Thus night oft see me in thy pale carreer, 10 Till civil-suited morn appear,

Not trickt and frounct as she was wont
With the Attic boy to hunt,
But kercheft in a comely cloud,

125
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, 130
And when the sun begins to fling
His flaring beams, me Goddess bring

То

legorical poetry it may be said with 123. Not trickt and frounct as foe great truth and propriety, that more was wont is meant than meets the ear. And With the Attic boy to hunt,] thus in these two little poems Mil- Shakespear calls dress tricking. Mrs. ton makes his compliments to our Page in the Merry Wives of Windgreatest English poets, Johnson and for Go get us properties and Shakespear, Chaucer and Spenser. tricking for our faeries.

Frounct is

another word to the same purpose, 122. Till civil-suited morn appear,] fignifying much the

same as frizled, Paradise Regain'd. IV. 426. crisped, curled. The Attic boy in

till morning fair Cephalus, with whom Aurora fell Came forth with pilgrim steps in in love as he was hunting. See

Richardson. Peck, and Ovid. Met. VII. 701. Shakespear for the same reason says of night, Romeo and Juliet Act 3.

125. But kercheft in a comely

cloud,) Kerchef is a head dress

from the French, couvre chef; a Come civil night, word used by Chaucer and Shake. Thou sober-fuited matron, all in spear. Julius Cæsar, Act 2. Sc. 3. black,

141, -day's

amice gray:

Sc. 4:

To arched walks of twilight groves,
And shadows brown that Sylvan loves
Of pine, or monumental oak,

135
Where the rude ax 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,

140 Hide me from day's garish eye, While the bee with honied thie, That at her flow'ry work doth sing, And the waters murmuring With such confort as they keep, Entice the dewy-feather’d sleep ; And let some strange mysterious dream Wave at his wings in aery

stream

Of

145

141. -day's garijk eye,] Garifle, 148. Wavi at bis wings] Wave {plendid, gaudy. A word in Shake- is used here as a verb neuter. {pear. Richard III. Act 4* Sc.

4.

151. - sweet music breathe &c] a garish flag. This thought is taken from ShakeRomeo and Juliet. A&t 3. Sc. 4.

spear's Tempeft. Fortin. all the world fall be in love 158. pillars maly proof,] That with night,

is proof against a great weight. So And pay no worship to the garillo in the poem of Arcades fun.

- branching

130

155

Of lively portraiture display'd,
Softly on my eye-lids laid.
And as I wake, sweet mufic breathe
Above, about, or underneath,
Sent by some Spirit to mortals good,
Or th' 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 maffy 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,

160

Diffolve

- branching elm far-proof

Where awful arches make a noon.

day night, that is which will refift the evil in,

And the dim windows shed a fo. fluence of the planets. It is a vul

lemn light. gar superstition that one species 161. There let the pealing organ of elm has that virtue.

bloro, &c] This shows that Warburton.

Milton, however mistaken in other 16e. Cafting a din religious light.] respects, did not run into the enMr. Pope has imitated chis in his thufiaftic madness of that fanatic Eloisa to Abelard. ver. 143.

age against Church Music. Thyer.

167. And

165

170

Diffolve me into extafies,
And bring all Heav'n before mine eyes.
And may at last my weary age
Find out the peaceful hermitage,
The hairy gown and mossy cell,
Where I may fit and rightly spell
Of
every

star that Heav'n 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.

175

AR

167. And may at last miy weary 173. Till old experience do attain

age &c] There is something To something like prophetic strain.] extremely pleafing and proper in This resembles what Cornelius this last circumstance, not merely Nepos says of Cicero, that his as it varies and inlarges the pic- prudence seemed to be a kind of ture, but as it adds such a perfec- divination, for he foretold every tion and completeness to it, by thing that happen'd afterwards like conducting the Penseroso so hap- a prophet. et facile exiftimari pily to the last scene of life, as possit, prudentiam quodammodo leaves the reader's mind fully fac effe divinationem. Non enim Citisfied: And if preferring the one cero ea solum, quæ vivo se acciwould not look like censuring the derunt, futura prædixit, sed etiam, other, I would say that in this quæ nunc usu veniunt, cecinit, ut respect this poem clames a superio. vates. Vita Attici cap. 16. This rity over the Allegro, which, al- ending is certainly very fine, but tho' defign'd with equal judgment, tho' Mr. Thyer thinks it perfect and executed with no less spirit, and complete, yet others have been yet ends as if something more might of opinion that something more fill have been added. Thyer. might still be added, and I have

feen

XV.

* ARCA DE S.

Part of an Entertainment presented to the Countess

Dowager of Derby at Harefield, by fome noble persons of her family, who appear on the scene in pastoral habit, moving toward the seat of state, with this Song.

1. SONG

OOK Nymphs, and Shepherds look,

What sudden blaze of majesty Is that which we from hence descry,

L

Too

ter shed

feen in Mr. Richardson's book fome nature, or composed by a diffelines of Mr. John Hughes. rent hand. The Countess Dowager of There let Time's creeping win- Derby, to whom it was presented,

must have been Alice, daughter of His reverend snow around my Sir John Spenser of Althorp in head;

Northamptonshire Knight, and the And while I feel by fast degrees widow of Ferdinando Stanley the My sluggard blood wax chill and fifth Earl of Derby: and Harefield freeze,

is in Middlesex, and according to Let thought unveil to my fix'd Camden lieth a little to the north eye

of Uxbridge, so that I think we A scene of deep eternity, may certainly conclude, that MilTill life diffolving at the view, ton made this poem while he reI wake and find the vision true. fided in that neighbourhood with

his father at Horton near Cole. * This poem is only part of an brooke. It should seem too, that Entertainment, or Mask, as it is also it was made before the Mak at intitled in Milton's Manuscript, the Ludlow, as it is a more imperfe& reft probably being of a different effay: and Frances the second

daughter

1