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Emathia jacuisset Oeta.

Nec fraude turpi Palladis invidæ

Vidisset occisum Ilion Hectora, aut

Quem larva Pelidis peremit

Ense Locro, Jove lacrymante.
Si triste fatum verba Hecateïa
Fugare possint, Telegoni parens
Vixisset infamis, potentique
Ægiali soror usa virga.

Numenque trinum fallere si queant
Artes medentum, ignotaque gramina,
Non gnarus herbarum Machaon
Eurypyli cecidisset hasta :
Læsisset et nec te, Philyreie,

author grounds a comparison, Par. Lost, ii. 543. "Felt th' "envenom'd robe, &c."

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15. Quem larva Pelidis peremit, &c.] Sarpedon, who was slain by Patroclus, disguised in the armour of Achilles. At his death his father wept a shower of blood. See the sixteenth Iliad. 17. Si triste fatum, &c.] “If in"chantments could have stopped "death, Circe, the mother of Telegonus by Ulysses, would "have still lived; and Medea, "the sister of Egialus or Ab"syrtus, with her magical rod." Telegonus killed his father Ulysses, and is the same who is called parricida by Horace. Milton denominates Circe Telegoni parens, from Ovid, Epist. Pont. iii. i. 123. Telegonique parens vertendis nota figuris.

17. verba Hecateïa] Ovid, Metam. xiv. 44.

Hecateia carmina miscet.

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22. Artes medentum, ignotaque gramina,] Not so much the power, as the skill, of medicine. This appears from the names which follow.

23.

-Machaon, &c.] Ma chaon, the son of Esculapius, one of the Grecian leaders at the siege of Troy, and a physician, was killed by Eurypylus. See the Iliad. But the death of Machaon, by the spear of Eurypylus, is not in the Iliad, but in Quintus Calaber, where it is circumstantially related, as Mr. Steevens remarks, Paralip. vi. 406. I must add, that Quintus Calaber is not an author at present very familiar to boys of seventeen. According to Philips, he was one of the classics whom Milton taught in his school. "Quintus Čalaber his poem of "the Trojan War continued from "Homer." Life, p. xvii.

25.-Philyreie, &c.] Chiron,

Sagitta Echidnæ perlita sanguine,
Nec tela te fulmenque avitum,
Cæse puer genitricis alvo.
Tuque O alumno major Apolline,
Gentis togatæ cui regimen datum,
Frondosa quem nunc Cirrha luget,
Et mediis Helicon in undis,
Jam præfuisses Palladio gregi
Lætus, superstes, nec sine gloria ;
Nec puppe lustrasses Charontis
Horribiles barathri recessus.

the son of Philyra, a precep-
tor in medicine, was incurably
wounded by Hercules, with a
dart dipped in the poisonous
blood of the serpent of Lerna.
See above, El. iv. 27.

27. Nec tela te, &c.] Esculapius, who was cut out of his mother's womb by his father Apollo. Jupiter struck him dead with lightning, for restoring Hippolytus to life.

29. Tuque O] O is here open in a situation in which it is never found open in the Roman classics. Symmons.

29. Tuque O alumno major Apol line,] Certainly we should read Apollinis. But who was this pupil of Apollo in medicine? Had it been Æsculapius, the transition would have been more easy. But Esculapius was sent by Apollo to Chiron, to be educated in that art. I think therefore, although Milton's allusions in these pieces are chiefly to established Grecian fable, we should here understand Virgil's Iapis, who was Phoebo ante alios dilectus, and to whom he imparted suas artes, sua munera. En. xii. 391. seq.

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It should be remembered, that the word alumnus is more extensively, favourite, votary, &c.

In Milton's Latin poems, it is often difficult to ascertain the names of persons and places. To shew his learning, he frequently clouds his meaning by obscure or obsolete patronymics, and by the substitution of appellations formed from remote genealogical, historical, and even geographical allusions. But this was one of Ovid's affectations.

Milton's habitual propensity to classical illustration, more particularly from the Grecian story, appears even in his State Letters written for Cromwell. In one of them, Cromwell congratulates King Charles Gustavus on the birth of a son in the midst of other good news, 1655. In this, says he, you resemble Philip of Macedon, who at one and the same time received the tidings of Alexander's birth and the conquest of the Illyrians. Prose W.

ii. 445.

29. Admitting Warton's sense of alumnus, it is evident that Esculapius is here intended. E.

At fila rupit Persephone tua,
Irata, cum te viderit, artibus,
Succoque pollenti, tot atris

Faucibus eripuisse mortis.
Colende Præses, membra precor tua
Molli quiescant cespite, et ex tuo
Crescant rosæ, calthæque busto,
Purpureoque hyacinthus ore.
Sit mite de te judicium Æaci,
Subrideatque Ætnæa Proserpina;
Interque felices perennis

Elysio spatiere campo.

In Quintum Novembris.* Anno Etatis 17.
JAM pius extrema veniens Iacobus ab arcto,
Teucrigenas populos, lateque patentia regna
Albionum tenuit, jamque inviolabile fœdus
Sceptra Caledoniis conjunxerat Anglica Scotis:
Pacificusque novo, felix divesque, sedebat
In solio, occultique doli securus et hostis:
Cum ferus ignifluo regnans Acheronte tyrannus,
Eumenidum pater, æthereo vagus exul Olympo,
Forte per immensum terrarum erraverat orbem,
Dinumerans sceleris socios, yernasque fideles,
Participes regni post funera moesta futuros:
Hic tempestates medio ciet aëre diras,
Illic unanimes odium struit inter amicos,
Armat et invictas in mutua viscera gentes;

43. The thought is in Juvenal and Persius.

* This little poem, as containing a council, conspiracy, and

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expedition of Satan, may be considered as an early and promising prolusion of Milton's genius to the Paradise Lost.

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Regnaque olivifera vertit florentia pace:
Et quoscunque videt puræ virtutis amantes,
Hos cupit adjicere imperio, fraudumque magister
Tentat inaccessum sceleri corrumpere pectus ;
Insidiasque locat tacitas, cassesque latentes
Tendit, ut incautos rapiat, ceu Caspia tigris
Insequitur trepidam deserta per avia prædam
Nocte sub illuni, et somno nictantibus astris.
Talibus infestat populos Summanus et urbes,
Cinctus cæruleæ fumanti turbine flammæ.
Jamque fluentisonis albentia rupibus arva
Apparent, et terra Deo dilecta marino,

Cui nomen dederat quondam Neptunia proles;
Amphitryoniaden qui non dubitavit atrocem,
Æquore tranato, furiali poscere bello,

Ante expugnatæ crudelia sæcula Troja.

At simul hanc, opibusque et festa pace beatam,

15. Regnaque olivifera vertit florentia pace:] Olivifer is an Ovidian epithet, Fast. iii. 151. Primus oliviferis Romam deductus

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ab arvis.

And in the Ibis, " Olivifera Sicyone," v. 317. A great fault of the versification of this poem is, that it is too monotonous, and that there is no intermixture of a variety of pauses. But it should be remembered, that young writers are misled by specious beauties.

23. populos Summanus et urbes,] Summanus is an obsolete and uncommon name for Pluto, or the god of ghosts and night, summus manium, which Milton most probably had from Ovid, Fast. vi. 731. The name

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occurs in Plautus, Cicero, Pliny, and other ancient critics.

27. Cui nomen dederat quondam Neptunia proles;] "Albion a

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giant, son of Neptune, who "called the [this] island after "his own name, and ruled it "forty-four years. Till at length

passing over into Gaul, in aid "of his brother Lestrygon, "against whom Hercules was

hasting out of Spain into Italy, "he was there slain in fight, "&c." Milton's Hist. Engl. b. i. Prose Works, ii. 2. Drayton has the same fable, Polyolb. s. xviii..

31. At simul hanc, opibusque et festa pace beatam, &c.] The whole context is from Ovid's Envy, Metam. ii. 794.

Aspicit, et pingues donis Cerealibus agros,
Quodque magis doluit, venerantem numina veri
Sancta Dei populum, tandem suspiria rupit
Tartareos ignes et luridum olentia sulphur ;
Qualia Trinacria trux ab Jove clausus in Etna
Efflat tabifico monstrosus ob ore Tiphæus.
Ignescunt oculi, stridetque adamantinus ordo
Dentis, ut armorum fragor, ictaque cuspide cuspis.
Atque pererrato solum hoc lacrymabile mundo
Inveni, dixit, gens hæc mihi sola rebellis,
Contemtrixque jugi, nostraque potentior arte.
Illa tamen, mea si quicquam tentamina possunt,
Non feret hoc impune diu, non ibit inulta.
Hactenus et piceis liquido natat aëre pennis;
Qua volat, adversi præcursant agmine venti,
Densantur nubes, et crebra tonitrua fulgent.

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Jamque pruinosas velox superaverat Alpes, Et tenet Ausoniæ fines: a parte sinistra Nimbifer Appenninus erat, priscique Sabini, Dextra veneficiis infamis Hetruria, nec non Te furtiva, Tibris, Thetidi videt oscula dantem; Hinc Mavortigenæ consistit in arce Quirini. Reddiderant dubiam jam sera crepuscula lucem, Cum circumgreditur totam Tricoronifer urbem, 55 Panificosque Deos portat, scapulisque virorum

-Tandem Tritonida conspicit arcem,
Ingeniisque, opibusque, et festa pace,

virentem:

Vixque tenet lachrymas, &c. 48. Jamque pruinosas velox superaverat Alpes,] Lucan, i. 183. Jam gelidas Cæsar cursu superaverat Alpes.

54. Reddiderant dubiam jam

sera crepuscula lucem,] Ovid, Metam. i. 219.

-Traherent cum sera crepuscula lucem.

55. He describes the proces sion of the Pope to Saint Peter's church at Rome, on the eve of Saint Peter's day.

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