What recks it them? What need they? They are fped; And when they lift, their lean and flashy songs Grate on their fcrannel pipes of wretched ftraw; The hungry sheep look up, and are not fed, 125 But swoln with wind, and the rank mift they draw, Rot inwardly, and foul contagion spread: Befides what the grim wolf with privy paw 128. Befides what the grim wolf, &c.] It has been conjectured, that Milton in this paffage has copied the fentiments of Piers, a proteftant controverfial fhepherd, in Spenfer's Eclogue MAY. Of this there can be no doubt: for our author, in another of his puritanical tracts, written 1641, illuftrates his arguments for purging the church of its rapacious hirelings and infidious wolves, by a quotation of almoft the whole of Piers's fpeech; obferving, that Spenfer puts these words into the mouth of his righteous fhepherd, "not without fome prefage "of thefe REFORMING times." ANIMADV. ON THE REMONSTR. DEF. ubi fupr. vol. i. p. 98. 129. Daily devours apace, and nothing fed.] In edition 1638, it is "little faid." For which reading, nothing is blotted out in the manufcript with his own hand. But in the edition 1645, nothing fed appears. I have thence adopted fed. This Spelling was customary for the fake of the rhyme. So in L'ALLEGRO, edit. 1645. v. 101. She was pinch'd and pull'd the SED, And in our author's EPITAPH on Hobson, of the fame edition, v. 17. "It shall be SED. In Harrington's ARIOSTO, we have "As before I "SED." vii. 64. Again, "Thofe wofull words he SED." v. 60. Again, "Looking grimly on Ferraw he SED." i. 26. And in other places. And in the FAERIE QUEENE, vi. xii. 29. I prefer, yet I have not used, the reading Little. Some fuppofe, that our author in this expreffion infinuates the connivance of the court at the fecret growth of popery. But perhaps Milton might have intended a gene ral But that two-handed engin at the door 130 Stands ready to fmite once, and smite no more. ral reflection on what the puritans called unpreaching prelates, and a liturgical clergy, who did not place the whole of religion in lectures and fermons three hours long. Or, with a particular reference to prefent circumstances, he might mean the clergy of the church of England were filent, and made no remonstrances against these encroachments. It is in the mean time certain that the verb to SAY was a technical term for the performance of divine fervice, as in ALBION'S ENGLAND, B. ix. ch. 53. p. 238. edit. 1602. He is fpeaking of ignorant puritans intruding into the churches, and in contempt of order praying after their own way. Each fot impugning order SAITH, and doth his fantasie; Our booke of Common Prayer, though most found diuinitie, They will not reade; nor can they preach, yet vp the pulpit towre, There making tedious preachments of no edifying powre. 130. But that two-handed engine at the door Stands ready to fmite once, and smite no more.] In thefe lines our author anticipates the execution of archbishop Laud by a twobanded engine, that is, the ax; infinuating that his death would remove all grievances in religion, and complete the reformation of the church. Doctor Warburton fuppofes, that faint Peter's fword, turned into the two-handed fword of romance, is here intended. But this fuppofition only embarraffes the paffage. Michael's fword "with huge two"handed sway" is evidently the old Gothic fword of chivalry, PARAD. L. B. vi. 251. This is ftyled an Engine, and the expreffion is a periphrafis for an ax, which the poet did not choose to name in plain terms. The fenfe therefore of the context feems to be," But there "will foon be an end of all thefe evils: the ax is at hand, to take off "the head of him who has been the great abettor of thefe corruptions "of the gofpel. This will be done by one ftroke." In the mean time, it coincides juft as well with the tenour of Milton's doctrine, to fuppofe, that he alludes in a more general acceptation to our Saviour's metaphorical Ax in the gofpel, which was to be laid to the root of the tree, and whofe ftroke was to be quick and decifive. MATT, iii. 10. LUKE, iii. 9. "And now the Ax is laid to the "root of the tree: therefore every tree which bringeth not forth "good fruit is hewn down, &c." That is, "Things are now brought "to a crisis. There is no room for a moment's delay. God is now about to offer the laft difpenfation of his mercy. If ye reject thefe terms, no others will be offered afterwards: but ye fhall fuffer ONE FINAL fentence of deftruction, as a tree, &c." All falfe religions were at once to be done away by the appearance of christianity, as when an ax is applied to a barren tree: fo now an ax was to be ap 46 46 66 Return, Alpheus, the dread voice is past, That shrunk thy ftreams; return Sicilian Mufe, And call the vales, and bid them hither cast Their bells, and flourets of a thousand hues. 135 Ye valleys low, where the mild whispers use Of shades, and wanton winds, and gushing brooks, On whose fresh lap the swart ftar fparely looks, plied to the corruptions of christianity, which in a fimilar process were to be destroyed by a single and speedy blow. The time was ripe for this business: the inftrument was at hand. Our author has the same metaphor in a treatise written 1641. "They feeling the Ax of God's "REFORMATION HEWING at the old and hollow TRUNK of popery." PROSE-WORKS, ut fupr. vol. i. 17. Where he alfo fays, that "the "painted battlements, and gaudy rottennefs, of Prelatry, want but ONE PUFF of the king's to blow them down like a paste-board house "built of court-cards." Ib. 18. But he is rather unhappy in his comparifon, which follows, of epifcopacy to a large wen growing on the head for allowing fuch a wen, on his own principles, to be an excrefcency and a deformity, to cut it off may prove a dangerous operation; and perhaps it had better remain untouched, with all its inconveniencies. It is matter of furprise, that this violent invective against the church of England and the hierarchy, couched indeed in terms a little myfterious yet fufficiently intelligible, and covered only by a tranfparent veil of allegory, fhould have been published under the fanction and from the prefs of one of our univerfities; or that it should afterwards have escaped the fevereft animadverfions, at a period, when the profcriptions of the Star-chamber, and the power of Laud, were at their height. Milton, under pretence of expofing the faults or abufes of the epifcopal clergy, attacks their establishment, and strikes at their existence. 138. On whose fresh lap the Swart ftar sparely looks.] The dog-ftar is called the SWART-STAR, by turning the effect into the caufe. SWART is fwarthy, brown, &c. Shakespeare, Coм. ERR. A. iii. S. ii. "Ant. "What complexion is the of? S. SWART, like my fhoe, but her face "nothing like fo cleane kept." And in FIRST P. K. HENR. vi. A. i. S. ii. And whereas I was black and SWART before. And Throw hither all your quaint enamel'd eyes, That on the green turf fuck the honied fhowers, And purple all the ground with vernal flowers. Bring the rathe primrose that forsaken dies, And in KING JOHN, A. iii. S. i. 66 Lame, foolish, crooked, SWART, prodigious. And in Shakespeare's SONNETS, Xxviii. "The fwart-complexion'd night." And in Browne's BRITANNIA'S PASTORALS, B. iv. S. iv. P. 75. edit. ut fupr. And the SWART plowman for his breakfast staid. In ENGLAND'S HELICON, we find "Swarthe clouds withdrawne.” edit. 1614. Signat. B. 4. In Browne, ubi fupr. B. ii. S. i. p. 22. The tyred bodie of the SWARTIE cloune. Hence we see the process to the prefent word SWARTHY. In Leland's ITINERARY, this word denominates a dark-coloured fort of stone. "The caftel is waullid with a very hard SUART stone hewid." Vol.i. fol. 39. Of the fame complexion is the "SWART faery of the mine," in our author's MASK, V. 435. The word occurs both in Chaucer and Spenfer. Perhaps LOOKs is a term from aftrology. So in ARCADES, V. 51. Or what the crofs dire-LOOKING planet fmites. The ASPECT of a far was familiar language in Milton's age. See PARAD. L. B. vi. 313. Shakespeare in one citation will illuftrate what I have faid. WINTER'S TALE, A. ii. S. i. -There's fome ill planet reigns; I must be patient, till the heavens LOOK Milton is more likely to have here had an eye to B. and Fletcher's PHILASTER, than to Horace's Fount of Blandufia, as alleged by Doctor Newton. A. v. S. i. vol. i. p. 159. The worthier beasts have made their layers, and slept Free from the SIRIAN STAR. 142. Bring the rathe primrose that forfaken dies.] It is obvious, that the general texture and fentiment of this line is from the WINTER'S TALE, A.iv. S. v. Pale primrofes That die unmarried, &c. The tufted crow-toe, and pale jeffamine, The white pink, and the panfy freakt with jet, Especially as he had firft written UNWEDDED for forfaken, which appears in the edition of 1638. But the particular combination of "Rathe primrofe" is perhaps from a Paftoral called a PALINODE by E. B. probably Edmond Bolton, in ENGLAND'S HELICON, edit. 1614. Signat. B. 4. And made the RATHE and timely PRIMROSE grow. In the west of England, there is an early fpecies of apple called the Rathe-ripe. We have "ratke and late," in a PASTORAL, in Davifon's POEMS, edit. 4. Lond. 1621. p. 177. In Baftard's Epigrams, printed 1598, I find "The RASHED Primrose, and the violet." Lib. i. Epigr. 34. p. 21. 12mo. Perhaps RASHED is a provincial corruption from RATHE. But why does the Primrose die UNMARRIED? Not because it blooms and decays before the appearance of other flowers; as in a ftate of folitude, and without fociety. Shakespeare's reason, which follows his lines juft quoted, why it dies unmarried, is unintelligible, or rather is fuch as I do not wish to understand. The true reason is, because it grows in the fhade, uncherished or unfeen by the fun, who was fuppofed to be in love with fome forts of flowers. Thus in Drayton, ECL. ix. vol. iv. p. 1432. Than roses richer to behold That trim up lovers bours, And again, ECL. i. p. 1389. And spreadft thee like the MORN-LOV'D marigold. And in Shakespeare's SONNETS, XXV. Great princes FAVOURITES their fair leaves spread And in the morning-fong, in CYMBELINE, A. ii. S. iii. To ope their golden eyes. For the marigold is fuppofed, on this principle, to close at fun-fet. Browne, BRIT. PAST. B. v. S. v. p. 97. edit. ut fupr. The day is woxen olde, And gins to fhut in WITH the MARIGOLDE. And Shakespeare's WINTER'S TALE, A. iv. S. iii. |