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She may pass on with unblench'd majesty,
Be it not done in pride, or in presumption.
Some say no evil thing that walks by night,

430

verse Mr. Pope has adopted in English poets; and he was here his Eloisa to Abelard.

horrid thorn.

pilfering from obsolete English

Ye grots, and caverns shagg'd with poetry, without the least fear or danger of being detected. T. Warton.

429. Again, in the same

v. 24.

poem,

I have not yet forgot myself to stone. Almost as evidently from our author's Il. Pens. v. 42.

There held in holy passion still,
Forget thyself to marble.
Pope again, ibid. v. 244.

And low-brow'd rocks hang nodding
o'er the deeps.

From II. Pens. v. 244.

There under ebon shades, and low. brow'd rocks.

And in the Messiah, v. 6. -Touch'd Isaiah's hallow'd lips with fire.

So in the Ode, Nativ. v. 28.

Touch'd with hallow'd fire.

See
supr. at v. 26. 380. And infr.
at v. 861. And Essay on Pope,
p. 307. s. vi. edit. 2.

This is the first instance of
any degree even of the slightest
attention being paid to Milton's
smaller poems by a writer of
note since their first publication.
Milton was never mentioned or
acknowledged as an English
poet till after the appearance of
Paradise Lost and long after
that time these pieces were to-
tally forgotten and overlooked.
It is strange that Pope, by no
means of a congenial spirit,
should be the first who copied
Comus or Il Penseroso.
Pope was a gleaner of the old

But

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430. —unblench'd] Unblinded, unconfounded. See Steevens's note on blench, in Hamlet, at the close of the second act. And Upton's Gloss. Spenser, v. Blend. And Tyrwhitt's Gloss. Ch. v. Blent. In B. and Fletcher's Pilgrim, act iv. s. 3. vol. v. p. 516.

-Men that will not totter
Nor bench much at a bullet.

T. Warton. Unblenched, not disgraced, not injured by any soil. Johnson.

432. Some say no evil thing that walks by night, &c.] There are several such beautiful allusions to the vulgar superstitions in Shakespeare; but here Milton had his eye particularly on Fletcher's Faithful Shepherdess, act i. He has borrowed the sentiment, but raised and improved the diction.

Yet I have heard, my mother told it

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In fog, or fire, by lake, or moorish fen,
Blue meagre hag, or stubborn unlaid ghost,
That breaks his magic chains at curfew time,
No goblin, or swart fairy of the mine,

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485

434. —stubborn unlaid ghost, That breaks his magic chains at curfew time.]

An unlaid ghost was among the
most vexatious plagues of the
the evils deprecated at Fidele's
world of spirits. It is one of
grave, in Cymbeline, act iv. s. 2.

No exorciser harm thee,
Nor no witchcraft charm thee,
Ghost unlaid forbear thee!

The metaphorical expression is
beautiful, of breaking his magic
chains, for "being suffered to
"wander abroad." And here too
the superstition is from Shake-
speare, K. Lear, act iii. s. 4.

This is the foul Flibertigibbet: "he begins at curfew, and walks "till the first cock." Compare also Cartwright, in his play of the Ordinary, where Moth the antiquary sings an old song, act ii. s. 1. p. 36. edit. 1651. He wishes, that the house may remain free from wicked spirits,

From curfew time

To the next prime. Compare note on Il Pens. 82. and the Tempest, act v. s. 1. where Prospero invokes the elves -that rejoice

To hear the solemn curfew.

That is, they rejoice because they are then allowed to be at large till the cock-crowing. See Macbeth, act ii. s. 3. T. Warton.

436. —swart fairy of the mine,] Swart or swarthy. See the note on Paradise Lost, i. 684.

Hath hurtful pow'r o'er true virginity.

Do ye believe me yet, or shall I call
Antiquity from the old schools of Greece

To testify the arms of chastity?

Hence had the huntress Dian her dread bow, Fair silver-shafted queen, for ever chaste,

436. In the Gothic system of pneumatology, mines were supposed to be inhabited by various sorts of spirits. See Olaus Magnus's Chapter de Metallicis Dæmonibus, Hist. Gent. Septentrional, vi. x. In an old translation of Lavaterus de Spectris et Lemuribus, is the following passage. "Pioners or diggers "for metall do affirme, that in "many mines there appeare straunge shapes and spirites, "who are apparelled like unto "the laborers in the pit. These "wander up and downe in caves " and underminings, and seeme "to besturre themselves in all "kinde of labor; as, to digge Iafter the veine, to carrie together the oare, to put into basketts, and to turne the winding wheele to draw it up, "when in very deed they do "nothing lesse, &c."- "Of ghostes and spirites walking by "night, &c." Lond. 1572. bl. lett. ch. xvi. p. 73. And hence we see why Milton gives this species of fairy a swarthy or dark complexion. Georgius Agricola, in his tract De Subterraneis Animantibus, relates among other wonders of the same sort, that these spirits sometimes assume the most terrible shapes; and that one of them, in a cave or pit in Germany,

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440

killed twelve miners with his pestilential breath. Ad calc. De Re Metall. p. 538. Basil. 1621. fol. Drayton personifies the Peak in Derbyshire, which he makes a witch skilful in metallurgy. Polyolb. s. xxvi. vol. iii. p. 1176.

The sprites that haunt the mines she
could correct and tame,
And bind them as she list in Saturne's
dreaded name.

Compare Heywood's Hierarchie of Angels, b. ix. p. 568. edit. 1635. fol.

This passage of G. Agricola is quoted by Hales of Eton, in a Sermon on Rom. xiv. 1. And by Bishop Taylor, in his second Sermon on Tit. ii. 7. By both, with the same humorous application to theological controvertists. And in the quarto edition of Hales's Golden Remains, published by Bishop Pearson, there is a frontispiece in three divisions: in the lowest, a representation of Agricola's mine, with a reference to the citation, and this explanation, Controversers of the times, like spirits in the mineralls, with all their labor, nothing is done. T. Warton.

441. Hence had the huntress
Dian her dread bow,
Fair silver-shafted queen, for
ever chaste.]

So Jonson to Diana. Cynth. Rev. act v. s. 6.

Wherewith she tam'd the brinded lioness
And spotted mountain pard, and set at nought
The frivolous bolt of Cupid; Gods and men

445

Fear'd her stern frown, and she was queen o'th' woods.
What was that snaky-headed Gorgon shield,

That wise Minerva wore, unconquer'd virgin,
Wherewith she freez'd her foes to congeal'd stone,
But rigid looks of chaste austerity,

And noble grace that dash'd brute violence
With sudden adoration, and blank awe?
So dear to heav'n is saintly chastity,

Queene, and huntresse, chaste and

faire.

T. Warton.

Milton, I fancy, took the hint of this beautiful mythological interpretation from a dialogue of Lucian's betwixt Venus and Cupid, where the mother asking her son how, after having attacked all the other deities, he came to spare Minerva and Diana, Cupid replies, that the former looked so fiercely at him, and frightened him so with the and frightened him so with the Gorgon head which she wore upon her breast, that he durst not meddle with her-xa öga δε δριμυ, και επι του ςήθους έχει προσε ωπον τι φοβερον, εχιδναις κατακόμον, όνπερ εγω μαλιστα δεδία μορμολυττεται γαρ με, και φευγω όταν ίδω avro. p. 84. ed. Bourdelot-and that as to Diana she was always so employed in hunting, that he could not catch her - ουδε κατα λαβειν αυτην οἷοντε, φεύγουσαν αει δια Twigwr. Ibid. Thyer.

445. The frivolous bolt of Cupid;] Bolt was anciently a very common term for arrow. Witness the old proverb, The fool's bolt is soon shot. Peck.

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450

This reminds one of the "drib

bling dart of love," in M. for Measure. Bolt, I believe, is properly the arrow of a crossbow. Fletcher, Faithf. Sheph. act ii. s. 1. p. 134.

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That when a soul is found sincerely so,
A thousand liveried angels lacky her
Driving far off each thing of sin and guilt,
And in clear dream, and solemn vision,
Tell her of things that no gross ear can hear,
Till oft converse with heav'nly habitants
Begin to cast a beam on th' outward shape,
The unpolluted temple of the mind,

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454. That when a soul is found sincerely so,] It was at first in the Manuscript,

That when it finds a soul sincerely so. The alteration makes the sense rather plainer.

455. A thousand liveried angels lacky her.] The idea, without the lowness of allusion and expression, is repeated in Par. L. viii. 359.

About her, as a guard angelic plac'd.
T. Warton.

458. Tell her of things that no gross ear can hear,] See note on Arcades, 72.

This dialogue between the two brothers is an amicable contest between fact and philosophy. The younger argues from com

455

460

mon apprehension, and the common appearances of things; the elder from a profounder knowledge, and abstracted principles. Here the difference of their ages is properly made subservient to a contrast of character. But this slight variety must have been insufficient to keep so prolix and learned a disputation, however adorned with the fairest flowers of eloquence, alive upon the stage. The whole dialogue much resembles the manner of our author's Latin Prolusions at Cambridge, where philosophy is inforced by pagan fable and poetical allusion. T. Warton.

461. The unpolluted temple of the mind,] For this beautiful metaphor he was probably indebted to Scripture. John ii. 21. He spake of the temple of his body. And Shakespeare has the same. Tempest, act i. s. 6.

There's nothing ill can dwell in such
a temple.

If the ill spirit have so fair an house,
Good things will strive to dwell with't.

462. And turns it by degrees to the soul's essence,] This is agreeable to the system of the materialists, of which Milton was one. Warburton.

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