Listen, and appear to us,

In name of great Oceanus;

By the earth-shaking Neptune's mace,
And Tethys' grave majestic pace;
By hoary Nereus' wrinkled look,
And the Carpathian wizard's hook:
By scaly Triton's winding shell,
And old sooth-saying Glaucus' spell;
By Leucothea's lovely hands,
And her son that rules the strands;
By Thetis' tinsel-slippered feet,
And the songs of Sirens sweet;
By dead Parthenope's dear tomb,
And fair Ligea's golden comb,

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tune having then changed Ino and her son into sea deities, the latter was supposed to have received special power to save shipwrecked mariners, and their names were changed to Leucothea and Portumnus or Palæmon. See Ovid's Fasti, vi. 545, and Met. iv. 538.

877. Thetis.] One of the Nereids whom Milton calls tinselslippered, as Homer calls her silver-footed. And here, it should be observed that tinsel, from the French etincelle, was employed by Milton to denote sparkling or glistening, without reference to what is now the chief import of the word. See Trench's English Past and Present, p. 130. Parthenope and Ligea, afterwards mentioned, were two of the Sirens -the tomb of the former was at Naples, the latter is represented by Milton in the usual attitude of a mermaid.

Wherewith she sits on diamond rocks,
Sleeking her soft alluring locks;
By all the nymphs that nightly dance
Upon thy streams with wily glance;
Rise, rise, and heave thy rosy head,
From thy coral-paven bed,

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And bridle in thy headlong wave,

Till thou our summons answered have.

Listen and save!

SABRINA rises, attended by Water-Nymphs, and sings.

By the rushy-fringed bank,

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Where grow the willow and the osier dank,

My sliding chariot stays,

Thick set with agate, and the azure sheen

Of turkois blue, and emerald green,

That in the channel strays;

Whilst from off the waters fleet
Thus I set my printless feet
O'er the cowslip's velvet head,

That bends not as I tread;
Gentle swain, at thy request,
I am here.

Spir. Goddess dear,

We implore thy powerful hand
To undo the charmed band

894. Turkis.] The turkois, or turquoise, is a Persian gem of a bluish-green colour.

899. That bends not, &c.] Prospero, in Shakspeare's Tempest, v. 1, speaks of the 'printless foot' of elves sporting on the sand. But the notion of the unbending cowslip was probably derived from Virgil's description of the Volscian Queen Camilla, who in swiftness

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outstripped the wind, and who
could skim over the standing corn
without depressing the stalks, and
over the surface of the sea with
undipping foot. In allusion to
the passage in Virgil, Pope both
commends and imitates the rapi-
dity of the poet's language.

When swift Camilla scours the plain
Flies o'er the unbending corn and skims
along the main.
Essay on Criticism, 372.

Of true virgin here distressed,

Through the force and through the wile
Of unblessed enchanter vile.

Sabr. Shepherd, 'tis my office best
To help ensnared chastity:
Brightest lady, look on me;

Thus I sprinkle on thy breast

Drops, that from my fountain pure

I have kept, of precious cure;.
Thrice upon thy finger's tip,
Thrice upon thy rubied lip:

Next this marble venômed seat,

Smeared with gums of glutinous heat,

I touch with chaste palms moist and cold:

Now the spell hath lost his hold;

And I must haste, ere morning hour,

To wait in Amphitrite's bower.

SABRINA descends, and THE LADY rises out of her seat.

Spir. Virgin, daughter of Locrine,

Sprung of old Anchises' line,

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May thy billows roll ashore
The beryl and the golden ore;
May thy lofty head be crowned

With many a tower and terrace round,
And here and there thy banks upon

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Lest the sorcerer us entice
With some other new device.
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 wished presence; and, beside,
All the swains that near 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 cheer:

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Come, let us haste, the stars grow high,

But night sits monarch yet in the mid sky.

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 sun-shine holiday :

Here be, without duck or nod,

Other trippings to be trod

Of lighter toes, and such court guise
As Mercury did first devise,
With the mincing Dryades,
On the lawns, and on the leas.