- ELDER BROTHER.

Why prythee, Shepherd, 615 How durst thou then thyself approach so near; As to make this relation?

SPIRIT.

Care and utmost shifts
How to secure the Lady from surprisal,
Brought to my mind a certain shepherd lad,
Of small regard to see to, yet well skill'd
In every virtuous plant and healing herb,
That spreads her verdant leaf to th' morning ray:
He lov'd me well, and oft would beg me sing,

620

He with his bare wand can unguilt Tu mihi, cui recitem, judicis instar thy joints,

eris. And crumble every sinew.

Eleg. sext. ad Deodatum, 614. So in Prospero's com- and sometimes explained to him mands to Ariel, Temp. act iv. 8. the nature and virtues of simuit.

ples, Go, charge my goblins, that they

Tu mihi percurres medicos, tua gragrind their joints

mina, succos, With dry convulsions, shorten up

Helleborumque, humilesque crocos, their sinews

foliumque hyacinthi, With aged cramps.

Quasque habet ista palus berbas, ar. T. Warton.

tesque medentom. 622. to th' morning ray:]

Epitaph. Damonis, See note on Lycidas, 142. T. 623. —and oft would beg me Warton.

sing, &c.] Mr. Bowle reinarks 623. He lov'd me well, &c.] I that here is an imitation of Spencannot help thinking that Milton ser, in C. Clout's come home again, designed here a compliment to yet with great improvement. his schoolfellow and friend Charles Deodati, who was bred

He sitting me beside in that same

shade, to the study of physic, and had

Provoked me to play some pleasant an exceeding love for our author,

And when he heard the musick which

I made, Pectus amans nostri, tamque fidele

He found himself full greatly pleas'd caput.

Eleg. prim. ad Deodatum. and used to hear him repeat his Such parallels are of little more verses,

importance, than to shew what Te quoque pressa manent patriis mc. poets were familiar to Milton. ditata cicutis,

T. Warion.

fit:

at it.

625

Which when I did, he on the tender grass
Would sit, and hearken ey'n to ecstasy,
And in requital ope his leathern scrip,
And show me simples of a thousand names,
Telling their strange and vigorous faculties:
Amongst the rest a small unsightly root,
But of divine effect, he cull'd me out;
The leaf wąs darkish, and had prickles on it,
But in another country, as he said,
Bore a bright golden flow'r, but not in this soil:

630

627. —of a thousand names,] but, to avoid its recurring in two It was at first

lines together, -of a thousand hues.

But in another country, as he said,

Bore a bright golden flow'r, not in 632. But in another country, as

this soil : he said,

But then on the other hand it Bore a bright golden flow'r, but

must be said, that such redundnot in this soil: Unknown, and like' esteem'd, sometimes occur in Milton. We

ant or hypercatalectic verses &c.]

had one a little before, ver. 605. So these verses are read in Mil. ton's own Manuscript, and in all

Harpies, and hydras, or all the

monstrous forms. his editions, For like esteemed we have in Mr. Fenton's edition And for like esteemed I think it little esteemed, and Mr.Warburton may be defended without any

Unknown and like proposes to read light esteemed: alteration. and Mr. Seward, in note 25 esteemed, that is, Unknown and upon the Faithful Shepherdess, unesteemed, Unknown and ehas very ingeniously reformed steemed accordingly. the whole passage thus.

632. It is true that “such re

« dundant verses sometimes ocBut in another country, as he said, Bore a bright golden flow'r, but in

cur in Milton," but the rethis soil

dundant syllable is never, I think, Unknown and light esteem'd. found in the second, third, or The middle verse indeed hath a

fourth, foot. The passage before redundant syllable; and before

us is certainly corrupt, or at least I had seen Mr. Seward's emend- inaccurate, and had better been ation, I had proposed either to

given thus, leave out the monosyllable not,

Unknown, and like esteem'd, and the dull swain
Treads on it daily with his clouted shoon;
And yet more med'cinal is it than that moly

635

very plausible and ingenious. of this poem very much upon But to say nothing of the edi- the episode of Circe in the Odystions under Milton's own inspec- sey; and here he himself plainly tion, I must object, that if an points out the parallel between argument be here drawn for the them. The characters of Circe alteration from roughness or re- and her son Comus very much dundancy of verse, innumerable resemble each other. They have instances of the kind occur in both of them a potent wand and our author. See P. R. i. 175. inchanting cup, and the effects and 302. and the notes there, of both are much the same: and T. Warton.

they are both to be opposed in 634. -dull] Unobservant. the same manner with force and T. Warton.

violence. Mercury bids Ulysses 635. -clouted shoon;] So to rush upon Circe with his Shakespeare, 2 Henry VI. act iv. drawn sword, as if he would kill S. 3. Čade speaks,

her. Odyss. X. 294. We will not leave one lord, one gen. An Tots ou gspos oču spurrajeros rega tleman;

fungon Spare none but such as go in clouted Κιρκη επαίξαι, ώστε νταμεναι μεν WY. shoon.

and the attendant Spirit exhorts 635. Add the following pas- the two Brothers to assault Cosage from Cymbeline, act iv. s. mus in the same manner, 2. which not only exhibits but

-with dauntless hardihood, contains a comment on the phrase

And brandish'd blade rush on him in question.

&c. - I thought he slept, and put My clouted brogues from off my feet, the same manner, Circe by the

And they are both overcome in whose rudeness Answer'd my steps too loud. virtues of the herb moly, which Clouts are thin and narrow plates Comus by the virtues of hæmony,

Mercury gave to Ulysses, and of iron affixed with hob nails to the soles of the shoes of rustics. which the attendant Spirit gives

to the two Brothers. But the These made too much noise. The word brogues is still used Author varied here from his ori

parallel holds no farther. Our for shoes among the peasantry of Ireland. T, Warton.

ginal with great judgment. The 636. And yet more med'cinal is decent and modest manner than

Lady is released in a much more it &c.] At first he had thus writ- the companions of Ulysses. ten these two lines,

636. Drayton introduces a And yet more med'cinal than that shepherd “his sundry simples ancient moly

" sorting,” who, among other Which Mercury to wise Ulysses gave.

rare plants, produces moly. Mus, Our author hath formed the plan Elys. Nymph. v. vol. iv. p. 1489.

That Hermes once to wise Ulysses gave;
He call'd it bæmony, and gave it me,

v.

Here is my moly of much fame · herbs and springs. Gier. lib. In magicks often used.

xiv. 42. It is not agreed, whether Mil- Qual in se virtù celi d l herba d ton's hæmony, more virtuous l' fonte. than moly, and “of sovereign In the Faerie Queene, the Paluse 'gainst all inchantments,

mer has a vertuous staffe, which, is a real or poetical plant. Dray- like Milton's moly and hæmony, ton, in the lines following the defeats all monstrous apparitions passage just quoted, recites with and diabolical illusions. And many more of the kind,

Tasso's Ubaldo carries a staff of Here holy vervain, and here dill, the same sort, when he enters

'Gainst witchcraft much avayling. the palace of Armida, xiv. 73. But Milton, through the whole xv. 49. T. Warton. of the context, had his eye on

637. That Hermes once &c.] Fletcher, who perhaps availed Ovid, Metam. xiv. 289. himself of Drayton, Faith. Shep.

-Nec tantæ cladis ab illo act ii . s. 1. vol. iii. p. 127. The

Certior, ad Circen ultor venisset

Ulysses : shepherdess Clorin is skilled in

Pacifer huic dederat florem Cyllenius the medicinal and superstitious album, uses of plants.

Moly vocant superi, &c. You, that these hands did crop long From Homer, Odyss. K. 305. before prime,

T. Warton. Give me your names, and next your

638. He calld it hæmony, &c.] This is the clote, bearing a yellow 1 conceive this to be neither the flower, &c.

anenione nor the hemionion deIn Browne's Inner Temple scribed by Pliny, though their Masque, written on Milton's names are something alike: and subject, Circe attended by the it is in vain to enquire what it is; Sirens uses moly for a charm,

I take it to be (like the moly to p. 135. Our author again al- which it is compared) a plant Judes to the powers of moly for that grows only in poetical

quelling the might of hellish ground. It cannot be the he“ charms." El. i. 87.

mionion particularly, because

Pliny says' that this bears Et vitare procul malefidæ infamia

no flower.

Hemionion vocant,
Circes
Atria, divinæ molyos usus ope.

spargentem juncos tenues, folia

parva, asperis locis nascentem, Compare Sandys's Ovid, p. 256. austero sapore, nunquam floren479. edit. 1632. And Drayton's tem. Lib. xxv. sect. 20. nec cauNymphid. vol. ii. p. 463. And lem, nec florem, nec semen habet. Polyolb. s. xii, vol. iii. p. 919. Id. lib. xxvii. s. 17. And yet Mr.

In Tasso, Ubaldo, a virtuous Thyer imagines it to be the same, magician, performs his opera- and what in English we call tions, by the hidden powers of spleenwort: and if his conjecture

hidden power.

And bad me keep it as of sovereign use
'Gainst all inchantments, mildew, blast, or damp, 640
Or ghastly furies' apparition.
I purs'd it up, but little reck’ning made,
Till now that this extremity compelld:
But now I find it true; for by this means
I knew the foul inchanter though disguis’d,
Enter'd the very lime-twigs of his spells,
And yet came off: if you have this about you,

645

be admitted, his subsequent rea- 642. I purs'd it up,] It was soning is very ingenious. It is customary in families to have no unusual thing, says he, to herbs in store not only for medifind in the old writers upon the cal and culinary, but for supernature of herbs this virtue at- stitious, purposes.

In

some tributed to certain plants; but I houses, rue and rosemary were can meet with no authority for constantly kept for good luck. Milton's imputing it to hæmony See the Winter's Tale, act iv. 8. or spleenwort. Perhaps it may 3; and Hamlet, act iv. s. 5; and be thought refining too much to Greene's Quip for an upstart conjecture, that he meant to hint, Courtier. T. Warton. that, as this root was esteemed 642. —but little reck'ning a sovereign remedy against the made,] I thought but little of it. spleen, it must consequently be So Lycidas, 116. a preservative against inchant

Of other care they little reck’ning ments, apparitions, &c. which are

make. generally nothing else but the And Daniel, Civil Warres, b.i.92. sickly fancies and imaginations of vaporish and splenetic com

Yet hereof no important reck'ning

makes. plexions 641. Or ghastly furies' appa

T. Warton, rition.] Peck supposes that the 647. -if you have this about furies were never believed to you, &c.] in the Manuscript appear, and proposes to read the following lines were thus “ faery's apparition." But Mile written at first, and afterwards ton means any frightful appear- corrected. ance raised by magic. Among