Obrazy na stronie
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Of wit, or arms, while both contend
To win her grace, whom all commend.
There let Hymen oft appear

In saffron robe, with taper clear,
And pomp, and feast, and revelry,
With mask, and antique pageantry;
Such sights as youthful poets dream
On summer eves by haunted stream.
Then to the well-trod stage anon,
If Jonson's learned sock be on,

Or sweetest Shakespeare, Fancy's child,
Warble his native wood-notes wild.

And ever, against eating cares,
Lap me in soft Lydian airs,
Married to immortal verse;

Such as the meeting soul may pierce,
In notes, with many a winding bout
Of linked sweetness long drawn out,
With wanton heed and giddy cunning;
The melting voice through mazes running,
Untwisting all the chains that tie
The hidden soul of harmony;
That Orpheus' self may heave his head
From golden slumber on a bed
Of heap'd Elysian flowers, and hear
Such strains as would have won the ear
Of Pluto, to have quite set free
His half-regain'd Eurydice.

These delights if thou canst give,
Mirth, with thee I mean to live.

IL PENSEROSO.

HENCE, vain deluding Joys,

The brood of Folly without father bred !
How little you bested,

Or fill the fixed mind with all your toys!
Dwell in some idle brain,

And fancies fund with gaudy shapes possess, As thick and numberless

As the gay motes that people the sun-beams; Or likest hovering dreams,

The fickle pensioners of Morpheus' train.
But hail, thou goddess, sage and holy,
Hail, divinest Melancholy!
Whose saintly visage is too bright
To hit the sense of human sight,
And therefore to our weaker view
O'erlaid with black, staid Wisdom's hue;
Black, but such as in esteem
Prince Memnon's sister might beseem,
Or that starr'd Ethiop queen that strove
To set her beauty's praise above
The sea-nymphs, and their powers offended;
Yet thou art higher far descended:
Thee bright-hair'd Vesta, long of yore,
To solitary Saturn bore;

His daughter she; in Saturn's reign,
Such mixture was not held a stain:
Oft in glimmering bowers and glades
He met her, and in secret shades
Of woody Ida's innost grove,
Whilst yet there was no fear of Jove.
Come, pensive Nun, devout and pure,
Sober, stedfast, and demure,
All in a robe of darkest grain,
Flowing with majestic train,

And sable stole of Cyprus lawn,
Over thy decent shoulders drawn.
Come, but keep thy wonted state,
With even step, and musing gait;
And looks commércing with the skies,
Thy rapt soul sitting in thine eyes:
There, held in holy passion still,
Forget thyself to marble, till
With a sad leaden downward cast
Thou fix them on the earth as fast:

And join with thee calm Peace, and Quiet,
Spare Fast, that oft with gods doth diet,
And hears the Muses in a ring
Aye round about Jove's altar sing:
And add to these retired Leisure,
That in trim gardens takes his pleasure:
But first, and chiefest, with thee bring,
Him that yon soars on golden wing,
Guiding the fiery-wheeled throne,
The cherub Contemplation;
And the mute Silence hist along.
'Less Philomel will deign a song,
In her sweetest saddest plight,
Smoothing the rugged brow of Night,
While Cynthia checks her dragon yoke,
Gently o'er the accustom'd oak:

Sweet bird, that shunn'st the noise of folly,
Most musical, most melancholy!

Thee, chantress, oft, the woods among,

I woo, to hear thy even-song; And, missing thee, I walk unseen On the dry smooth-shaven green, To behold the wandering Moon, Riding near her highest noon, Like one that had been led astray Through the Heaven's wide pathless way; And oft, as if her head she bow'd, Stooping through a fleecy cloud. Oft, on a plat of rising ground, I hear the far-off Curfeu sound, Over some wide-water'd shore, Swinging slow with sullen roar : Or, if the air will not permit, Some still removed place will fit, Where glowing embers through the room Teach light to counterfeit a gloom; Far from all resort of mirth, Save the cricket on the hearth, Or the belman's drowsy charm, To bless the doors from nightly harm Or let my lamp at midnight hour, Be seen in some high lonely tower, Where I may oft out-watch the Bear, With thrice-great Hermes, or unsphere The spirit of Plato, to unfold What worlds or what vast regions hold The immortal mind, that bath forsook Her mansion in this fleshly nook: And of those demons that are found In fire, air, flood, or under ground, Whose power hath a true consent. With planet, or with element. Sometime let gorgeous Tragedy In scepter'd pall come sweeping by, Presenting Thebes, or Pelops' line, Or the tale of Troy divine; Or what (though rare) of later age Ennobled hath the buskin'd stage.

But, O sad virgin, that thy power Might raise Musæus from his bower!

Or bid the soul of Orpheus sing
Such notes, as, warbled to the string,
Drew iron tears down Pluto's cheek,
And made Hell grant what love did seek!
Or call up him that left half-told
The story of Cambuscan bold,
Of Camball, and of Algarsife,
And who had Canace to wife,
That own'd the virtuous ring and glass;
And of the wonderous horse of brass.
On which the Tartar king did ride:
And if aught else great bards beside
In sage and solemn tunes have sung,
Of turneys, and of trophies hung,
Of forests, and enchantments drear,
Where more is meant than meets the ear.

Thus, Night, oft see me in thy pale career, Till civil-suited Morn appear,

Not trick'd and frounc'd as she was wont
With the Attic boy to hunt,
But kercheft in a comely cloud,
While rocking winds are piping loud,
Or usher'd with a shower still,
When the gust hath blown his fill,
Ending on the russling leaves,
With minute drops from off the eaves.
And, when the Sun begins to fling
His flaring beams, me, goddess, bring
To arched walks of twilight groves,
And shadows brown, that Sylvan loves,
Of pine, or monumental oak,

Where the rude axe, with heaved stroke,
Was never heard the nymphs to daunt,
Or fright them from their hallow'd haunt.
There in close covert by some brook,
Where no profaner eye may look,
Hide me from day's garish eye,
While the bee with honied thigh,
That at her flowery work doth sing,
And the waters murmuring,
With such consort as they keep,
Entice the dewy feather'd Sleep;
And let some strange mysterious dream
Wave at his wings in aery stream
Of lively portraiture display'd,
Softly on my eye-lids laid.

And, as I wake, sweet music breathe
Above, about, or underneath,
Sent by some spirit to mortal good,
Or the unseen genius of the wood.

But let my due feet never fail
To walk the studious cloysters pale,
And love the high-embowed roof,
With antic pillars massy proof,
And storied windows richly dight,
Casting a dim religious light:
There let the pealing organ blow,
To the full-voic'd quire below,
In service high and anthems clear,

As may with sweetness, through mine ear,
Dissolve me into ecstasies,

And bring all Heaven before mine eyes.

And may at last my weary age
Find out the peaceful hermitage,
The hairy gown and mossy cell,
Where I may sit and rightly spell

Of every star that Heaven doth shew,
And every herb that sips the dew;
Till old experience do attain
To something like prophetic strain.

These pleasures, Melancholy, give, And I with thee will choose to live.

ARCADES.

PART OF A MASK,

OR

Entertainment presented to the countess Dowager of Derby at Harefield, by some noble persons of her family; who appear on the scene in pastoral habit, moving toward the seat of state, with this song.

[UNQUESTIONABLY this mask was a much longer performance. Milton seems only to have written the poetical part, consisting of these three songs and the recitative soliloquy of the Genius. The rest was probably prose and machinery. In many of Jonson's masques, the poet but rarely appears, amidst a cumbersome exhibition of heathen gods and mythology.

Alice, countess dowager of Derby, married Ferdinando lord Strange; who on the death of his father Henry, in 1594, became earl of Derby, but died the next year. She was the sixth daughter of sir John Spenser of Althorpe in Northamptonshire. She was afterwards married (in 1600) to lord chancellor Egerton, who died in 1617. She died Jan. 26, 1635-6, and was buried at Harefield.]

I. SONG.

Look, nymphs, and shepherds, look,
What sudden blaze of majesty,
Is that which we from hence descry,
Too divine to be mistook :

This, this is she

To whom our vows and wishes bend; Here our solemn search hath end.

Fame, that, her high worth to raise,
Seem'd erst so lavish and profuse,
We may justly now accuse
Of detraction from her praise;

Less than half we find exprest,
Envy bid conceal the rest.

Mark, what radiant state she spreads,
In circle round her shining throne,
Shooting her beams like silver threads;
This, this is she alone,

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?

Juno dares not give her odds:

Who had thought this clime had held
A deity so unparallel'd?

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As they come forward the Genius of the wood appears, and turning towards them speaks.

Genius.

Stay, gentle swains; for, though in this

disguise,

I see bright honour sparkle through your eyes;

Follow me ;

I will bring you where she sits,
30 Clad in splendour as befits
Her deity.

of famous Arcardy ye are, and sprung
Of that renowned flood, so often sung,
Divine Alphéus, who by secret sluce
Stole under seas to meet his Arethuse;
And ye, the breathing roses of the wood,
Fair silver-buskin'd nymphs, as great and good;
I know, this quest of yours, and free intent,
Was all in honour and devotion meant
To the great mistress of yon princely shrine,
Whom with low reverence I adore as mine;
And, with all helpful service, will comply
To further this night's glad solemnity;
And lead ye, where ye may more near behold 40
What shallow-searching Fame hath left untold;
Which I full oft, amidst these shades alone,
Have sat to wonder at, and gaze upon:
For know, by lot from Jove I am the power
Of this fair wood, and live in oaken bower,
To nurse the sapplings tall, and curl the grove
With ringlets quaint, and wanton windings wove.
And all my plants I save from nightly ill
Of noisome winds, and blasting vapours chill:
And from the boughs brush off the evil dew, 50
And heal the harms of thwarting thunder blue,
Or what the cross dire-looking planet smites,
Or hurtful worm with canker'd venom bites.
When Evening grey doth rise, I fetch my round
Over the mount, and all this hallow'd ground;
And early, ere the odorous breath of Morn
Awakes the slumbering leaves, or tassel'd horn
Shakes the high thicket, haste I all about,
Number my ranks, and visit every sprout
With puissant words, and murmurs made to
bless.

But else in deep of night, when drowsiness
Hath lock'd up mortal sense, then listen I
To the celestial Syrens' harmony,
That sit upon the nine infolded spheres,
And sing to those that hold the vital shears,
And turn the adamantine spindle round,
On which the fate of gods and men is wound.
Such sweet compulsion doth in music lie,
To lull the daughters of Necessity,
And keep unsteady Nature to her law,
And the low world in measur'd motion draw
After the heavenly tune, which none can hear,
Of human mould, with gross unpurged ear;
And yet such music worthiest were to blaze
The peerless height of her immortal praise,
Whose lustre leads us, and for her most fit,
If my inferior hand or voice could hit
Inimitable sounds: yet, as we go,
Whate'er the skill of lesser gods can show,
I will assay, her worth to celebrate,
And so attend ye toward her glittering state;
Where ye may all, that are of noble stem,
Approach, and kiss her sacred vesture's hem.

II. SONG.

O'er the smooth enamell'd green Where no print of step hath been, Follow me, as I sing

And touch the warbled string,

Under the shady roof

Of branching elm star-proof,

61

Such a rural queen

All Arcadia hath not seen.

III. SONG.

Nymphs and shepherds, dance no more
By sandy Ladon's lilied banks;
On old Lycæus, or Cyllene hoar,
Trip no more in twilight ranks;
Though Erymanth your loss deplore,
A better soil shall give ye thanks.
From the stony Mænalus
Bring your flocks, and live with us;
Here ye shall have greater grace,
To serve the lady of this place.
Though Syrinx your Pan's mistress were,
Yet Syrinx well might wait on her.
Such a rural queen

All Arcadia hath not seen.

ORIGINAL VARIOUS READINGS OF ARCADES.

From

Ver. 10.

Milton's MS, in his own hand.

90

100

Now seems guiltie of abuse
And detraction from her praise,
Lesse than halfe she hath exprest:
Envie bid her hide the rest.

Here her hide is erased, and conceale written over it.
Ver. 18. Seated like a goddess bright.
But seated is also expunged, and sitting supplied.
Ver. 23. Ceres dares not give her odds:
Who would have thought, &c.
Both these readings are erased, and Juno and
had, as the printed copies now read, are written
over them.
Ver. 41. Those virtues which dull Fame, &c.
This likewise is expunged, and What shallow is
70 substituted.

80

Ver. 44. For know, by lot from Jove I have the power,

Here again the pen is drawn through have, and
am is written over it.

Ver. 47. In ringlets quaint.
But With is placed over In expunged.
Ver. 49.
pours chill.

Of noisome winds, or blasting va

Ver. 50. And from the leaves brush off, &c. So it was at first. But the pen is drawn through leaves, and bowes supplied.

Ver. 52. Or what the crosse, &c.

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 every sprout.

Here And and all are expunged with the pen, and visit, as in the printed copies, completes the

line.

Ver. 62. Hath chain'd`mortalitie.
This also is erased, and lockt up mortal sense writ-
ten over it.

Ver. 81. And so attend you toward &c.
Ver 91 I will bring ye where she sits.

COMUS

A MASK,

PRESENTED AT LUDLOW CASTLE, 1634, BEFORE
JOHN EARL OF BRIDGEWATER, THEN PRESI-
DENT OF WALES.

To the right honourable
JOHN lord viscount BRACLY son and heir ap-
parent to the earl of BRIDGEWATER, &c.

MY LORD,

THIS poem, which received its first occasion of birth from yourself and others of your noble family, and much honour from your own person in the performance, now returns again to make a final dedication of itself to you. Although not openly acknowledged by the author3, yet it is a legitimate off-spring, so lovely, and so much desired, that the often copying of it hath tired my pen to give my severall friends satisfaction, and brought me to a necessity of producing it to the publike view; and now to offer it up in all rightful devotion to those fair hopes, and rare endowments of your much promising youth, which give a full assurance to all that know you, of a future excellence. Live, sweet lord, to be the honour of your name, and receive this as your own, from the hands of him, who hath by many favours been long obliged to your most honoured parents, and as in this representation your attendant Thyrsis, so now in all reall expression

Your faithfull and most humble servant,
H. LAWES4.
The copy of a Letter written by sir Henry
Wootton, to the Author, upon the following
Poem.

SIR,

From the Colledge, this 13 of April,
1638$.

stowed upon me here the first taste of your ac quaintance, though no longer then to make me know that I wanted more time to value it, and to enjoy it rightly; and in truth, if I could then have imagined your farther stay in these parts, which I understood afterwards by Mr. H.," I would have been bold, in our vulgar phrase, to mend my draught (for you left me with an extreme thirst) and to have begged your conversation again, joyntly with your said learned friend, at a poor meal or two, that we might have banded together som good authors of the ancient time: among which, I observed you to have been familiar.

Since your going, you have charged me with new obligations, both for a very kinde letter from you dated the sixth of this month, and for a dainty peece of entertainment which came therwith. Wherin I should much commend the tragical part, if the lyrical did not ravish me with a certain Dorique delicacy in your songs and odes; whereunto I must plainly confess to have seen yet nothing parallel in our language: ipsa mollities. But I must not omit to tell you that I now onely owe you thanks for intimating unto me (how modestly soever) the true artificer. For the work itself I had viewed som good while before with singular delight, having received it from our common friend Mr. R.7 in the very close of the late R.s Poems, printed at Oxford, whereunto it is added (as I now suppose) that the accessary might help out the principal, according to the art of stationers, and to leave the reader con la bocca dolce.

Now, sir, concerning your travels wherin I may chalenge a little more privilege of discours with you; I suppose you will not blanch Paris in your way; therefore I have been bold to trouble you with a few lines to Mr. M. B. whom you shall easily find attending the young lord

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

This is the dedication to Lawes's edition of the Mask, 1637, to which the following motto was prefixed, from Virgil's second Eclogue,

Eheu! quid volui misero mihi! floribus

austrum

PerditusThis motto is omitted by Milton himself in the editions of 1645, and 1673. WARTON.

⚫ The First Brother in the Mask. WARTON. > It never appeared under Milton's name, till the year 1645. WARTON.

This dedication does not appear in the edition of Milton's Poems, printed under his own inspection, 1673, when lord Brackley, under the title of earl Bridgwater, was still living. Milton was perhaps unwilling to own his early connections with a family, conspicuous for its unshaken loyalty, and now highly patronised by king Charles the Second. WARTON.

$ April, 1638.] Milton had communicated to sir Henry his design of seeing foreign countries, and had sent him his Mask. He set out on his travels soon after the receipt of this letter.

TODD.

tioned in some of the pamphlets of this period, as well acquainted with sir Henry Wotton :" but this is omitted in his second edition. Mr. Warton perhaps doubted his conjecture of the person. I venture to state from a copy of the Reliquiæ Wottonianæ in my possession, in which a few notes are written (probably soon after the publication of the book, 3d edit. in 1672) that the person intended was the "ever-memorable" John Hales. This information will be supported by the reader's recollecting sir Henry's intimacy with Mr. Hales; of whom sir Henry says, in one of his letters, that he gave to his learned friend the title of Bibliotheca ambulans, the walking Library. See Reliq. Wotton. 3d edit. p. 475. TODD.

7 Mr. R.] Ibelieve " Mr. R." to be John Rouse, Bodley's librarian. "The late R." is unquestionably Thomas Randolph, the poet. WARTON. 8 Mr. M. B.] Mr. Michael Branthwait, as I suppose; of whom sir Henry thus speaks in one of his Letters, Reliq. Wotton. 3d edit. p. 546. "Mr. Michael Branthwait, heretofore his majestie's agent in Venice, a gentleman of approved confidence and sincerity," TODD.

480

S.9 as his governour; and you may surely re-
ceive from him good directions for the shaping of
your farther journey into Italy, where he did re-
side by my choice som time for the king, after
mine own recess from Venice.

I should think that your best line will be
thorow the whole length of France to Marseilles,
and thence by sea to Genoa, whence the passage
into Tuscany is as diurnal as a Gravesend barge:
I'hasten, as you do, to Florence, or Siena, the
rather to tell you a short story from the interest
you have given me in your safety.

which therefore I will briefly refer, trusting that
more obscure and early annals of the castle; to
ticularly ennobled by the representation of Comus
the methodical account of an edifice, more par
teresting.
within its walls, may not be improper, or unin-

It was built by Roger de Montgomery, who of its erection is fixed by Mr. Warton in the year was related to William the Conqueror. The date 1112. By others it is said to have been erected before the Conquest, and its founder to have Roger de Montgomery was sent by the Conquebeen Edric Sylvaticus, carl of Shrewsbury, whom with those estates in Salop he was afterwards ror into the marshes of Wales to subdue, and rewarded. But the testimonies of various writers assign the foundation of this structure to Roger de Montgomery, soon after the Conquest.

At Siena I was tabled in the house of one Alberto Scipioni, an old Roman courtier in dangerous times, having bin steward to the duca di Pagliano, who with all his family were strangled, save this onely man that escaped by foresight of the tempest: with him I had often much chat of those affairs; into which he took pleasure to look back from his native harbour; and at my The son of this nobleman did not long enjoy it, departure toward Rome (which had been the Robert de Belesme, earl of Shrewsbury, forfeited as he died in the prime of life. The grandson, ́center of his experience) I had wonn confidence it to Henry I. by having joined the party of Roenough 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 guardof mine own conscience. Signor Arrigo mio, ed by a numerous garrison. Soon after the ac(sayes he) 1 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 (sir) I will commit you with it to the best of all securities, God's dear love, remaining

Your friend as much at command
as any of longer date

SIB,

HENRY WOOTTON.

POSTSCRIPT.

In

I have expressly sent this my foot-boy to prevent your departure without som acknowledgement from me of the receipt of your obliging letter,having myself through som business, I know not how, neglected the ordinary conveyance. any part where I shall understand you fixed, I shall be glad, and diligent, to entertain you with home-novelties; even for some fomentation of our friendship, too soon interrupted in the cradle.

COMUS.

LUDLOW CAStle.

BY MR. TODD.

SOME idea of this venerable and magnificent pile, in which Comus was played with great splendour, at a period when masks were the most fashionable entertainment of our nobility, will probably gratify those, who read Milton with that curiosity which results from taste and imagination. Mr. Warton, the learned author of this elegant remark, declines entering into the

9 Lord S.] The son of lord viscount Scudamore, then the English ambassador at Paris, by whose notice Milton was honoured, and by whom he was introduced to Grotius, then residing at Paris, also as the minister of Sweden. TODD.

gain the possession of his fortress some writers assert that he succeeded, others that he failed. The most generally received opinion is, that the governor, repenting of his baseness, and wishing pitulation advantageous to the garrison, to which to obtain the king's forgiveness, proposed a caStephen, despairing of winning the castle by to whom succeeded Joccas de Dinan; between arms, readily acceded. Henry II. presented whom and Hugh de Mortimer lord of Wigmore it to his favourite, Fulk Fitz-Warine,or de Dinan, such dissensions arose, as at length occasioned the seizure of Mortimer, and his confinement in is called Mortimer's Tower; from which he one of the towers of the castle, which to this day was not liberated, till he had paid an immense ransom. This tower is now inhabited, and used as a fives-court.

It was again belonging to the crown in the 8th
year of king John, who bestowed it on Philip de Al-
bani, from whom it descended to the Lacies of Ire-
land, the last of which family, Walter de Lacy, dy-
ing without issue male, left the castle to his grand
daughter Maud, the wife of Peter de Geneva, or
Jeneville, a Poictevin, of the house of Lorrain,
from whose posterity it passed by a daughter to
the crown.
the Mortimers, and from them hereditarily to
taken by Simon de Montfort earl of Leicester, the
In the reign of Henry III. it was
ambitious leader of the confederate barons, who,
about the year 1263 are said to have taken pos-
session of all the royal castles and fortresses. Of
Ludlow Castle in almost two succeeding centuries
nothing is recorded.

In the thirteenth year of Henry VI. it was in
drew up his declaration of affected allegiance to
the possession of Richard duke of York, who there
the king, pretending that the army of ten thou-
sand men, which he had raised in the marshes of
Wales, was
realme." The event of this commotion between
"for the public weale of the

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