Evolat in tepidos Cypridos ille sinus. Fallor? An et radios hinc quoque Phoebus habet? Hanc memor objecit nobis malus ille Cupido, Insilit hinc labiis, insidet inde genis: 57. See note El. i. 50. In Milton's youth the fashionable places of walking in London were Hyde Park, and Gray's Inn walks. This appears from Sir A. Cokain, Milton's contemporary. Poems, Lond. 1662. 50 55 60 65 70 12mo. Written much earlier. A young lady, he says, p. 35. Frequents the theaters, Hide Park, or els talkes Away her pretious time in Gray's Inn walkes. Uror amans intus, flammaque totus eram. Ast ego progredior tacite querebundus, et excors, Findor, et hæc remanet: sequitur pars altera votum, Sic dolet amissum proles Junonia cœlum, Forte nec ad nostras surdeat illa preces ! Crede mihi, nullus sic infeliciter arsit, Ponar in exemplo primus et unus ego. Jam tuus O certe est mihi formidabilis arcus, 84. Vectus ab attonitis Amphia- parantes Mergit equos; non arma manu, non frena remisit; 75 80 85 90 95 The application is beautiful from a young mind teeming with classical history and imagery. The allusion, in the last couplet, to Vulcan, is perhaps less hapPy, although the compliment is greater. In the example of Amphiaraus, the sudden and striking transition from light and the sun to a subterraneous gloom, perhaps is more to the poet's pur pose. Et tua fumabunt nostris altaria donis, Solus et in superis tu mihi summus eris. Nescio cur, miser est suaviter omnis amans: 100 HÆC ego, mente olim læva, studioque supino, Cincta rigent multo pectora nostra gelu. 1. The elegiac poets were among the favourite classical author's of Milton's youth, Apol. Smectymn. "Others were the "smooth Elegiac Poets, whereof "the schools are not scarce: "whom, both for the pleasing "sound of their numerous writ"ing, which in imitation I found "most easy, and most agreeable "to nature's part in me; and "for their matter, which what it "is, there be few who know "not, I was so allured to read, "that no recreation came to me "better welcome." Prose W. vol. i. 100. 5.-umbrosa Academia] The studious walks, and shades, "the 5 10 of beauty. In other words, his return to the University. They were probably written when the Latin poems were prepared for the press in 1645. * Milton here, at an early period of life, renounces the levities of love and gallantry. This was not the case with Buchanan, who unbecomingly prolonged his amorous descant to graver years, and who is therefore obliquely censured by Milton in the following passage of Lycidas, hitherto not exactly understood, v. 67. Were it not better done, as others use, To sport with Amaryllis in the shade Or with the tangles of Neæra's hair? The Amaryllis, to whom Milton alludes, is the Amaryllis of Buchanan, the subject of a poem called Desiderium Lutetiæ. See Silvæ, iii. tom. ii. p. 50. Opp. Edinb. 1715. fol. It begins, O formosa Amarylli, tuo jam septima bruma Me procul aspectu, &c. The common poetical name, Amaryllis, might indeed have been accidentally adopted by both poets; nor does it at first sight appear, that Milton used it with any restrictive meaning. But Buchanan had another mistress whom he calls Neæra, whose golden hair hair makes a very splendid figure in his verses, and which he has complimented more than once in the most hyperbolical style. In his last Elegy, he raises the following extravagant fiction on the luxuriant tangles of this lady's hair. Cupid is puzzled how to subdue the icy poet. His arrows can do nothing. At length, he hits upon the stratagem of cutting a golden lock from Neæra's head, while she is asleep, with which the VOL. IV. Ex oculis fixit spicula missa suis : Deinde unam evellens ex auricomante capillum Vertice, captivis vincla dedit manibus: Risi equidem, fateor, vani ludibria nexus, Hoc laqueo facilem dum mihi spero fugam : Ast ubi tentanti spes irrita cessit, ahenis Non secus ac manicis implicitus genui. Et modo membra pilo vinctus miser abstraher uno. And to this Neæra many copies are addressed both in Buchanan's Epigrams, and in his Hendecasyllables. Milton's insinuation, as others use, cannot therefore be doubted. 66 'Why should I strictly meditate the thankless 66 muse, and write sublime poetry "which is not regarded? I had "better, like some other poets, "who might be more properly tr employed, write idle compli"ments to Amaryllis and Neæra." Perhaps the old reading, "Hid "in the tangles of Neæra's hair," tends to confirm this sense. X It should be remembered, that Buchanan was now a popular and familiar modern Latin classic, and that Milton was his rival in the same mode of composition. And of our author's allusions to him, instances have before occurred, and will occur again. I am obliged to an unknown critic, for the leading idea of this very just and ingenious elucidation of a passage in Lycidas. |