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Not a waste or needless sound,
Till we come to holier ground;
I shall be your faithful guide
Through this gloomy covert wide;
And not many furlongs thence
Is your father's residence,
Where this night are met in state
Many a friend to gratulate
His wish'd presence; and beside
All the swains, that there abide,
With jigs and rural dance resort:
We shall catch them at their sport;
And our sudden coming there

Will double all their mirth and chere.

Come, let us haste; the stars grow high;

But night sits monarch yet in the mid sky ".

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[The scene changes, presenting Ludlow town and the President's castle then come in Country Dancers; after them the Attendant Spirit, with the Two Brothers, and the Lady.]

SONG.

Spir. Back shepherds, back; enough your play,

Till next sunshine holiday :

Here be, without duck or nod°,

Other trippings to be trod

As Mercury did first devise,

Of lighter toes, and such court guise

With the mincing Dryades,

On the lawns and on the leas.

[This second Song presents them to their Father and Mother.]

Noble Lord, and Lady bright,

I have brought ye new delight;

The stars grow high,

But night sits monarch yet in the mid sky.

Compare Fletcher's play, a. ii. s. 1.-T. WARTON.

• Here be, without duck or nod, &c.

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By "ducks and nods" our author alludes to the country people's awkward way of dancing and, the two Brothers and the Lady being now to dance, he describes their elegant way of moving by "trippings," "lighter toes," court guise," &c. He follows Shakspeare, who makes Ariel tell Prospero, that his maskers,

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Before you can say, come and go,
And breathe twice, and cry so, so,
Each one, tripping on his toe,
Will be here with mop and mow.

And Oberon commands his fairies:

Every elfe, and fairy sprite,
Hop as light as bird from briar,
And this ditty after me,

Sing, and dance it trippingly.

The Dryads were wood-nymphs: but here the ladies who appeared on this occasion at the court of the lord president of the marches, are very elegantly termed Dryades. Indeed the prophet complains of the Jewish women for mincing as they go, Isaiah, iii. 16. But our author uses that word, only to express the neatness of their gait. -PECK.

Here behold so goodly grown
Three fair branches of your own:

Heaven hath timely tried their youth,
Their faith, their patience, and their truth;
And sent them here through hard assays
With a crown of deathless praise,
To triumph in victorious dance
O'er sensual folly and intemperance.

[The Dances ended, the Spirit epiloguizes.]
Spir. To the ocean now I fly P,
And those happy climes that lie
Where day never shuts his eye,
Up in the broad fields of the sky ¶ :
There I suck the liquid air r
All amidst the gardens fair

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Of Hesperus, and his daughters three
That sing about the golden treet:
Along the crisped shades and bowers
Revels the spruce and jocund Spring;
The Graces, and the rosy-bosom'd Hours,
Thither all their bounties bring;

P To the ocean now I fly, &c.

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This speech is evidently a paraphrase on Ariel's song in the "Tempest," a. v. s. 1:Where the bee sucks, there suck I.-WARBURTON.

Up in the broad fields of the sky.

It may be doubted whether from Virgil, "Aeris in campis latis," "En." vi. 888, for at first he had written "plain fields," with another idea; a level extent of verdure. -T. WARTON.

He wrote "broad fields" from Fairfax, b. viii. st. 57. heauen's bright wildernesse."-Todd.

There I suck the liquid air.

"O'er the broad fields of

Thus Ubaldo, in Fairfax's "Tasso," a good wisard, who dwells in the centre of the earth, but sometimes emerges, to breathe the purer air of Mount Carmel, b. xiv. st. 43;— And there in liquid ayre myself disport.-T. WARTON.

All amidst the gardens fair

Of Hesperus, and his daughters three.

The daughters of Hesperus, the brother of Atlas, first mentioned in Milton's manuscript as their father, had gardens or orchards which produced apples of gold. Spenser makes them the daughters of Atlas, "Faery Qu." ii. vii. 54. See Ovid, "Metam." ix. 636 and Apollodor. "Bibl." 1. ii. § 11. But what ancient fabler celebrates these damsels for their skill in singing? Apollonius Rhodius, an author whom Milton taught to his scholars, "Argon." iv. 1396. Hence Lucan's virgin-choir, overlooked by the commentators, is to be explained, where he speaks of this golden grove, ix. 360 :— fuit aurea silva,

Divitiisque graves et fulvo germine rami;
Virgineusque chorus, nitidi custodia luci,

Et nunquam somno damnatus lumina serpens, &c.

Milton frequently alludes to these ladies, or their gardens, "Par. Lost," b. iii. 568. iv. 520. viii. 631. "Par. Reg." b. ii. 357. And the Mask before us, v. 392.-T. WARTON.

The golden tree.

Many say that the apples of Atlas's garden were of gold: Ovid is the only ancient writer that says the trees were of gold, "Metam." iv. 636.-T. WARTON.

There eternal summer dwells,
And west winds, with musky wing,
About the cedar'd alleys fling
Nard and cassia's balmy smells.
Iris there with humid bow

Waters the odorous banks, that blow "
Flowers of more mingled hew
Than her purfled scarf can shew;
And drenches with Elysian dew▾
(List, mortals, if your ears be true )
Beds of hyacinth and roses,
Where young Adonis oft reposes,
Waxing well of his deep wound
In slumber soft, and on the ground
Sadly sits the Assyrian queeny :
But far above in spangled sheen z
Celestial Cupid, her famed son, advanced,

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Holds his dear Psyche sweet entranced,
After her wandering labours long,
Till free consent the gods among

Make her his eternal bride,
And from her fair unspotted side

Two blissful twins are to be born,
Youth and Joya; so Jove hath sworn.

But now my task is smoothly done b,

I can fly, or I can run,

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" "Blow" is here actively used, as in Beaumont and Fletcher's "Lover's Progress," a. ii. s. 1

The wind that blows the April-flowers not softer.

That is, "makes the flowers blow." So, in Jonson's "Mask at Highgate,” 1604 :— For these, Favonius here shall blow

New flowers, &c.-T. WARTON.

▾ And drenches with Elysian dew.

As in "Par. Lost," b. xi. 367, the angel says to Adam,

Let Eve, for I have drench'd her eyes,

Here sleep below.-T. WARTON.

"If your ears be true.

Intimating that this song, which follows, of Adonis, and Cupid and Psyche, is not for the profane, but only for well-purged ears.-HURD.

* See Spenser's "Astrophel," st. 48.-T. Warton.

y The Assyrian queen.

Venus is called "the Assyrian queen,' because she was first worshipped by the Assyrians. See Pausanias, "Attic." lib. i. cap. 14.-NEWTON.

"Mids. N. Dream," a. ii. s. 1:

In spangled sheen.

By fountain clear, or spangled starlight sheen.-TODD.

a Undoubtedly Milton's allusion at large, is here to Spenser's allegorical garden of Adonis, "Faer. Qu." iii. vi. 46, seq., but at the same time, his mythology has a reference to Spenser's "Hymne of Love," where Love is feign'd to dwell "in a paradise of all delight," with Hebe, or Youth, and the rest of the darlings of Venus, who sport with his daughter Pleasure.-T. Warton.

b But now my task is smoothly done, &c.

So Shakspeare's Prospero, in the Epilogue to the "Tempest :"

Quickly to the green earth's end,
Where the bow'd welkin slow doth bend d;
And from thence can soar as soon
To the corners of the moon e.

Mortals, that would follow me,
Love Virtue; she alone is free:
She can teach ye how to clime f
Higher than the sphery chime ;
Or, if Virtue feeble were,

Heaven itself would stoop to her.

Now my charms are all o'erthrown, &c.

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And thus the satyr, in Fletcher's "Faithful Shepherdess," who bears the character of our Attendant Spirit, when his office or commission is finished, displays his power and activity, promising any farther services, s. ult.-T. WARTON.

Cape de Verd isles.-SYMPSON.

The green earth's end.

d Where the bow'd welkin slow doth bend.

A curve which bends or descends slowly, from its great sweep. same sense, of Dover cliff, in "K. Lear," a. iv. s. 1 :—

There is a cliff, whose high and bending head

Looks fearfully on the confined deep.

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And, in the "Faithful Shepherdess," "bending plain,"p. 105. Jonson has "bending vale," vii. 39.-T. WARTON.

•And from thence can soar as soon

To the corners of the moon.

Oberon says of the swiftness of his fairies, "Mids. N. Dr." a. iv. s. 1 :—

We the globe can compass soon
Swifter than the wandering moon.

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And Puck's fairy, ibid. a. ii. s. 1:

I do wander every where,

Swifter than the moone's sphere.-T. WARTON.

She can teach ye how to clime, &c.

Dr. Warburton has observed, that the last four verses furnished Pope with the thought for the conclusion of his "Ode on St. Cecilia's Day." A prior imitation may be traced in the close of Dryden's Ode.-TODD.

"Chime," Ital. Cima

The sphery chime.

Yet he uses 66 chime" in the common sense, "Ode Nativ." v. 128. He may do so here, but then the expression is licentious, I suppose for the sake of the rhyme.-HURD.

The "sphery chime" is the music of the spheres.-T. WARTON.

h The moral of this poem is very finely summed up in the six concluding lines: the thought contained in the last two might probably be suggested to our author by a passage in the "Table of Cebes," where Patience and Perseverance are represented stooping and stretching out their hands to help up those who are endeavouring to climb the craggy hill of Virtue, and yet are too feeble to ascend of themselves.—THYER.

Had this learned and ingenious critic duly reflected on the lofty mind of Milton, "smit with the love of sacred song," and so often and so sublimely employed on topics of religion, he might readily have found a subject, to which the poet obviously and divinely alludes in these concluding lines, without fetching the thought from the "Table of Cebes." In the preceding remark, I am convinced Mr. Thyer had no ill intention: but, by overlooking so clear and pointed an allusion to a subject, calculated to kindle that lively glow in the bosom of every Christian, which the poet intended to excite, and by referring it to an image in a profane author, he may, beside stifling the sublime effect so happily produced, afford a handle to some, in these "evil days," who are willing to make the religion of Socrates and Cebes (or that of Nature) supersede the religion of Christ. "The moral of this

poem is, indeed, very finely summed up in the six concluding lines;" in which, to wind up one of the most elegant productions of his genius, "the poet's eye, in a fine frenzy rolling," threw up its last glance to Heaven, in rapt contemplation of that stupendous mystery, whereby He, the lofty theme of "Paradise Regained," stooping from above all height, "bowed the heavens, and came down on earth, to atone as man for the sins of men, to strengthen feeble virtue by the influence of his grace, and to teach her to ascend his throne."-FRANCIS HENRY EGERTON, afterwards Earl of Bridgewater.

The Attendant Spirit opens the poem with a description of the rewards which Virtue promises, "after this mortal life, to her true servants :" the poem, therefore, may be considered more perfect, in closing, as it commenced, with the solemn and impressive sentiments of Scripture.-TODD.

In the peculiar disposition of the story, the sweetness of the numbers, the justness of the expression, and the moral it teaches, there is nothing extant in any language like the "Mask of Comus."-TOLAND.

Milton's "Juvenile Poems" are so no otherwise, than as they were written in his younger years; for their dignity and excellence, they are sufficient to have set him among the most celebrated of the poets, even of the ancients themselves: his "Mask" and "Lycidas" are perhaps superior to all in their several kinds.-RICHARDSON.

"Comus" is written very much in imitation of Shakspeare's "Tempest," and the "Faithful Shepherdess" of Fletcher; and though one of the first, is yet one of the most beautiful of Milton's compositions.-NEWTON.

Milton seems in this poem to have imitated Shakspeare's manner more than in any other of his works; and it was very natural for a young author, preparing a piece for the stage, to propose to himself for a pattern the most celebrated master of English dramatic poetry.-THYER.

Milton has here more professedly imitated the manner of Shakspeare in his fairy scenes, than in any other of his works: and his poem is much the better for it, not only for the beauty, variety, and novelty of his images, but for a brighter vein of poetry, and an ease and delicacy of expression very superior to his natural manner.-WARBURTON.

If this Mask had been revised by Milton, when his ear and judgment were perfectly formed, it had been the most exquisite of all his poems. As it is, there are some puerilities in it, and many inaccuracies of expression and versification. The two editions of his poems are of 1645 and 1673. In 1645, he was, as he would think, better employed; in 1673, he would condemn himself for having written such a thing as a Mask, especially for a great lord and a sort of viceroy.-HURD.

The greatest of Milton's juvenile performances is the "Mask of Comus," in which may very plainly be discovered the dawn or twilight of "Paradise Lost." Milton appears to have formed very early that system of diction, and mode of verse, which his maturer judgment approved, and from which he never endeavoured nor desired to deviate. Nor does "Comus" afford only a specimen of his language; it exhibits likewise his power of description and his vigour of sentiment, employed in the praise and defence of virtue. A work more truly poetical is rarely found; allusions, images, and descriptive epithets embellish almost every period with lavish decoration: as a series of lines, therefore, it may be considered as worthy of all the admiration with which the votaries have received it; as a drama it is deficient. The action is not probable. A Mask, in those parts where supernatural intervention is admitted, must indeed be given up to all the freaks of imagination; but, so far as the action is merely human, it ought to be reasonable, which can hardly be said of the conduct of the two Brothers; who, when their sister sinks with fatigue in a pathless wilderness, wander both away together in search of berries too far to find their way back, and leave a helpless lady to all the sadness and danger of solitude. This, however, is a defect overbalanced by its convenience. What deserves more reprehension is, that the prologue spoken in the wild wood by the Attendant Spirit is addressed to the audience; a mode of communication so contrary to the nature of dramatic representation, that no precedents can support it. The discourse of the Spirit is too long; an objection that may be made to almost all the following speeches: they have not the sprightliness of a dialogue animated by reciprocal contention, but seem rather declamations deliberately composed, and formally repeated, on a moral question: the auditor therefore listens as to a lecture, without passion, without anxiety. The song of Comus has airiness and jollity; but, what may recommend Milton's morals as well as his poetry, the invitations to pleasure are so general, that they excite no distinct images of corrupt enjoyment, and take no dangerous hold on the fancy. The following soliloquies of Comus and the Lady are

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