Come, Lady, while Heav'n lends us grace, Let us fly this cursed place, When the spawn on stones do lie, To wash their hemp, and spoil the fry. Mr. Seward farther remarks, that the construction of the two last of Milton's lines is a little difficult. To crown her head with towers is true imagery; but to crown her head upon her banks, will scarcely be allowed to be so. He would therefore put a colon instead of a comma at the last line but two, and then read And here and there thy banks upon Be groves of myrrh, and cinnamon. And after these verses is added in the Manuscript, Song ends. 936. Mr. Calton says the phrase is Greek, "may thy banks be crowned upon, &c." But if there is any difficulty in these lines, it would be removed by placing a comma after there, and another after upon. In prose upon thy banks would have followed the last line. E. This votive address to Sabrina was suggested to our author by that of Amoret. But the form and subject, rather than the imagery, is copied. Milton is more sublime and learned, Fletcher more natural and easy. I know not which poet wrote first: but in Browne's Britannia's Pastorals, certainly written not after 1613, and printed in 1616, find a similar vow, b. i. s. i. p. 28. Milton has some circumstances which are in Browne and not in Fletcher. May never evet, nor the toade, Be ever fresh! Let no man dare est smell; And let the dust upon thy strand From a close parallelism of thought and incident, it is clear that either Browne's pastoral imitates Fletcher's play, or the play the pastoral. Most of B. and Fletcher's plays appeared after 1616. But there is unluckily no date to the first edition of the Faithful Shepherdess. It is, however, mentioned in Davies's Scourge of Folly, 1611. As Milton is supposed to have taken some hints in Comus from Peel's Old Wives Tale, I may perhaps lengthen this note, by producing a passage from that writer's play, entitled The Love of King David and faire Bethsabe, &c. edit. 1599. 4to. May that sweet plaine that beares her pleasant weight Be still enamel'd with discouloured flowers; The precious fount beare sand of purest gold, And for the peble, let the silver streames That pierce earth's bowels to maintaine her force, Play upon rubies, saphires, chrysolites: The brims let be embrac'd with golden curles Of mosse. Let all the grasse that beautifies her bower Lest the sorcerer us entice With some other new device. Not a waste, or needless sound, I shall be your faithful guide Will double all their mirth and cheer; But night sits monarch yet in the mid sky. 940 954 950 955 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. SPIRIT. Back, Shepherds, back, enough your play, Till next sun-shine holiday; Here be without duck or nod 960 Other trippings to be trod Of lighter toes, and such court guise 960. Here be without duck or nod] "Here are." By duck or nod, we are to understand the affectations of obeisance. So in K. Richard III. a. i. s. 3. courtesy. "ledge in dancing." And Drayton, Polyolb. s. vi. Those delicater dames so trippingly to tread. In the Midsummer Night's Duck with French nods and apish Dream, Oberon orders his fairies to dance after his ditty trippingly, a. ii. s. 5. But to trip seems to have been the proper pace of a fairy. As above, v. 118. Again, in Lear, a. ii. s. 2. And Timon of Athens, "The And let the labouring bark climb T. Warton. With the mincing Dryades On the lawns, and on the leas. 965 This second Song presents them to their Father and Mother. Noble Lord, and Lady bright, Their faith, their patience, and their truth, 964. With the mincing Dryades] So Drayton, of the Lancashire 970 Shepherds they weren of the best, lasses, Polyolb. s. xxvii. vol. iii. Shakespeare, Tempest, act iv. p. 1183. -Ye so mincingly that tread. Again, ibid. p. 1185, and 1187. s. 3. Ceres, most bounteous Lady, thy rich leas Of wheat, rye, barley, fetches, oats, and pease. p. 1417. where the word may Henry V. act v. s. S. hence be understood. Now Shepherds lay their winter weeds away, And in neat jackets minsen on the plain. Jonson and Shakespeare use the word in the same sense. T. War ton. -her fallow leas The darnel, hemlock, and rank fu- 971. Their faith, their patience,] The title to this song in the Manuscript is only 2 Song: and here he had written at first patience, and then temperance, and then patience again; and this latter is the better, because of intemperance following. 973. With a crown of deathless praise,] At first he had written, To a crown of deathless bays. To triumph in victorious dance The dances ended, the Spirit epiloguises. To the ocean now I fly, And those happy climes that lie Up in the broad fields of the sky: All amidst the gardens fair Of Hesperus, and his daughters three. 976. To the ocean now I fly, &c.] This speech is evidently a paraphrase on Ariel's song in the Tempest, act v. s. 3. Where the bee sucks, there suck I, &c. Warburton. 976. Pindar in his second Olympic, and Homer in his fourth Odyssey, describe a happy island at the extremity of the ocean, or rather earth, where the sun has his abode, the sky is perpetually serene and bright, the west wind always blows, and the flowers are of gold. This luxuriant imagery Milton has dressed anew, from the classical gardens of antiquity, from Spenser's gardens of Adonis "fraught with pleasures mani"fold," from the same gardens in Marino's L'Adone, Ariosto's garden of Paradise, Tasso's garden' of Armida, and Spenser's Bowre of Blisse. The garden of Eden is absolutely Milton's own creation. T. Warton. 979. Up in the broad fields of 975 980 the sky :] And so in Virgil, Æn. vi. 888. Aëris in campis latis. At first he had written plain fields. 980. There I suck the liquid air.] Thus Ubaldo in Fairfax's Tasso, a good wizard, who dwells in the centre of the earth, but sometimes emerges, to breathe the purer air of mount Carmel. c. xiv. 43. And there in liquid ayre myself disport. T. Warton. 982. Of Hesperus, and his daughters three] He had written at first, Of Atlas and his nieces three. Hesperus and Atlas were brothers. 982. The daughters of Hesperus had gardens or orchards which produced apples of gold. Spenser makes them the daughters of Atlas, F. Q. ii. vii. 54, See Ovid, Metam. iv. 636. And Apollodor. Bibl. 1. ii. s. 11. But |