He that has light within his own clear breast Himself is his own dungeon. 2. BROTHER. 'Tis most true, 385 That musing meditation most affects The pensive secrecy of desert cell, Far from the cheerful haunt of men and herds, And sits as safe as in a senate-house; For who would rob a hermit of his weeds, 390 His few books, or his beads, or maple dish, 381. He that has light &c.] This whole speech is a remarkably fine encomium on the force of virtue : but there is something so vastly striking and astonishing in these last five lines, that it is impossible to pass them over without stopping to admire and enjoy them. I do not know any place in the whole circle of his poetical per formances, where dignity of sentiment and sublimity of expression are so happily united. Thyer. 384. Benighted walks &c.] Instead of these two lines the poet had written at first, Walks in black vapours, though the noontide brand Blaze in the summer solstice. Afterwards he blotted them out, and made this alteration much for the better. 388. of men and herds,] It was at first, men or herds. 389. And sits as safe as in a senate house;] Not many years after this was written, Milton's friends shewed that the safety of a senate-house was not inviolable. But, when the people turn legislators, what place is safe from the tumults of innovation, and the insults of disobedience? T. Warton. 390. For who would rob &c.] These two lines at first stood thus in the Manuscript. For who would rob a hermit of his beads, His books, his hairy gown, or maple dish. sentiments are heightened from 393. But beauty, &c.] These the Faithful Shepherdess, act i. s. 1. Laden with blooming gold, had need the guard You may as well spread out the unsunn'd heaps.. 395 400 405 404.-it recks] I care not for, &c. So "what recks it them?" Lycid. v. 122. and Par. L.-ix. 178. "Let it, I reck not." And ii. 50." Of god, or hell, or worse, "he recked not." See Note on v. 836. infr. From reck comes retchlessness, or recklessness, in the Thirty-nine Articles, where the common reading is, " into wretch"lessness of most unclean living." Artic. xvii. As if, yet with a manifest perversion of terms, a wretched profligacy was intended. The precise meaning is, a carelessness, a confident negligence, consisting of the most aban"doned course of life." Reck, with its derivatives, is the lan and at present it stands in the guage of Chaucer and Spenser. Manuscript, T. Warton. Lest some ill-greeting touch attempt the person ELDER BROTHER. I do not, Brother, Infer, as if I thought my Sister's state As you imagine; she' has a hidden strength 2. BROTHER. What hidden strength, Unless the strength of heav'n, if you mean that? I mean that too, but yet a hidden strength, 410 415 'Tis chastity, my Brother, chastity: She that has that, is clad in cómplete steel, And like a quiver'd nymph with arrows keen 420. 'Tis chastity, my Brother, chastity; She that has that, is clad in cómplete steel, And like a quiver'd nymph with arrows keen, &c.] Perhaps Milton remembered a stanza in Fletcher's Purple Island, published but the preceding year, b. x. st. 27. It is in a personification of Virgin chastitie. 420 Where through the sacred awe of chastity, No savage fierce, bandite, or mountaineer Shall dare to soil her virgin purity. 421. The phrase "complete "steel" was, I rather think, a common expression for "armed in Dekker's Untrussing of the "from head to foot." It occurs Humorous Poet, which was acted by the Lord Chamberlain's servants, and the choir-boys of St. Paul's, in 1602. Hamlet appeared at least before 1598. Again, in The weakest goeth to the wall, of which the first edition was in 1600. Hence an expression in our author's Apology, which also confirms what is here said, s. 1. "Zeal, whose sub"stance is ethereal, arming in complete diamond, ascends his fiery chariot, &c." Pr. W. i. 114. T. Warton. 422. And like a quiver'd nymph with arrows keen] I make no doubt but Milton in this passage had his eye upon Spenser's Belphoebe, whose character, arms, and manner of life perfectly correspond with this description. What makes it the more certain that personage to represent the is, that Spenser intended under virtue of chastity. Thus in the introduction to the third book of his Faery Queen, complimenting his virgin sovereign Queen Elizabeth, he says, But either Gloriana let her choose, F Thyer. May trace huge forests, and unharbour'd heaths, Yea there, where very desolation dwells By grots, and caverns shagg'd with horrid shades, 428. May trace huge forests, &c.] Shakespeare's Oberon would breed his child-knight to "trace "the forests wild." Mids. N. Dream, act ii. s. 3. In Jonson's Masques, a fairy says, vol. v. 206. Only we are free to trace 423. huge forests, and un- xxii. 5. Sive per Syrtes iter æstuosas, T. Warton. 424. Infamous hills,] Expressed from Horace, Od. i. iii. 20. Infames scopulos Acroceraunia. 425. Where through the sacred rays of chastity, No savage fierce, bandite, or mountaineer, 425 p. Will dare to soil her virgin purity.] So Fletcher, Faith. Sheph. act i. s. 1. vol. iii. p. 109. A satyr kneels to a virgin-shepherdess in a forest. -Why should this rough thing, who never knew 1454. This Cleon was a mountaineer, T. Warton. 428. Yea there,] In the Manuscript it is, Yea ev'n where &c. 429. By grots, and caverns shagg'd with horrid shades,] This |