And over them sad Horror with grim hewe, 2.7.2. Milton, after mentioning some of the same allegorical beings, adds— Exanguisque locum circumvolat Horror*. Among these beings Milton's decription of Phonos, or Murder, whom he couples with Prodotes, or Treason, is remarkably beautiful. Ipsi etiam pavidi latitant penetralibus antri Et Phonos et Prodotes; nulloque sequente per antrum, Antrum horrent, scopulosum, atrum feralibus umbris, Diffugiunt sontes, et retro lumina vertunt. But I think it is equalled by Fletcher's figure of Phonos, in his forgotten poem, called the Purple Island. Rapt. Proserp. v. 148. Last of this route the savage Ponos went, Whom his dire mother nurst with human blood; And when more age and strength more fierceness lent, She taught him in a darke and desart wood, With force and guile poore passengers to slay, And on their flesh his barking stomach stay, And with their wretched blood his fiery thirst allay. Ten thousand Furies on his steps awaited, Some sear'd his harden'd soul with Stygian brand, Which for revenge to heaven from earth did loudly roar*. It is observable, that this little poem of Milton, as containing a council, conspiracy, and expedition, of Satan, may be looked upon as an early prelusion of his genius, to the subject of the Paradise Lost. B. ii. c. vii. s. liii. The garden of Proserpina this hight, open heat Herselfe to shroud, and pleasures to entreat. *Cant. 7. st. 69. 71. Next thereunto did growe a goodly trec, With branches broad disspred and body great, Cloathed with leaves that none the wood mote see, And loden all with fruit, as thick as it might be. liv. Their fruit was golden apples glistring bright. This mythology is drawn from Claudian. Pluto consoles Proserpine with these pro mises. Nec mollia desunt Prata tibi zephyris illic melioribus halant The golden fruit, and a silver stoole, are afterwards offered to the knight by Mammon, as objects of temptation. Rapt. Pros. 1. 2. v. 290. Thou fearfull foole, Why takest not of that same fruit of gold, Ne sittest downe on that same silver stoole, To rest thy weary person in the shadow coole? Ovid relates, that Proserpine would have been restored to her modern Ceres, had she not been observed by Ascalaphus to pluck a radiant apple from a tree which grew in her garden; the same, I suppose, which Claudian speaks of in the verses just quoted. - Cereri certum est educere natam : From these verses Spenser seems to have borrowed, and to have adapted to his present purpose, the notion that these golden apples were prohibited fruit. The Silver Stoole is added from his own fancy, and is a new Met. 1. 5. v. 533. circumstance of temptation. His own allegorising invention has also feigned, that the plants which grew in the garden of Proserpine, were Direful deadly blacke, both leaf and bloom, Fit to adorn the dead, and deck the dreary toomb. st. 51. Whereas Claudian describes this garden as filled with flowers more beautiful than those of Enna. Nor is he less attentive to the ancient fabulists, where he tells us, that the tree of the Hesperides sprung from this of Proserpine; that these were thrown in the way of Hippomanes and Atalanta, st. 54; and that those with which Acontius won Cydippe, and which Ate flung among the gods, were gathered from Proserpine's tree, st. 55. He adds, that the branches of this tree overspread the river Cocytus, in which Tantalus was plunged to the chin, and who |