Of wit, or arms, while both contend And sable stole of Cyprus lawu, To win her grace, whom all commend. Over thy decent shoulders drawn. There let Hymen oft appear Come, but keep thy wonted state, In saffron robe, with taper clear, With even step, and musing gait; And pomp, and feast, and revelry, And looks commércing with the skies, With mask, and antique pageantry; Thy rapt soul sitting in thine eyes: Such sights as youthful poets dream There, held in holy passion still, On summer eves by haunted stream. Forget thyself to marble, till Then to the well-trod stage anon, With a sad leaden downward cast If Jonson's learned sock be on, Thou fix them on the earth as fast : Or sweetest Shakespeare, Fancy's child, And join with thee calm Peace, and Quiet, Warble his native wood-notes wild. Spare Fast, that oft with gods doth diet, Aud ever, against eating cares, And hears the Muses in a ring Lap me in soft Lydian airs, Aye round about Jove's altar sing: Married to immortal verse; And add to these retired Leisure, Such as the meeting soul may pierce, That in trim gardens takes his pleasure: In notes, with many a winding bout But first, and chiefest, with thee bring, Of linked sweetness long drawn out, Him that yon soars on golden wing, With wanton heed and giddy cunning; Guiding the fiery-wheeled throne, The melting voice through mazes running, The cherub Contemplation; Untwisting all the chains that tie And the mute Silence hist along, The hidden soul of harmony; 'Less Philomel will deign a song, That Orpheus' self may heave his head In her sweetest saddest plight, Prom golden slumber on a bed Smoothing the rugged brow of Night, Of heap'd Elysian flowers, and hear While Cynthia checks her dragon yoke, Such strains as would have won the ear Gently o'er the accustom'd oak: Of Pluto, to have quite set free Sweet bird, that shunn'st the noise of folly, His half-regain's Eurydice. Most musical, most melancholy ! These delights if thou canst give, Thee, chantress, oft, the woods among I woo, to hear thy even-song; To behold the wandering Moon, Riding near her highest noon, Through the Heaven's wide pathless way Hence, vain deluding Joys, And oft, as if her head she bow'd, The brood of Folly without father bred ! Stooping through a fleecy cloud. How little you bested, Oft, on a plat of rising ground, Or fill the fixed mind with all your toys ! I hear the far-off Curfeu sound, Dwell in some idle brain, Over some vide-water'd shore, Or, if the air will not permit, Where glowing embers through theroom 'The fickle pensioners of Morpheus' train. Teach light to counterfeit a gloom; Bat hail, thou goddess, sage and holy, Far from all resort of mirth, Hail, divinest Melancholy ! Save the cricket on the hearth, Whose saintly visage is too bright Or the belman's drowsy charm, To hit the sense of human sight, To bless the doors from nightly harm. And therefore to our weaker view Or let my lamp at midnight hour, O’erlaid with black, staid Wisdom's hue; Be seen in some high lonely tower, Black, bat such as in esteem Where I may oft out-watch the Bear, Prince Memnon's sister might beseem, With thrice-great Hermes, or unsphere Or that starr'd Ethiop queen that strove The spirit of Plato, to unfold To set her beauty's praise above What worlds or what vast regions hold The sea-nymphs, and their powers offended : The immortal mind, that bath forsook Yet thou art higher far descended : Her mansion in this fleshly nook : Thee bright-hair'd Vesta, long of yore, And of those demons that are found To solitary Saturn bore; In fire, air, flood, or under ground, His daughter she; in Saturu's reign, Whose power hath a true consent Such mixture was not held a stain: With planet, or with element. Oft in glimmering bowers and glades Sometime let gorgeous Tragedy He met her, and in secret shades In scepter'd pall come sweeping by, Of woody Ida's ininost grove, Presenting Thebes, or Pelops' line, Whilst yet there was no fear of Jove. Or the tale of Troy divine; Come, pensive Nun, devout and pure, Or what (though rare) of later age Sober, stedfast, and demure, Ennobled hath the buskin'd stage. All in a robe of darkest grain, But, O sad virgin, that thy power Flowing with majestic train, | Might raise Musæus from his bower! Or bid the soul of Orpheus sing These pleasures, Melancholy, give, And I with thee will choose to live. ARCADES. PART OF A MASK, OR Entertainment presented to the countess On which the Tartar king did ride: Dowager of Derby at Harefield, by some And if anght else great bards beside noble persons of her family ; who appear on In sage and solemn tunes have sung, the scene in pastoral habit, moving toward Of turneys, and of trophies hung, the seat of state, with this song. Of forests, and enchantments drear, Where more is meant than meets the ear. (UNQUESTIONABLY this mask was a much longer Thus, Night, oft see me in thy pale career, performance. Milton seems only to have writTill civil-suited Morn appear, ten the poetical part, consisting of these Not trick'd and frounc'd as she was wont three songs and the recitative soliloquy of the With the Attic boy to hunt, Genius. The rest was probably prose and maBut kercheft in a comely cloud, chinery. In many of Jonsour's masques, the While rocking winds are piping loud, poet but rarely appears, amidst a cumbersome Or usher'd with a shower still, exhibition of heathen gods and mythology. When the gust hath blown his fill, Alice, countess dowager of Derby, married Ending on tbe russling leaves, Ferdinando lord Strange; who on the death of With minute drops from off the eaves. his father Henry, in 1594, became earl of Derby, And, when the Sun begins to fling but died the next year. She was the sixth daughHis faring beams, me, goddess, bring ter of sir John Spenser of Althorpe in NorthampTo arched walks of twilight groves, tonshire. She was afterwards married (in 1600) And shadows brown, that Sylvan loves, to lord chancellor Egerton, who died in 1617. Of pine, or monumental oak, She died Jan. 26, 1635-6, and was buried at Where the rude axe, with heaved stroke, Harefield.] I. SONG. Look, nymphs, and shepherds, look,' What sudden blaze of majesty, While the bee with honied thigh, Is that which we from hence descry, That at her flowery work doth sing, Too divine to be mistook : This, this is she To whom our vows and wishes bend; Here our solcmn search hath end. And let some strange mysterious dream Fame, that, her high worth to raise, Wave at his wings in aery stream Seem'd erst so lavish and profuse, Of lively portraiture display'd, We may justly now accuse Softly on my eye-lids laid. Of detraction from her praise; Less than half we find exprest, Envy bid conceal the rest. Mark, what radiant state she spreads, But let my due feet never fail In circle round her shining throne, To walk the studious cloysters pale, Shooting her beams like silver threads ; And love the high-embowed roof, This, this is she alone, With antic pillars massy proof, Sitting like a goddess bright, In the centre of her light. Might she the wise Latona be, Or the tower'd Cybele Mother of a hundred gods? Who had thought this clime had held a deity so unparalleld? And may at last my weary age Find out the peaceful hermitage, As thcy come forward the Genius of the wood apThe bairy gown and mossy cell, pears, and turning towards them speaks. Where I may sit and rightly spell Genius. Stay, gentle swains ; for, though in this Till old experience do attain disguise, To something like prophetie strain. I see bright honour sparkle through your eyes ; Of famous Arcardy ye are, and sprung I Follow me; I will bring you where she sits, Her deity. III. SONG. Nymphs and shepherds, dance no more By sandy Ladon's lilied banks ; To further this night's glad solemnity ; On old Lycæus, or Cyllene hoar, And lead ye, where ye may more near behold 40 | Trip no more in twilight ranks ; | Though Erymanth your loss deplore, What shallow-searching Fame hath left untold ; 100 Though Erymanti Which I full oft, amidst these shades alone, A better soil shall give ye thanks. Have sat to wonder at, and gaze upon: From the stony Mænalus For know, by lot from Jove I am the power Bring your flocks, and live with us ; Of this fair wood, and live in oaken bower, Here ye shall have greater grace, To nurse the sapplings tall, and curl the grove To serve the lady of this place. With ringlets quaint, and wanton windings wove. Though Syridx your Pan's mistress were, And all my plants I save from nightly ill Yet Syrinx well might wait on her. Of noisome winds, and blasting vapours chill: Such a rural queen All Arcadia hath not seen. ORIGINÁL VARIOUS READINGS OF ARCADES. Over the mount, and all this hallow'd ground; From Milton's MS, in his own hand. And early, ere the odorous breath of Morn Awakes the slumbering leaves, or tassel'd born Ver. 10. Now seems guiltie of abuse Shakes the high thicket, haste I all about, And detraction from her praise, Number my ranks, and visit every sprout Lesse than halfe she hath exprest: With puissant words, and murmurs made to Envie bid her hide the rest. bless. : Here her hide is erased, and conceale written over its But else in deep of night, when drowsiness 61 Ver. 18. Seated like a goddess bright. Hath lock'd up mortal sense, then listen I But sealed is also expunged, and sitting supplied. To the celestial Syrens' harmony, Ver. 23. Ceres dares not give her odds: That sit upon the nine infolded spheres, Who would have thought, &c. And sing to those that hold the vital shears, Both these readings are erased, and Juno and And turn the adamantine spindle round, had, as the printed copies now read, are written On which the fate of gods and men is wound. over them. Such sweet compulsion doth in music lie, Ver. 41. Those virtues which dull Fame, &c. To lull the daughters of Necessity, This likewise is expunged, and What shallow is And keep unsteady Nature to her law, 70 substituted. And the low world in measur'd motion draw Ver. 44. For know, by lot from Jove I have After the heavenly tune, which none can hear, the power, Of human mould, with gross unpurged ear; Here again the pen is drawn through here, and And yet such music worthiest were to blaze am is written over it. The peerless height of her immortal praise, Ver. 47. In ringlets quaint. Whose lustre leads us, and for her most fit, But With is placed over In expunged. If my inferior hand or voice could hit Ver. 49. Of noisome winds, or blasting va. Inimitable sounds: yet, as we go, pours chill. Whate'er the skill of lesser gods can sbow, Ver. 50. And from the leaves brush off, &c. I will assay, her worth to celebrate, 80 So it was at first. But the pen is drawn throug3 And so attend ye toward her glittering state; leaves, and bowes supplied. Where ye may all, that are of noble stem, Ver. 52. Or what the crosse, &c. Approach, and kiss her sacred vesture's hem. It was at first And, as in the printed copies; but that is erased, and Or substituted. Ver. 59. And number all my ranks, and II, SONG. every sprout. Here And and all are expunged with the pen, O'er the smooth enamellid green and visil, as in the printed copies, completes the Where no print of step hath been, line. Ver. 62. Hath chain'd mortalitie. This also is erased, and lockt up mortal sease write Under the shady roof ten over it. Of branching elm star-proof, Ver. 81. And so attend you toward &c. stowed upon me here the first taste of your age COMUS quaintance, though no longer then to make me know that I wanted more time to value it, and A MASK, to enjoy it rightly ; and in truth, if I could then have imagined your farther stay in these parts, PRESENTED AT LUDLOW CASTIE, 1634, BEFORE which I understood afterwards by Mr. H., I JOHN EARL OF BRIDGEWATER, THEN PRESI would have been bold, in our vulgar phrase, DENT OF WALES. to mend my draught (for you left me with an exTo the right honourable treme thirst) and to have begged your converJoux lord viscount BRACLY son and heir ap- sation again, joyntly with your said learned parent to the earl of BRIDGEWATER, &c. friend, at a poor meal or two, that we might have MY LORD, banded together som good authors of the an cient time: among which, I observed you to Tais poem, which received its first occasion of have been familiar. birth from yourself and others of your noble Since your going, you have charged me with family, and much honour from your own person new obligations, both for a very kinde letter from in the performance, now returns again to make you dated the sixth of this month, and for a a final dedication of itself to you. Although not dainty peece of entertainment which came theropenly acknowledged by the authors, yet it with. Wherin I should much commend the is a legitimate off-spring, so lovely, and so much tragical part, if the lyrical did not ravish me desired, that the often copying of it hath tired with a certain Dorique delicacy in your songs my pen to give my severall friends satisfaction, and odes; whereunto I must plainly confess to and brought me to a necessity of producing it to have seen yet nothing parallel in our language : the publike view; and now to offer it up in all ipsa mollities. But I must not omit to tell you rightful devotion to those fair hopes, and rare that I now onely owe you thanks for intimating endowments of your much promising youth, unto me (how modestly soever) the true artificer. which give a full assurance to all that know you, For the work itself I had viewed som good while of a future excellence. Live, sweet lord, to be before with singular delight, having received it the honour of your name, and receive this from our common friend Mr. R.7 in the very as your own, from the hands of him, who hath close of the late R.s Poems, printed at Oxford, by many favours been long obliged to your whereunto it is added (as I now suppose) that the most honoured parents, and as in this represen- accessary might help out the principal, according tation your attendant Thyrsis, so now in all reall to the art of stationers, and to leave the reader expression con la bocca dolce. Your faithfull and most bumble servant, Now, sir, concerning your travels wherin I H. LAWES4. may chalenge a little more privilege of discours with you ; I suppose you will not blanch Paris The copy of a Letter written by sir Henry in your way; therefore I have been bold to trou Wootton, to the Author, upon the following ble you with a few lines to Mr. M. B. whom Poem. you shall easily find attending the young lord From the Colledge, this 13 of April, 16385. Mr. H.) Mr. Warton in his first edition of Comus says, that Mr. H. was “perhaps Milton's It was a special favour, when you lately be friend, Samuel Hartlib, whom I have seen men tioned in some of the pamphlets of this period, This is the dedication to Lawes's edition of as well acquainted with sir Henry Wotton : the Mask, 1637, to which the following motto but this is omitted in his second edition. Mr. was prefixed, from Virgil's second Eclogue, Warton perhaps doubted his conjecture of the Eheu! quid colui misero mihi ! floribus person. I venture to state from a copy of the austrum Reliquiæ Wottonianæ in my possession, in which Perditus a few notes are written (probably soon after the This motto is omitted by Milton himself in the publication of the book, 3d edit. in 1672) that editions of 1645, and 1673. WARTON. the person intended was the “ ever-memorable” 3 The First Brother in the Mask. WARTON. John Hales. This information will be supported * It never appeared under Milton's name, till by the reader's recollecting sir Henry's intimacy the year 1645. WARTON. with Mr. Hales; of whom sir Henry says, in + This dedication does not appear in the edi. one of his letters, that he gave to his learned tion of Milton's Poems, printed under his own friend the title of Bibliotheca ambulans, the walkinspection, 1673, when lord Brackley, under the ing Library. See Relig. Wotton. 3d edit. p. 475. title of earl Bridgwater, was still living. Milton TODD. was perhaps unwilling to own his early connec 7 Mr. R.) Ibelieve " Mr. R.” to be John Rouse, tions with a family, conspicuous for its unshaken Bodley's librarian. “The late R.” is unquesloyalty, and now highly patronised by king tionably Thomas Randolph, the poet.WARTON. Charles the Second. WARTON. 8 Mr. M. B.] Mr. Michael Branthwait, as I $ April, 1638.] Milton had communicated to suppose ; of whom sir Henry thus speaks in one sir Henry his design of seeing foreign countries, of his Letters, Relig. Wotton. 3d edit. p. 546. and had sent him his Mask. He set out on "Mr. Michael Branthwait, heretofore his mahis travels soon after the receipt of this letter. jestie's agent in Venice, a gentleman of ap TODD. proved confidence and sincerity.” TODD. SIR, 5.9 as his governour; and you may surely re- more obscure and early annals of the castle ; to ceive from him good directions for the shaping of which therefore I will briefly refer, trusting that your farther journey into Italy, where he did re- the methodical account of an edifice, more par. side by my choice som time for the king; after ticularly ennobled by the representation of Comus mine own recess from Venice. within its walls, may not be improper, or uninI should think that your best line will be teresting. thorow the whole length of France to Marseilles, l It was built by Roger de Montgomery, wbo and thence by sea to Genoa, whence the passage was related to William the Conqueror. The date into Tuscany is as diumal as a Gravesend barge: of its erection is fixed by Mr. Warton in the year l'hasten, as you do, to Florence, or Siena, the 1112. By others it is said to have been erected rather to tell you a short story from the interest before the Conquest, and its founder to have you have given me in your safety. been Edric Sylvaticus, carl of Shrewsbury, whom At Siena I was tabled in the house of one Al Roger de Montgomery was sent by the Conqueberto Scipioni, an old Roman courtier in dan-ror into the marshes of Wales to subdue, and gerous times, having bin steward to the duca di with those estates in Salop he was afterwards Pagliano, who with all his family were strangled, rewarded. But the testimonies of various writers save this onely man that escaped by foresight of assign the foundation of this structure to Roger the tempest: with him I had often much chat de Montgomery, soon after the Conquest. of those affairs; into which he took pleasure to The son of this nobleman did not long enjoy it, Jook back from his native harbour; and at my as he died in the prime of life. The grandson, departure toward Rome (which had been the Robert de Belesme, earl of Shrewsbury, forfeited 'center of his experience) I had wonn confidence it to Henry I. by having joined the party of Ro enongh to beg his advice, how I might carry my-bert duke of Normandy against that king. It self securely there, without offence to others, or became now a princely residence, and was guard. of mine own conscience. Signor Arrigo mio, ed by a numerous garrison. Soon after the ac(sayes he) I pensieri stretti, et il viso sciolto, will cession of Stephen, however, the governor bego safely over the whole world ; Of which Del trayed his trust, in joining the empress Maud. phian oracle (for so I have found it) your judge Stephen besieged it; in which endeavour to rement doth need no commentary; and therefore gain the possession of his fortress some writers (sir) I will commit you with it to tie best of all assert that he succeeded, others that he failed. securities, God's dear love, remaining The most generally received opinion is, that the Your friend as much at command governor, repenting of his baseness, and wishing as any of longer date to obtain the king's forgiveness, proposed a caHENRY WOOTTON. pitulation advantageous to the garrison, to which Stephen, despairing of winning the castle by POSTSCRIPT. arms, readily acceded. Henry II. presented S1B, it to his favourite, Fulk Fitz-Warine,or de Dinan, I have expressly sent this my foot-boy to pre to whom succeeded Joccas de Dinan; between vent your departure without som acknowledge whom and Hugh de Mortimer lord of Wigmore ment from me of the receipt of your obliging such dissensions arose, as at length occasioned letter, having myselfthrough som business, I know the seizure of Mortimer, and his confinement in not how, neglected the ordinary conveyance. In one of the towers of the castle, which to this day any part where I shall understand you fixed, I is called Mortimer's Tower; from which he shall be glad, and diligent, to entertain you was not liberated, till he had paid an immense with home-novelties; even for some fomentation ransom. of our friendship, too soon interrupted in the This tower is now inhabited, and used as a fives-court. cradle. It was again belonging to the crown in the sth year of king John, who bestowed it on Philip de Albani, from whom it descended to the Lacies of Ire land, the last of which family, Walter de Lacy, dyCOMUS. ing without issue male, left the castle to his grand daughter Maud, the wife of Peter de Geneva, or LUDLOW CASTLE. Jeneville, a Poictevin, of the house of Lorrain, BY MR. TODD. from whose posterity it passed by a daughter to the Mortimers, and from them hereditarily to SOME idea of this venerable and magnificent (the crown. In the reign of Henry III. it was pile, in which Comus was played with great splen- taken by Simon de Montfort earl of Leicester, the dour, at a period when masks were the most ambitious leader of the confederate barons, who, fashionable entertainment of our nobility, will ( about the year 1263 are said to have taken pos. probably gratify those, who read Milton with session of all the royal castles and fortresses.. of that curiosity which results from taste and ima- Ludlow Castle in almost two succeeding centuries gination. Mr. Warton, the learned author of nothing is recorded. this elegant remark, declines entering into the In the thirteenth year of Henry VI. it was in the possession of Richard duke of York, who there 9 Lord S. 7 The son of lord viscount Scudamore, drew up his declaration of affected allegiance to then the English ambassador at Paris, by whose the king, pretending that the army of ten thoupotice Milton was bonoured, and by whom he sand men, which he had raised in the marshes of was introduced to Grotius, then residing at Wales, was " for the public weale of the Paris, also as the minister of Sweden. TODD. realme.” The event of this commotion between |