And, from the organpipe of frailty, fings
His foul and body to their lafting reft.

eighth Thebaid, defcribing a troop of ghaftly females who fur-
rounded the throne of Pluto, has the following lines:

Stant Furiæ circum, variæque ex ordine Mortes,

Sævaque multifonas exercet Pana catenas.

From this group of perfonification, &c. it is evident, that not
merely Death, as the fource or principle of mortality, but each
particular kind of Death was reprefented under a feminine shape.
For want, therefore, of a correfponding mafculine term, Dobfon,
in his Latin verfion of the fecond Paradife Loft, was obliged to
render the terrific offspring of Satan, by the name of Hades; a
lucklefs neceffity, becaufe Hades, in the 964th line of the fame
book, exhibits a character completely discriminated from that of
Death. A

Were I inclined to be fportive, (a difpofition which commenta-
tors should ftudioufly reprefs,) might I not maintain on the ftrength
of the foregoing circumftances, that the editor of the folio 1632
(far from being an ignorant blunderer,) was well instructed in the
niceties of Roman mythology? and might not my ingenious
fellow-labourer, on the fcore of his meditated triumph over Mr.
Gray, be faluted with fuch a remark as reached the ear of
Cadmus ?-

Quid, Agenore nate, peremptum

Serpentem Spectas? et tu spectabere ferpens.

Fashionable as it is to cavil at the productions of our Cambridge
Poet, it has not yet been discovered that throughout the fields of
claffic literature, even in a fingle instance, he had miftook his
way. STEEVENS.

7 With many legions of strange fantafies;

Which, in their throng and prefs to that laft hold,

Confound themselves.] So, in our author's Rape of Lucrece:
"Much like a prefs of people at a door,

Throng his inventions, which fhall go before."

Again, in King Henry VIII:

which forc'd fuch way,

"That many maz'd confiderings did throng,

"And prefs in, with this caution." MALONE.

in their throng and prefs to that laft hold,] In their tumult

and hurry of reforting to the last tenable part.

I am the cygnet-] Old copy-Symet.
Pope. MALONE.

JOHNSON.

Corrected by Mr.

SAL. Be of good comfort, prince; for you are

born

To fet a form upon that indigeft

Which he hath left fo fhapeless and fo rude.'

Re-enter BIGOT and Attendants, who bring in King
JOHN in a Chair.

K. JOHN. Ay, marry, now my foul hath elbow

room;

It would not out at windows, nor at doors.
There is fo hot a fummer in my bofom,

blaus to dust.

the satisfaction of English Antiquaries, let me add that
anvient Poor (which in point of versification resembles the
es of Longland) there is a contest for superiority between Our
•dame Life, and the ugly fiend DANTE DEATH,
Witton himself, however, in his second Elegy, has cœnib.
"Death not only fernale, but as a Qučen.

Magna sepulchrorum regina, satelles Averni,
Sava nimis Musis, Palladi sœvanismis.
W. Warton's note on this

2.16.

6 passage. consult also Mitton';

Mors fera, Tartareo diva secunda Jovi. in in obitum Prasulis Eliensis :

Mors atra noctis filia.

ise.

in his Indian Queen, Act II. sc. 1. has

ibuted the same sex to Death:

The gods

can but destroy. -destroy shows; The noblest way to fly, is that Death. shows; I'll court her now, Lisice Victory's grown coy.'

And, from the organpipe of frailty, fings
His foul and body to their lafting reft.

eighth Thebaid, defcribing a troop of ghaftly females who furrounded the throne of Pluto, has the following lines:

Stant Furia circum, variæque ex ordine Mortes,

Sævaque multifonas exercet Pana catenas.

From this group of perfonification, &c. it is evident, that not merely Death, as the fource or principle of mortality, but each particular kind of Death was represented under a feminine shape. For want, therefore, of a correfponding masculine term, Dobson, in his Latin verfion of the fecond Paradife Loft, was obliged to render the terrific offspring of Satan, by the name of Hades; a lucklefs neceffity, because Hades, in the 964th line of the fame

SAL. Be of good comfort, prince; for you are

born

To fet a form upon that indigeft

Which he hath left fo fhapeless and fo rude.'

Re-enter BIGOT and Attendants, who bring in King JOHN in a Chair.

K. JOHN. Ay, marry, now my foul hath elbow

room;

It would not out at windows, nor at doors.
There is so hot a fummer in my bosom,
That all my bowels crumble up to duft:
I am a fcribbled form, drawn with a pen
Upon a parchment; and against this fire
Do I fhrink up.

P. HEN.

How fares your majesty?

K. JOHN. Poifon'd,-ill-fare;'-dead, forfook,

caft off:

'And none of you will bid the winter come,

you are born

To fet a form upon that indigeft

Which he hath left so shapeless and fo rude.] A description of the Chaos almost in the very words of Ovid:

Quem dixere Chaos, rudis indigeftaque moles." Met. I.
WHALLEY.

"Which Chaos hight, a huge rude heap,-:
"No funne as yet with lightfome beames the shapeless world
did view." Golding's Tranflation, 1587.

MALONE.

1 Poifon'd,-ill-fare;] Mr. Malone fuppofes fare to be here used as a diffyllable, like fire, hour, &c. But as this word has not concurring vowels in it, like hour, or fair, nor was ever diffyllabically fpelt (like fier) faer; I had rather fuppofe the prefent line imperfect, than complete it by fuch unprecedented means.

STEEVENS.

3 This fcene has been imitated by Beaumont and Fletcher in The Wife for a Month, A&IV. STEEVENS.

To thrust his icy fingers in my maw;9
Nor let my kingdom's rivers take their course
Through my burn'd bofom; nor entreat the north
To make his bleak winds kifs my parched lips,
And comfort me with cold:-I do not afk you much,'
I beg cold comfort; and you are so strait,'
And fo ingrateful, you deny me that.

P. HEN. O, that there were fome virtue in my tears, That might relieve you!

K. JOHN.

The falt in them is hot.

9 To thruft his icy fingers in my maw;] Decker, in The Gul's Hornbook, 1609, has the fame thought: "the morning waxing cold, thruft his frofty fingers into thy bofome."

Again, in a pamphlet entitled, The great Froft, Cold Doings, &e. in London, 1608: The cold hand of winter is thrust into our bofoms." STEEVENS.

The correfponding paffage in the old play runs thus: "Philip, fome drink. O, for the frozen Alps "To tumble on, and cool this inward heat,

"That rageth as a furnace feven-fold hot."

There is fo ftrong a refemblance, not only in the thought, but in the expreffion, between the paffage before us and the following lines in two of Marlowe's plays, that we may fairly suppose them to have been in our author's thoughts:

Again:

O, I am dull, and the cold hand of fleep
"Hath thruft bis icy fingers in my breaft,
"And made a froft within me.'

Luft's Dominion.

"O, poor Zabina, O my queen, my queen,
"Fetch me fome water for my burning breaft,
"To cool and comfort me with longer date."

Tamburlaine, 1591.

Luft's Dominion, like many of the plays of that time, remained unpublished for a great number of years, and was firft printed in 1657, by Francis Kirkman, a bookfeller. It must however have been written before 1593, in which year Marlowe died.

2

MALONE.

I do not ask you much,] We fhould read, for the fake of metre, with Sir T. Hanmer,-I ask not much. STEEVENS.

3fo ftrait,] i. e. narrow, avaricious; an unusual fenfe of the word. STEEVENS.