Or Trent, who, like some Earth-born giant, spreads 95 vocation and assemblage of these rivers, to have had an eye on Spenser's Episode of the Nuptials of Thames and Medway, Faer. Qu. iv. xi. I rather think he consulted Drayton's Polyolbion. It is hard to say, in what sense, or in what manner, this introduction of the rivers was to be applied to the subject. T. WARTON. Ver. 93. Or Trent, who, like some Earth-born giant, spreads His thirty arms along the indented meads;] It is said that there were thirty sorts of fish in this river, and thirty religious houses on its banks. See Drayton, Polyolb. S. xii. vol. iii. p. 906. Drayton adds, that it was foretold by a wisard, "And thirty several streames, from many a sundry way, These traditions, on which Milton has raised a noble image, are a rebus on the name Trent. T. WARTON. Ver. 94. indented meads;] Indent, in this sense and context, is in Sylvester's Du Bartas, D. iii. W. i. "Our siluer Medway, which doth deepe indent "The flowrie medowes of my native Kent." And Drayton speaks of "creeks indenting the land," Polyolb. S. i. T. WARTON. See also Du Bart. ed. supr. p. 775. "There silver torrents rush, "Indenting meads and pastures, as they pass." TODD. Ver. 95. Or sullen Mole, that runneth underneath;] At Mickleham near Darking in Surrey, the river Mole during the summer, except in heavy rains, sinks through its sandy bed into a subterraneous and invisible channel. In winter it constantly keeps its current. This river is brought into one of our author's religious disputes. "To make the word Gift, like the river Mole in Surrey, to run under the bottom of a long line, and so to start up and to govern the word presbytery," &c. Pr.-W. vol. i. 92. T. WARTON. Or Severn swift, guilty of maiden's death; Or coaly Tine, or ancient hallow'd Dee; Or Humber loud, that keeps the Scythian's name; Or Medway smooth, or royal-tower'd Thame. [The rest was prose.] 100 Ver. 96. Or Severn swift, guilty of maiden's death;] The maiden is Sabrina. See Comus, v. 827. T. WARTON. Ver. 98. ancient hallow'd Dee;] In Apollonius Rhodius we have Φάσιδι συμφέρεται ΙΕΡΟΝ ῥέον. Argon. iv. 134. And in Theocritus, 'Akidos 'IEPON idwp. Idyl. i. 69. See also "Divine Alpheus," in Arcades, v. 30. Other proofs might be added. But Milton is not classical here. Dee's divinity was Druidical. From the same superstition, some rivers in Wales are still held to have the gift or virtue of prophecy. Gyraldus Cambrensis, who writes in 1188, is the first who mentions Dee's sanctity, and from the popular traditions. See Note on Lycidas, ver. 55. T. WARTON. Randolph, in his Poems, notices also "the holy Dee,” edit. 1640, p. 48. But see Spenser, Faer. Qu. iv. xi. 39, and the notes there, edit. 1805. TODD. Ver. 99. Or Humber loud, that keeps the Scythian's name ;] Humber, a Scythian king, landed in Britain three hundred years before the Roman invasion, and was drowned in this river by Locrine, after conquering king Albanact. See Drayton, Polyolb. S. viii. vol. ii. p. 796. Drayton has made a most beautiful use of this tradition in his Elegy, "Upon three sons of the Lord Sheffield drowned in Humber," Elegies, vol. iv. p. 1244. "O cruell Humber, guiltie of their gore! "I now believe, more than I did before, “Of kingly Humber, an inuading Hun, By thee deuoured: for 'tis likely thou "With bloud wert christen'd, bloud-thirsty, till now "The Ouse and Done." T. WARTON. Ver. 100. Or Medway smooth, or royal-tower'd Thame.] The smoothness of the Medway is characterised in Spenser's [not Spenser's but Lodowick Bryskett's] Mourning Muse of Thestylis. "The Medwaies siluer streames, "That wont so still to glide, "Were troubled now and wroth." The royal towers of Thames imply Windsor castle, familiar to Milton's view, and to which I have already remarked his allusions. T. WARTON. AN EPITAPH ON THE ADMIRABLE DRAMATICK POET W. SHAKSPEARE*. WHAT needs my Shakspeare, for his honour'd bones, The labour of an age in piled stones? This is but an ordinary poem to come from Milton, on such a subject. But he did not yet know his own strength, or was content to dissemble it, out of deference to the false taste of his time. The conceit, of Shakspeare's lying sepulcher'd in a tomb of his own making, is in Waller's manner, not his own. But he made Shakspeare amends in his L'Allegro, v. 133. HURD. Birch, and from him doctor Newton, asserts, that this copy of verses was written in the twenty-second year of Milton's age, and printed with the Poems of Shakspeare at London in 1640. It first appeared among other recommendatory verses, prefixed to the folio edition of Shakspeare's plays in 1632. But without Milton's name or initials. This therefore is the first of Milton's pieces that was published. It was with great difficulty and reluctance, that Milton first appeared as an author. He could not be prevailed upon to put his name to Comus, his first performance of any length that was printed, notwithstanding the singular approbation with which it had been previously received in a long and extensive course of private circulation. Lycidas, in the Cambridge collection, is only subscribed with his initial. Most of the other contributors have left their names at full length. We have here restored the title from the second folio of Shakspeare. T. WARTON. This Epitaph is dated 1630, in Milton's own edition of his poems in 1673. TODD. Or that his hallow'd reliques should be hid Dear son of memory, great heir of fame, What need'st thou such weak witness of thy name! Thou, in our wonder and astonishment, Hast built thyself a live-long monument. For whilst, to the shame of slow-endeavouring art, 5 10 Ver. 5. Dear son of memory,] He honours his favourite Shakspeare with the same relation as the Muses themselves. For the Muses are called by the old poets "the daughters of memory." See Hesiod, Theog. v. 53. NEWTON. The phrase, son of memory, might be caught perhaps from Browne, who, describing the English poets, thus addresses them, Brit. Past. 1616, B. ii. S. i. p. 27. "Yee English shepheards, sonnes of memory,” And in the same page, speaking of Spenser's death, he says that, there would be raised, " in honour of his worthy name, "A piramis, whose head (like winged Fame) "Should pierce the clouds, yea, seeme the stars to kisse ; "And Mausolus' great toombe might shrowd in his." TODD. Ver. 8. a live-long monument.] It is lasting in the folio Shakspeare, and in several editions of Milton's Poems subsequent to those published in his life-time. Milton's own reading is live-long. Ver. 11. TODD. the leaves of thy unvalued book,] "Thy invaluable book." So, in The Weakest goeth to the Wall, 1600. "Are not our vowes already registerd 66 Vpon the unvalued sepulchre of Christ ?" And, in Shakspeare, Rich. III. A. i. S. 4. "Inestimable stones, unvalued jewels." TODD. |