad amnem. Again, FAST. ii. 274. Quique citis LADON in mare currit aquis. Again, ibid. v. 89. Manalos hunc, LADONQUE rapax. —— Compare Statius, THEB. ix. 573. Gelidas LADONIS ad undas. And Callimachus, HYMN. Jov. v. 18. ΛΑΔΩΝ ἀπ ̓ οὔπω μέγας ἔρρεεν. Ladon vero magnus nondum fluebat. Feftus Avienus, I believe, is the only antient Latin poet, if he deferves the name, who fpeaks of the fertility of the fields washed by Ladon. DESCRIPT. ORB. V. · 574. Hic diftentus aqua SATA lambit PINGUIA Ladon. But by LILLIED banks we are perhaps only to understand waterlilies. And, by the way, here is an authority for reading lillied inftead of twilled, in a very controverted verfe of the TEMPEST, A. iv. S. i. [Johnf. Steev. vol. i. p. 86.] Thy banks with pionied and twilled brims. This inftance almost ascertains one of Mr. Steevens's very rational conjectures, on a text which had been long incorrigible. LILLIED feems From the ftony Mænalus Bring your flocks, and live with us, Here ye shall have greater grace, To ferve the Lady of this place. 105 Though Syrinx your Pan's mistress were, Yet Syrinx well might wait on her. Such a rural Queen All Arcadia hath not feen*. to have been no uncommon epithet for the banks of a river. So in Sylvefter, cited in ENGLAND'S PARNASSUS, 1600. p. 479. By fome cleare river's LILLIE-PAVED fide. Ibid. —Sandy Ladon.-] Milton, as we have feen, has got Ovid's epithet ARENOS us to Ladon. But this paftoral river had before been celebrated in English with the fame epithet, by Browne, BRIT, PAST. B. ii. S. iv. p. 107. The filuer Ladon, on his SANDY fhore, But as Mr. Bowle obferves, the river Ladon has the fame epithet in * A countess of Derby, the fame perhaps before whom this piece was prefented at Harefield, appears to have acted in Jonson's First Queene's Mafque at Whitehall, 1605. WORKS, fol. ut fupr. p.899. And in the Second Queene's Masque at Whitehall, 1608. Ibid. p. 908. And again, in the Mafque of Queenes at Whitehall, 1609. Ibid. p. 964. In all these three performances fhe is called the Countess of Derby. The dowager countefs, before whom ARCADES was acted, was Alice, daughter of fir John Spenfer of Althorpe. She was, according to Dugdale, the third wife of Ferdinando earl of Derby; on whose premature death, fhe married fir Thomas Egerton, viscount Brackley, and Chancellor of England, who died in 1617. BARON. ii. 414. 251. Harrington has an Epigram to this lady, B. iii. 47. In praise of the Counteffe of Derby married to the Lord Chancellour. This noble counteffe lived many yeeres With Derby, one of England's greatest peeres; Fruitful Fruitfull and faire, and of fo cleare a name All eares, eyes, tongues, heard, faw, and told, her honour, &c. See MSS. WILLIS, Bibl. Bodl. fol. num. viii. f. 54. PEDIGR. BUCKS. She died in January, 1636, and was buried at Harefield. ARCADES could not therefore have been written later than the year 1636. Probably fome time before. More will be faid of this Lady Derby's connections, in CoмUS. *He died 1594. COMU S. "A Mafk prefented at Ludlow-caftle."] Some idea of this castle, in which COMUS was acted with great splendour, and which is now ruinous and perishing, may not be unacceptable to thofe who read Milton with the fond attentions of a lover. It was founded on a ridge of rock overlooking the river Corve, by Roger Montgomery, about the year 1112, in the reign of king Henry the firft. But without entering into its more obfcure and early annals, I will rather exhibit the ftate in which it might be fuppofed to fubfift, when Milton's drama was performed. Thomas Churchyard in a Poem called The WORTHINES OF WALES, printed in 1587, has a Chapter entitled "The "Caftle of Ludloe." In one of the ftate-apartments, he mentions a fuperb efcocheon in ftone of the Arms of Prince Arthur; and an empalement of Saint Andrew's Crofs with Prince Arthur's Arms, painted in the windows of the Hall. And in the Hall and Chambers, he fays, there was a variety of rich workmanship, fuitable to fo magnificent a caftle. In it is a Chapel, he adds, " most trim and coftly, fo bravely "wrought, fo fayre and finely framed, &c." About the walls of this Chapel, were fumptuoufly painted "a great device, a worke most riche "and rare," the Arms of many kings of England, and of the lords of the Castle, from fir Walter Lacie the firit lord, &c. "The armes "of al thefe afore fpoken of, are gallantly and cunningly fet out in "that Chapell.-Now is to be rehearsed, that fir Harry Sidney being "lord Prefident buylt twelve roomes in the fayd Castle, which goodly "buildings doth fhewe a great beautie to the fame. He made alfo a goodly Wardrobe underneath the new Parlor, and repayred an old "tower called Mortymer's Tower, to keepe the auncient recordes in "the fame and he repayred a fayre roume under the Court-house, and made a great wall about the wood yard, and built a most "braue Conduit within the inner Court: And all the newe buildings "over the Gate, fir Harry Sidney, in his dayes and government "there, made and fet out, to the honour of the queene, and the "glorie of the Caftle. There are, in a goodly or ftately place, fet out 66 my lorde earl of Warwick's Arms, the earl of Darbie, the earl of "Worcester, the earl of Pembroke, and fir Harry Sidney's Armes in "like manner: al these ftand on the left fide of the [great] Cham"ber. On the other fide, are the Armes of Northwales and South 66 - “wales |