Page No. other of the astrological phrases no longer familiar. Crooked eclipses: as coming athwart the Sun's apparent course. Wordsworth, thinking probably of the 'Venus' and the 'Lucrece,' said finely of Shakespeare: 'Shakespeare could not have written an Epic; he would have died of plethora of thought.' This prodigality of nature is exemplified equally in his Sonnets. The copious selection here given, (which, from the wealth of the material, required greater consideration than any other portion of the Editor's task,)- contains many that will not be fully felt and understood without some earnestness of thought on the reader's part. But he is not likely to regret the labour. 24 XXXI upon misprision growing: either, granted in error, or, on the growth of contempt. XXXII With the tone of this Sonnet compare Hamlet's 'Give me that man That is not passion's slave' &c. Shakespeare's writings show the deepest sensitiveness to passion - hence the attraction he felt in the contrasting effects of apathy. 25 XXXIII grame: sorrow. It was long before English Poetry returned to the charming simplicity of this and a few other poems by Wyat. 26 XXXIV Pandion in the ancient fable was father to Philomela. 28 XXXVIII ramage: confused noise. 29 XXXIX censures: judges. 30 XL 31 XLI 33 XLIV By its style this beautiful example of old simplicity and feeling may be referred to the early years of Elizabeth. Late forgot lately. haggards: the least tamable hawks. cypres or cyprus, used by the old writers for crape; whether from the French crespe or from the Island whence it was imported. Its accidental similarity in spelling to cypress has, here and in Milton's Penseroso, probably confused readers. 34 XLVI, XLVII ‘I never saw anything like this funeral dirge,' says Charles Lamb, 'except the ditty which reminds Ferdinand of his drowned father in the Tempest. As that is of the water, watery; so this is of the earth, earthy. Both have that intenseness of feeling, which seems to resolve itself into the element which it contemplates.' crystal: fairness. This 'Spousal Verse' was written in honour of the Ladies Elizabeth and Katherine Somerset. Although beautiful, it is inferior to the 'Epithalamion' on Spenser's own marriage, — omitted with great reluctance as not in harmony with modern manners. 1. 13 feateously: elegantly. 1. 11 shend: put out. 1. 1 a noble peer: Robert Devereux, second Lord Essex, then at the height of his brief triumph after taking Cadiz: hence the allusion following to the Pillars of Hercules, placed near Gades by ancient legend. L. 13 Eliza: Elizabeth. L. 29 twins of Jove: the stars Castor and Pollux: baldric, belt; the zodiac. A fine example of a peculiar class of Poetry;- that written by thoughtful men who practised this Art but little. Wotton's, LXXII, is another. Jeremy Taylor, Bishop Berkeley, Dr. Johnson, Lord Macaulay, have left similar specimens. Summary of Book Second THIS division, embracing the latter eighty years of the sevententh century, contains the close of our Early poetical style and the commencement of the Modern. In Dryden we see the first master of the new in Milton, whose genius dominates here as Shakespeare's in the former book, the crown and consummation of the early period. Their splendid Odes are far in advance of any prior attempts, Spenser's excepted: they exhibit the wider and grander range which years and experience and the struggles of the time conferred on Poetry. Our Muses now give expression to political feeling, to religious thought, to a high. philosophic statesmanship in writers such as Marvell, Herbert, and Wotton : whilst in Marvell and Milton, again, we find the first noble attempts at pure description of nature, destined in our own ages to be continued and equalled. Meanwhile the poetry of simple passion, although before 1660 often deformed by verbal fancies and conceits of thought, and afterward by levity and an artificial tone, produced in Herrick and Waller some charming pieces of more finished art than the Elizabethan : until in the courtly compliments of Sedley it seems to exhaust itself, and lie almost dormant for the hundred years between the days of Wither and Suckling and the days of Burns and Cowper. -That the change from our early style to the modern brought with it at first a loss of nature and simplicity is undeniable: yet the far bolder and wider scope which Poetry took between 1620 and 1700, and the successful efforts then made to gain greater clearness in expres sion, in their results have been no slight compensation. Page No. 52 LXII 1. 20 whist: hushed. 1. 13 Pan: used here for the Lord of all. 1. 19 Lars and Lemures: household gods and spirits of relations dead. Flamens (122) Roman priests. That twice-batter'd god (1. 27) Dagon. 1. 9 Osiris, the Egyptian god of Agriculture (here, perhaps by confusion with Apis, figured as a Bull), was torn to pieces by Typho and embalmed after death in a sacred chest. This mythe, reproduced in Syria and Greece in the legends of Thammuz, Adonis, and perhaps Absyrtus, represents the annual death of the Sun or the Year under the influences of the winter darkness. Horus, the son of Osiris, as the New Year, in his turn overcomes Typho. It suited the genius of Milton's time to regard this primeval poetry and philosophy of the seasons, which has a further reference to the contest of Good and Evil in Creation, as a malignant idolatry. Shelley's Chorus in Hellas, 'Worlds on worlds,' treats the subject in a larger and sweeter spirit. L. 11 unshower'd grass: as watered by the Nile only. The Late Massacre: the Vaudois persecution, carried on in 1655 by the Duke of Savoy. This 'collect in verse,' as it has been justly named, is the most mighty Sonnet in any language known to the Editor. Readers should observe that, unlike our sonnets of the sixteenth century, it is constructed on the original Italian or Provençal model, — unquestionably far superior to the imperfect form employed by Shakespeare and Drummond. Cromwell returned from Ireland in 1650. Hence the prophecies not strictly fulfilled of his deference to the Parliament, in stanzas 21-24. Page No. This Ode, beyond doubt one of the finest in our language, and more in Milton's style than has been reached by any other poet, is occasionally obscure from imitation of the 'condensed Latin syntax. The meaning of st. 5 is 'rivalry or hostility are the same to a lofty spirit, and limitation more hateful than opposition.' The allusion in st. 11 is to the old physical doctrines of the nonexistence of a vacuum and the impenetrability of matter:-in st. 17, to the omen traditionally connected with the foundation of the Capitol at Rome. The ancient belief that certain years in life complete natural periods and are hence peculiarly exposed to death, is introduced in st. 26 by the word climacteric. 65 LXVI Lycidas. The person lamented is Milton's college friend Edward King, drowned in 1637 whilst crossing from Chester to Ireland. Strict Pastoral Poetry was first written or perfected by the Dorian Greeks settled in Sicily: but the conventional use of it, exbibited more magnificently in Lycidas than in any other pastoral, is apparently of Roman origin. Milton, employing the noble freedom of a great artist, has here united ancient mythology with what may be called the modern mythology of Camus and Saint Peter, -to direct Christian images. -The metrical structure of this glorious poem is partly derived from Italian models. 1. 6 Sisters of the sacred well: the Muses said to frequent the fountain Helicon on Mount Parnassus. 1. 14 Mona: Anglesea, called by the Welsh Inis Dowil or the Dark Island, from its dense forests. Deva (1. 15) the Dee: a river which probably derived its magical character from Celtic traditions: it was long the boundary of Briton and Saxon. - These places are introduced, as being near the scene of the shipwreck. Orpheus (1. 18) was torn to pieces by Thracian women. Amaryllis and Neaera (1. 28, 29) names used here for the love-idols of poets: as Damoetas previously for a shepherd. 1. 3 the blind Fury: Atropos, fabled to cut the thread of life. Arethuse (1. 13) and Mincius: Sicilian and Italian waters here alluded to as synonymous with Page No. the pastoral poetry of Theocritus and Virgil. L. 16 oat: pipe, used here like Collins' oaten stop l. 1, No. CXLVI, for Song. L. 24 Hippotades: Aeolus, god of the Winds. Panope (1. 27) a Nereid. The names of local deities in the Hellenic mythology express generally some feature in the natural landscape, which the Greeks studied and analyzed with their usual unequalled insight and feeling. Panope represents the boundlessness of the ocean-horizon when seen from a height, as compared with the limited horizon of the land in hilly countries such as Greece or Asia Minor. Camus (1. 31) the Cam; put for King's University. 69 LXVI 1. 2 The sanguine flower: the Hyacinth of the ancients; probably our Iris. The pilot (. 5) Saint Peter, figuratively introduced as the head of the Church on earth, to foretell 'the ruin of our corrupted clergy, then in their heighth' under Laud's primacy. L. 24 the wolf: Popery. Alpheus (1. 28) a stream in Southern Greece, supposed to flow underseas to join the Arethuse. 1. 1 Swart star: the Dogstar, called swarthy because 1. 19 Doric lay: Sicilian, pastoral. The assault was an attack on London expected in |