Follow me, 90 I will bring you where the fits, Clad in fplendour as befits Such a rural Queen All Arcadia hath not feen. 95 N III. S O N G. Ymphs and Shepherds dance no more On old Lycæus or Cyllene hoar Trip no more in twilight ranks, the moon and itars appearing over it. This grove, in the verses affixed, is faid to be, Not peircable to power of any ftarre. See Peacham's MINERVA BRITANNA, p. 182. edit. 1612. 4to. But literally the fame line is applied to a grove in the FAERIE QUEENE, i. i. 7. Where Spenfer feems to have imitated Statius, THEB. L.X.85. Nulli penetrabilis aftro Lucus iners. Compare our author, PARAD. L. B. ix. 1088. Where higheft woods IMPENETRABLE To STAR, or fun-light, fpread their umbrage broad. But STAR-PROOF is aftrological, as in Martin's DUMBE KNIGHT, 1608. Reed's OLD PL. iv. 479. Or elfe STAR-CROSS'D with fome hagg's hellishness. See Note on v. 51. I must add, that when Jonson makes Bobadil tamely fubmit to a fevere and difgraceful drubbing, the characteristical humour of the fictitious hero's happy readiness of invention, especially on fo critical an Though Erymanth your lofs deplore, A better foil fhall give ye thanks. 100 an occafion, in declaring that he was planet-ftruck, is alfo indirectly intended to ferve the purpofe of ridiculing the prevailing fondness for aftrology. At least, without confidering the popular fuperftitions about the influence of the planets, Bobadil's pretence is forced, unnatural, and almoft unintelligible. 97. By fandy Laden's lillied banks.] Doctor Newton obferves, that this river might properly be faid to have lilied banks, fince Diony"fius, as I find him quoted by Farnaby, has called it, σε Εὐκάλαμον ποτάμον καὶ ἐϋτέφανον Λαδώνα.” I know not that Dionyfius mentions the river Ļadon any where, but in the following verfe of the PERIEGESIS, V. 417. Ηχι δε ἀγύγιος μηκύνεται ὕδασι Λάδων. Ubi etiam prifcis porrigitur aquis Ladon. Ovid mentions Ladon more than once, but without its lilies. METAM. i. 702. Arenofi placitum LADONIS ad amnem. Again, FAST. ii. 274. Quique citis LADON in mare currit aquis. Again, ibid. v. 89. Manalos hunc, LADONQUE rapax.. Compare Statius, THEB. ix. 573. Gelidas LADONIS ad undas. And Callimachus, HYMN. Jov. v. 18. ΛΑΔΩΝ ἀπ ̓ οὔπω μέγας ἔρρεεν. Ladon vero magnus nondum fluebat. Feftus Avienus, I believe, is the only antient Latin poet, if he deferves the name, who speaks of the fertility of the fields washed by Ladon. DESCRIPT. OR B. V. 574. Hic diftentus aqua SATA lambit PINGUIA Ladon. But by LILLIED banks we are perhaps only to understand waterlilies. And, by the way, here is an authority for reading lillied inftead of twilled, in a very controverted verfe of the TEMPEST, A. iv. S. i. [Johnf. Steev. vol. i. p. 86.] Thy banks with pionied and twilled brims. This inftance almost afcertains one of Mr. Steevens's very rational conjectures, on a text which had been long incorrigible. LILLIED feems to From the ftony Mænalus Bring your flocks, and live with us, Here ye shall have greater grace, To ferve the Lady of this place. 105 Though Syrinx your Pan's mistress were, Yet Syrinx well might wait on her. Such a rural Queen All Arcadia hath not feen *. to have been no uncommon epithet for the banks of a river. So in Sylvefter, cited in ENGLAND'S PARNASSUS, 1600. p. 479. By fome cleare river's LILLIE-PAVED fide. Ibid. Sandy Ladon.-] Milton, as we have feen, has got Ovid's epithet ARENOSUs to Ladon. But this pastoral river had before been celebrated in English with the fame epithet, by Browne, BRIT. PAST, B. ii. S. iv. p. 107. The filuer Ladon, on his SANDY fhore, But as Mr. Bowle obferves, the river Ladon has the fame epithet in * A countess of Derby, the fame perhaps before whom this piece was prefented at Harefield, appears to have acted in Jonson's First Queene's Mafque at Whitehall, 1605. WORKS, fol. ut fupr. p.899. And in the Second Queene's Mafque at Whitehall, 1608. Ibid. p. 908. And again, in the Mafque of Queenes at Whitehall, 1609. Ibid. p. 964. In all these three performances fhe is called the Countess of Derby. The dowager countefs, before whom ARCADES was acted, was Alice, daughter of fir John Spenser of Althorpe. She was, according to Dugdale, the third wife of Ferdinando earl of Derby; on whose premature death, fhe married fir Thomas Egerton, viscount Brackley, and Chancellor of England, who died in 1617. BARON. ii. 414. 251. Harrington has an Epigram to this lady, B. iii. 47. In praise of the Counteffe of Derby married to the Lord Chancellour. This noble counteffe lived many yeeres With Derby, one of England's greatest peeres ; Fruitful Fruitfull and faire, and of fo cleare a name All eares, eyes, tongues, heard, faw, and told, her honour, &c. See MSS. WILLIS, Bibl. Bodl. fol. num. viii. f. 54. PEDIGR. BUCKS. She died in January, 1636, and was buried at Harefield. ARCADES could not therefore have been written later than the year 1636. Probably fome time before. More will be faid of this Lady Derby's connections, in CoмUS. * He died 1594. |