Not unseen.→ Some critics think that this should be, wander out unseen; and they account for the mistake by supposing that the win out was in the first printed copy ann, which was inverted by accident, (a circumstance that frequently happens in printing;) and that the succeeding, printer, not knowing what to do with ont, had turned it into not. But I rather think Milton intended that it should be not unseen, from this line in II Penseroso, "And missing thee, I walk unseen Walking in the view of others is suited to L'Allegro, walking unseen to Il Penseroso. Right against the eastern gate.-Opposite to the rising sun. Gray, in the country churchyard, says, "To meet the sun upon yon upland lawn." Dight.-Dressed in a thousand different colours. Liveries, to modern ears seems rather a mean allusion; but formerly it conveyed the same meaning as uniform does to us. Straight mine eye hath caught new pleasures, While the landscape round, it measures; Russet lawns, and fallows gray, Where the nibbling flocks do stray; "Mine eye catches new pleasures, as it surveys the landscape; it sees brown fields and gray fallows, where the sheep stray and bite the short grass; it sees barren mountains, upon the sides of which the clouds seem to rest; meadows decked with pied or many-coloured daisies, and Harrow streams and wide rivers; it sees towers, and their battlements, that seem to be in the bosom of tufted groves, where perhaps some beauty lives retired, who attracts the eyes of all the swains by the brightness of her charms, as the bright dog-star is conspicuous in the heavens." The poet here drops the idea of being led by Mirth and Liberty; and he speaks of what appears before his eyes as he walks abroad in the morning.la Russet lawnsBrown lawns, dried up by the sun. Labouring clouds. Low clouds driven slowly by the winds, when they meet with high mountains, seem to labour in rolling over them, and may seem to rest when stopped in their passage. Meadows that appear trim or dressed with, or pied, with many coloured daisies. Cynosure. The pole-star, which directs sailors by night, was by the ancients called cynosure, or dog-star. The poet here rather awkwardly calls a beauty, upon whom the neighbouring villagers turn their eyes, their pole star. Hard by a cottage chimney smokes, To the tanned haycock in the mead. "The smoke of a cottage chimney rises between two oaks, where the farmers, Thyrsis and Corydon, are at dinner, upon some country fare, which labour makes delicious. Phyllis, their neat and useful companion, when she has prepared their dinner, goes in haste with Thestylis, to bind the sheaves of corn, or to make hay, if it is earlier in the summer.This represents the middle of the day... "Sometimes with secure delight, To many a youth and many a maid, And young and old come forth to play "At other times I walk to the small villages on the neghbouring hills, on a holiday, when the bells ring merrily; when, in the evening, under the moving shadows of the trees, the village lads and maidens dance to the cheerful fiddle. The rebeck.-Properly a fiddle with three strings. We may observe here, that Milton selects such words in his descriptions as are not in vulgar use: "Till the livelong day-light fail, With stories told of many a feat, How fairy Mab the junkets eat; That ten day-lab'rers could not end; By whisp'ring winds soon lulled asleep. "Till the day-light fails they dance, and then they retire to some cottage, to refresh themselves with ale, while they listen to the stories of Mab, queen of the fairies, who carried off some dainty which had been laid by. One of the maidens tells how she was pinched and pulled by the fairies; whilst a young man relates how he was led astray by Will o'the Wisp; or tells how a drudging goblin, to earn a bowl of cream that had been left for him, threshed, in one night, with his unsubstantial flail, more than ten men could have threshed'; and how, after his labour, the strong and hairy fiend stretched himself before the fire, till roused by the crowing of the cock, he hurries out of doors-when the lads and lasses are tired of listening to these stories, they creep fearfully to bed, where they are soon lulled to fleep by the murmuring wind. Junket, is another name for foft curds; and it was so much used as a treat by the country |