That Orpheus self may heave his head
From golden flumber on a bed
Of heap'd Elyfian flowers, and hear
Such ftrains as would have won the ear
Of Pluto, to have quite fet free

His half regain'd Eurydice.

These delights if thou canft give, Mirth, with thee I mean to live.

146. From golden flumber on a bed

145

150

Of heap'd Elyfian flowers.] So in PARAD. L. iii. 358.
-The river of blifs, through midst of heaven,

Rowles o'er ELYSIAN FLOWERS her amber ftream.

Milton's florid ftyle has this diftinction from that of most other poets, that it is marked with a degree of dignity.

IL PENSEROSO.

HENCE, vain deluding joys,

The brood of folly without father bred,

How little you befted,

Or fill the fixed mind with all your toys? Dwell in fome idle brain,

And fancies fond with gaudy shapes poffefs,

As thick and numberlefs

As the gay motes that people the fun-beams;

5

V. 1. Hence, vain deluding joys, &c.] Mr. Bowle obferves, that the opening of this poem is formed from a diftich in Sylvester, the tranflator of Du Bartas, WORKES, edit. fol. 1621, p. 1084.

Hence, hence, falfe pleasures, momentary joyes,
Mocke us no more, with your illuding toyes!

5. This imagery is immediately from Sylvefter's Cave of Sleep in DU BARTAS, p. 316. edit. fol. 1621. [See Note on L'ALLEGR. v. 10. He there mentions Morpheus, and speaks of his "fan"tafticke fwarmes of Dreames that hovered," and fwarms of dreams Green, red, and yellow, tawny, black and blew,

And these refemble,

Th' unnumbred moats which in the fun do play.

And thefe dreams, from their various colours, are afterwards called the " GAWDY fwarme of dreames." Hence Milton's fancies fond, gaudy shaper, numberless gay motes in the fun-beams, and the hovering dreams of Morpheus.

8. As the gay motes that people the fun-beams.] I have formerly observed, that this line is from Chaucer, WIFE OF B. T. v. 868.

Or likeft hovering dreams

The fickle penfioners of Morpheus train. But hail thou Goddefs, fage and holy,

As thick as motes in the funne-beams."

10

As probably from Drayton, MuS. ELYS. NYMPH. vi. vol. iv. p. 1494. edit. ut fupr.

As thick as ye difcerne the atoms in the beams.

But it was now a common illuftration. Randolph's POEMS, edit. 1640. p. 97.

To numbers that the ftars outrun,

And all the atoms in the fun.

Mr. Bowle adds the following parallel, from Caxton's Golden LEGEND, in the LYF of S. MYCHEL, edit. 1483. fol. 306. b. "This ayer alfo is full of devils and of wycked spyrytes, as the "SONNE-BEMES ben FULL of fmale MOTES." To which he

fubjoins a paffage from Pulci's MORG. C. xxv. ft. 137

Sappi che tutto questo aere e denfo

Di fpiriti.

Sylvefter certainly fuggefted the idea. Compare Note on PAR. REG. ii. 121.

9.

Hovering dreams

The fickle penfioners of Morpheus train.] FICKLE is tranfitory, perpetually shifting, &c. As it is ufed in Shakespeare, SONN

cxxvi.

O thou, my lovely Boy, who in thy power

Doft hold Time's FICKLE glafs.

Time's glafs is FICKLE, because its contents are always ftealing PENSIONERS became a common appellation in our poeAs in the MIDS. N.

away.

try, for train, attendants, retinue, &c.

DR. A. ii. S. 1. Of the faery queen.

The cowflips tall her PENSIONERS be.

They

This was in confequence of queen Elizabeth's fashionable establishment of a band of military courtiers by that name. were fome of the handsomest and talleft young men, of the best families and fortune, that could be found. Hence, fays Quickly, in the MERRY WIVES, A. ii. S. ii. And yet there has been "earls, nay, which is more, PENSIONERS." They gave the mode in drefs and diverfions. They accompanied the Queen in her progrefs to Cambridge, where they held torches at a play on a Sunday in King's college Chapel.

11. Sage and holy.] Melancholy is called fage, as Night was termed by the Greeks Egon, and for the like reafon;

both

Hail divineft Melancholy,

Whose faintly visage is too bright
To hit the sense of human fight,

And therefore to our weaker view

O'erlaid with black, ftaid wifdom's hue;

both being favourable to wisdom and contemplation. "T * νύκτα προσεῖπον ΕΥΦΡΟΝΗΝ, μέγα πρὸς εὕρειν τῶν ζητεμένων καὶ σκέ με ψιν ἡγούμενοι τήν ἡσυχίαν καὶ τὸ ἀπερίσπαςον.” Plutarch. ΠΕΡΙ ПОAYПРАгм. OPP. ii. p. 521. fol. Francof. 1599. H.

See alfo Marfton's SCOURGE of VILLANIE, ut fupr. Lib. i. PROEM.

Thou nurfing mother of fair swisdom's lore,

Ingenuous MELANCHOLY..

See Note on L'ALLEGR. V. I.

12. Hail divineft Melancholy, &c.] Milton, fays Mr. Bowle, has here fome traces of Albert Durer's MELANCHOLIA. Particularly in the BLACK VISAGE, the LOOKS COMMERCING WITH THE SKIES, and the STOLE DRAWN over her DECENT SHOULDERS. The painter, he adds, gave her wings, which the poet has transferred to CONTEMPLATION, v. 52. I think it is highly probable, that Milton had this perfonification in his eye and by making two figures out of one, and by giving Melancholy a kindred companion, to whom wings may be properly attributed, and who is diftantly implied in Durer's idea, he has removed the violence, and cleared the obfcurity, of the allegory, preserving at the fame time the whole of the original conception. Mr. Steevens fubjoins," Mr. Bowle might have added, that in Durer's defign,

a winged Cherub, perhaps defigned for Contemplation, is the "fatellite of Melancholy. All transfer of plumage was therefore "needlefs. The poet indeed has taken the wings from his God"defs, and I think, with judgement: for although Contemplation is excurfive, Melancholy is attached to its object."

16. O'erlaid with black, ftaid wisdom's hue.] Her countenance appears dark to the groffness of human vifion, although in reality of exceffive luftre. The bright vifage was therefore OVERLAID with black, according to its vifible appearance, by Durer in his portrait of Melancholy. It is the fame general idea in PARAD. L. iii. 377.

-But when thou shad'ft

The full blaze of thy beams, and through a cloud

Drawn round about thee, &c.

But this imagery is there extended and enriched with new fublimity for God even thus concealed, adds the poet, dazzles hea

ven,

Black, but fuch as in esteem

Prince Memnon's fifter might beseem,

Or that starr'd Ethiop queen that ftrove
To fet her beauty's praise above

The Sea-Nymphs, and their pow'rs offended:
Yet thou art higher far defcended;

Thee bright-hair'd Vefta, long of yore,
To folitary Saturn bore;

His daughter fhe, in Saturn's reign,

ven, and forces the moft exalted
their
eyes with both their wings.
"UNAPPROACHED LIGHT,"

20

25

Seraphim to retire, and cover And God is faid to dwell" in ibid. iii. 4. Which, as Mr.

Steevens obferves, is literally from his favourite Euripides, PHOENISS. edit. Mufgr. v. 837. Φέρεν αιθέρος εἰς ΑΒΑΤΟΝ ΦΩΣ yivpav." As likely, from St. Paul to TIM. i. vi. 16. "Dwelling in the light which no man can APPROACH." See alfo our author, OF REFORMAT. "Thou therefore that fitteft in light and glory UNAPPROACHABLE." PR. W. i. 28.

:

19. Or that ftarr'd Ethiop queen, &c.] Caffiope, as we learn from Apollodorus, was the wife of Cepheus king of Ethiopia. She boasted herself to be more beautiful than the Nereids, and challenged them to a tryal; who in revenge perfuaded Neptune to fend a prodigious whale into Ethiopia. To appease them, she was directed to expofe her daughter Andromeda to the monfter but Perfeus delivered Andromeda of whom he was enamoured, and transported Caffiope into heaven, where she became a conftellation. BIBL. ii. C. iv. §. iii. Hence the is called that ftarred Ethiop queen. See Aratus, PHAENOM. V. 189. feq. But Milton feems to have been ftruck with an old Gothic print of the conftellations, which I have feen in early editions of the Aftronomers, where this queen is represented with a black body marked with white ftars.

25. Mr. Bowle thinks, that this genealogy, but without the poetry, is from Gower's Song, in PERICLES PRINCE OF TYRE. More especially as the verses immediately follow thofe quoted from the fame Song, L'ALLEGR. V. 25. See edit. Malone, SUPPL. Sh. vol. ii. 7.

With whom the father liking took,
And her to inceft did provoke, &c.

The