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Such as may make thee search thy coffers round,
Before thou clothe my fancy in fit sound:
Such where the deep transported mind may soar
Above the wheeling poles, and at heav'n's door
Look in, and see each blissful deity

How he before the thunderous throne doth lie,
List'ning to what unshorn Apollo sings

To th' touch of golden wires, while Hebe brings
Immortal nectar to her kingly sire :

Then passing through the spheres of watchful fire,

Milton's to his native language, that even in these green years he had the ambition to think of writing an epic poem; and it is worth the curious reader's attention to observe how much the Paradise Lost corresponds in its circumstances to the prophetic wish he now formed. Thyer.

Here are strong indications of a young mind anticipating the subject of the Paradise Lost, if we substitute Christian for Pagan ideas. He was now deep in the Greek poets. T Warton.

36. the thunderous throne] Should it not be the thunderer's? Jortin.

Thunderous is more in Milton's manner, and conveys a new and stronger image. Besides, the word is used in Par. Lost, x.

702.

Nature and ether black with thundrous clouds.

It is from thunder, as slumbrous from slumber, Par. Lost, iv. 615. Wondrous from wonder is obvious. T. Warton.

37.-unshorn Apollo] An epithet by which he is distinguished in the Greek and Latin poets.

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Pindar, Pyth. iii. 26. ansgornoua o. Hor. Od. i. xxi. 2.

Intonsum pueri dicite Cynthium..

40. Then passing through the spheres of watchful fire, &c.] A sublime mode of describing the study of natural philosophy. Compare another college exercise, written perhaps about the same time. Nec dubitatis, auditores, etiam in cœlos volare, ibique ille multiformia nubium spectra, niviumque coacervatam vim, contemplemini . . . . Grandinisque exinde loculos inspicite, et armamenta fulminum perscrutemini. Pr. W. ii. 591. But the thoughts are in Sylvester's Du Bartas, p. 133. ed. 1621. supposes that the soul, while imprisoned in the body, often springs aloft into the airy regions;

He

And there she learns to knowe Th' originals of winde, and hail, and snowe;

Of lightning, thunder, blazing-stars, and stormes,

Of rain and ice, and strange-exhaled formes:

By th' aire's steep stairs she boldly climbs aloft

To the world's chambers: heaven she visits oft, &c.

And misty regions of wide air next under,
And hills of snow and lofts of piled thunder,
May tell at length how green-ey'd Neptune raves,
In heav'n's defiance mustering all his waves;
Then sing of secret things that came to pass.
When beldam Nature in her cradle was;
And last of kings and queens and heroes old,
Such as the wise Demodocus once told
In solemn songs at king Alcinous feast:
While sad Ulysses soul and all the rest
Are held with his melodious harmony

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The fields he passed then, whence hail and snow,

Thunder and rain fall down from. clouds above.

Fairfax.

42. green-ey'd Neptune]· Virgil, Georg. iv. of Proteus. Ardentes oculos intersit lumine glauco• T. Warton.

48. Such as the wise Demodocus &c.] Alluding to the eighth book of the Odyssey, where Alcinous entertains Ulysses, and the celebrated musician and poet Demodocus sings the loves of Mars and Venus, and the destruction of Troy; and Ulysses and the rest are affected in the manner here described.

48. He now little thought that Homer's beautiful couplet of the fate of Demodocus, could, in a few years, with so much propriety be applied to himself. He was but too conscious of his resemblance to some other Greek the Paradise Lost. See b. iii, 33. bards of antiquity when he wrote seq. T. Warton.

In willing chains and sweet captivity.

But fie, my wand'ring Muse, how thou dost stray!
Expectance calls thee now another way,

Thou know'st it must be now thy only bent
To keep in compass of thy predicament:
Then quick about thy purpos'd business come,
That to the next I may resign my room.

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Then Ens is represented as father of the Predicaments his ten sons, whereof the eldest stood for Substance with his canons, which Ens, thus speaking, explains.

GOOD luck befriend thee, Son; for at thy birth
The fairy ladies danc'd upon the hearth;

52. In willing chains and sweet captivity.] Tasso, Gier. Lib. c. vi.

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56. of thy predicament:] What the Greeks called a category, Boëthius first named a predicament: and if the reader is acquainted with Aristotle's Categories, or Burgersdicius, or any of the old logicians, he will not want what follows to be explained to him; and it cannot well be explained to him, if he is unacquainted with that kind of logic.

59. Good luck befriend thee, Son, &c.] Here the metaphysical or logical Ens is introduced as a person, and addressing his eldest son Substance. Afterwards the logical Quantity, Quality, and Relation, are personified, and speak. This affectation will appear more excusable in Milton,

VOL. III.

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if we recollect, that every thing, in the masks of this age, appeared in a bodily shape. Airy nothing had not only a local habitation and a name, but a visible figure. It is extraordinary that the pedantry of King James I. should not have been gratified with the system of logic represented in a mask, at some of his academic receptions. He was once entertained at Oxford, in 1618, with a play called the Marriage of the Arts. As to the fairy ladies dancing, &c. it is the first and last time that the system of the fairies was ever introduced to illustrate the doctrine of Aristotle's ten categories. Yet so barren, unpoetical, and abstracted a subject could not have been adorned with finer touches of fancy, than we meet with, v. 62. come tripping to the room, &c. v. 69. a sibyl old, &c. And in this illustration there is

A a

spy

Thy drowsy nurse hath sworn she did them
Come tripping to the room where thou didst lie,
And sweetly singing round about thy bed

Strow all their blessings on thy sleeping head.

She heard them give thee this, that thou should'st still 65
From eyes of mortals walk invisible:

Yet there is something that doth force my fear,
For once it was my dismal hap to hear

A Sibyl old, bow-bent with crooked age,
That far events full wisely could presage,
And in time's long and dark prospective glass
Foresaw what future days should bring to pass;
Your son, said she, (nor can you it prevent,)
Shall subject be to many an Accident.
O'er all his brethren he shall reign as king,
Yet every one shall make him underling,
And those that cannot live from him asunder
Ungratefully shall strive to keep him under,
In worth and excellence he shall out-go them,
Yet being above them, he shall be below them;
From others he shall stand in need of nothing,
Yet on his brothers shall depend for clothing.

great elegance, v. 83. to find a foe, &c. The address of Ens is a very ingenious enigma on Substance. T. Warton.

74. Shall subject be to many an Accident.] A pun on the logical accidens. O'er all his brethren he shall reign as king; the Predicaments are his brethren; of or to which he is the subjectum, although first in excellence and order. Ungratefully shall strive to keep him under; they cannot

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exist, but as inherent in Substance. From others he shall stand in need of nothing; he is still substance, with, or without, accident. Yet on his brothers shall depend for clothing; by whom he is clothed, superinduced, modified, &c. But he is still the same. To find a foe, &c.; Substantia substantia nova contrariatur, is a school maxim. To harbour those that are at enmity; his accidents. T. Warton.

To find a foe it shall not be his hap,

And peace shall lull him in her flow'ry lap;
Yet shall he live in strife, and at his door
Devouring war shall never cease to roar :
Yea it shall be his natural property
To harbour those that are at enmity.
What pow'r, what force, what mighty spell, if not
Your learned hands, can loose this Gordian knot?

The next Quantity and Quality spake in
Relation was called by his name.

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prose, then

RIVERS arise; whether thou be the son
Of utmost Tweed, or Oose, or gulphy Dun,

84. And peace shall lull him in her flow'ry lap ;] So in Harrington's Ariosto, c. xlv. 1.

Who long were lull'd on high in fortune's lap.

See also W. Smith's Cloris, 1596. and Spenser's Tears of the Muses, Terpsich. st. i. and Par. Lost, iv. 254. T. Warton.

91. Rivers arise; &c.] In invoking these rivers Milton had his eye particularly upon that admirable episode in Spenser of the marriage of the Thames and the Medway, where the several rivers are introduced in honour of the ceremony. Faery Queen, b. iv. cant. 11. Of utmost Tweed; so Spenser, st. 36.

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And Tweede the limit betwixt Lo- The name is of Saxon original,

gris land And Albany.

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but (as Camden observes in his Staffordshire) "some ignorant "and idle pretenders imagine "the name to be derived from "the French word Trente, and

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