Where your old Bards, the famous Druids, lie, Nor yet where Deva spreads her wifard stream: 55 53. Where your old Bards, the famous Druids, lie.] In the edition of 1638, "The old Bards." With a very different meaning. The correction appeared in the edition of 1645. 54. Nor on the baggy top of Mona bigb.] In Drayton's POLYOLBION, Mona is introduced reciting her own hiftory; where fhe mentions her thick and dark groves as the favourite refidence of the Druids. Sometimes within my fhades, in many an ancient wood, Where, fays Selden, "The British Druids tooke this isle of Anglesey, ibid. Shaggy top-] So PARAD. L. vi. 645. The angels uplift the hills, By their SHAGGY TOPS. 55. Nor yet where Deva Spreads her wifard fiream.] In Spenfer, the river Dee is the haunt of magicians. Merlin used to vifit old Timon, in a green valley under the foot of the mountain Rauran-vaur in Merionethfhire, from which this river fprings. FAERIE QUEENE, i. ix. 4. Under the foot of Rauran moffy hore, From whence the river DEE, as filuer cleene, His tombling billowes rolls with gentle rore. The Dee has been made the scene of a variety of antient British traditions. The city of Chefter was called by the Britons the Fortress upon DEE; which was feigned to have been founded by the giant Leon, and to have been the place of king Arthur's magnificent coro nation. But there is another and perhaps a better reason, why Deva's is a WISARD ftream. In Drayton, this river is styled the ballowed, and the boly, and the ominous flood. POLYOLB. S. X. vol. iii. p. 848. S. ix. vol. iii. p. 287. S. iv. vol. ii. p. 731. Again, "baly Dee," HEROICALL EPIST. vol. i. p. 293. And in his IDEAS, vol. iv. p. 1271. Carlegion Chefter boasts her HOLY DEE. Ay me! I fondly dream Had ye been there, for what could that have done? Compare Spenfer as above, iv. xi. 39. Dee which Britons long ygone Did call DIUINE. And Browne, in his BRITANNIA'S PASTORALS, B. ii. S. v. p. 117. edit. 1616. Never more let HOLY Dee Ore other riucrs braue, &c. In our author's AT a VACATION EXERCISE, Dee is characterifed, “ ancient HALLOWED Dee." v. 91. Much fuperftition was founded on the circumftance of its being the antient boundary between England and Wales: and Drayton, in his tenth SONG, having recited this part of its hiftory, adds, that by changing its fords, it foretold good or evil, war or peace, dearth or plenty, to either country. He then introduces the Dee, over which king Edgar had been rowed by eight kings, relating the Story of Brutus. See alfo S. iii. vol. ii. p. 711. S. xii. vol. iii. p. 901. But in the ELEVENTH SONG, Drayton calls the Weever, a river of Cheshire, "The WISARD river," and immediately fubjoins. that in PROPHETICK SKILL it vies with the Dee. S. xi. vol. iii. p. 861. Here we seem to have the origin and the precife meaning of Milton's appellation. In COMUS, WISARD alfo fignifies a Diviner where it is applied to Proteus, v. 872. By the Carpathian WISARD's hook. Milton appears to have taken a particular pleasure in mentioning this venerable river. In the beginning of his first Elegy, he almoft goes out of his way to fpecify his friend's refidence on the banks of the Dee; which he defcribes with the picturefque and real circumftance of its tumbling headlong over rocks and precipices into the Irish fea. EL. i. 1. Tandem, care, tuæ mihi pervenere tabellæ, Pertulit Occidua DEVA CESTRENSIS ab ora, But to return home to the text immediately lying before us. In the midft of this wild imagery, the tombs of the Druids, difperfed over the folitary mountains of Denbighshire, the shaggy fummits of Mona, and the wifard waters of Deva, Milton was in his favourite track of poetry. He delighted in the old British traditions and fabulous hiftories. But his imagination feems to have been in fome measure warmed, and perhaps directed to these objects, by reading Drayton; who What could the Mufe herself that Orpheus bore, The Mufe herself for her inchanting fon, Whom univerfal nature did lament, 60 in the NINTH and TENTH SONGS of his POLYOLBION has very copiously enlarged, and almoft at one view, on this fcenery It is, however, with great force and felicity of fancy, that Milton, in transferring the claffical feats of the Mufes to Britain, has fubftituted places of the most romantic kind, inhabited by Druids, and confecrated by the visions of British bards. And it has been justly remarked, how coldly and unpoetically Pope, in his very correct paftorals, has on the fame occafion felected only the fair fields of Ifis, and the winding vales of Cam. But at the fame time there is an immediate propriety in the fubftitution of these places, which fhould not be forgotten, and is not I believe obvious to every reader. The mountains of Denbighshire, the ifle of Man, and the banks of the Dee, are in the vicinity of the Irish feas where Lycidas was fhipwrecked. It is thus Theocritus afks the Nymphs, how it came to pafs, that when Daphnis died, they were not in the delicious vales of Peneus, or on the banks of the great torrent Anapus, the facred water of Acis, or on the fummits of mount Etna; because all thefe were the haunts or the habitation of the fhepherd Daphnis. Thefe rivers and rocks have a real connection with the poet's fubject. 56. Ay me, I fondly dream! Had ye been there for what could that have done?] So these lines ftand in editions 1638, 1645, and 1673, the two laft of which were printed under Milton's eye. Doctor Newton thus exhibits the paffage. Ay me! I fondly dream Had ye been there, for what could that have done? And adds this note. "We have here followed the pointing of Mil"ton's manufcript in preference to all the editions: and the meaning "plainly is, I fondly dream of your having been there, for what would "that have fignified?" But furely the words, I fondly dream bad ye been there, will not bear this conftruction. The reading which I have adopted, to say nothing of its authority, has an abruptnefs which heightens the prefent fentiment, and more ftrongly marks the diftraction of the speaker's mind. "Ah me! I am fondly dreaming! I will "fuppofe you had been there but why should I suppose it, for what "would that have availed?" The context is broken and confused, and contains a fudden elleipfis which I have supplied with the words in Italics. When When by the rout that made the hideous roar, Or with the tangles of Neæra's hair? 63. Down the Swift Hebrus to the Lesbian fhore.] In calling Hebrus SWIFT, Milton, who is avaricious of claffical authority, appears to have followed a verse in the Eneid, i. 317. -VOLUCREMQUE fuga prævertitur Hebrum. But Milton was misled by a wrong although a very antient reading. Even Servius, in his comment on the line, with an aggravation instead of apology, blames his author for attributing this epithet to Hebrus, "Nam QUIETISSIMUS eft, etiam cum per hyemem crefcit." Befides, what was the merit of the amazon huntress Harpalyce to outftrip a river, even if uncommonly rapid? The genuine reading might have been EURUM. -Volucremque fuga prævertitur EURUM. This emendation is proposed by Janus Rutgerfius, LECTION. VENUSIN. c. vi. But Scaliger had partly fuggefted it to Rutgerfius, by reading, "EURO hyemis Sodali," inftead of "HEBRO," Hor. OD. i. xxv. 20. If, however, a river was here to be made a fubject of comparison, there was a local propriety and an elegance, in the poet's selection of the Thracian river Hebrus. When Milton copies the antients, it is not that he wants matter of his own, but because he is fond of fhewing his learning. 68. To Sport with Amaryllis in the fhade, Or with the tangles of Neara's hair.] In the first edition, 1638, as in the manufcript. HID in the tangles of Neæra's hair. Fame Fame is the fpur that the clear spirit doth raise (That last infirmity of noble mind) 71 To fcorn delights, and live laborious days; 70. Fame is the Spur, &c.] Thefe noble fentiments he afterwards dilated or improved in PARADISE REGAINED, B. iii. 24. -Glory the reward That fole excites to high attempts, the flame All treasures and all gain esteem as drofs. 71. That laft infirmity of noble mind.] Mr. Bowle obferves, that Abbate Grillo, in his LETTERE, has called "Questa fete di fama et glo"ria, ordinaria INFIRMITA de gli ANIMI GENEROSI." Lib. ii. p.210. edit. Ven. 1604. 4to. 74. And think to burst out into fudden blaze.] He is speaking of fame. So in PARAD. REG. B. iii. 47. For what is glory but the BLAZE OF FAME, &C. 75. Comes the blind Fury with th' abborred fhears.] In Shakespeare are the fhears of Destiny, with more propriety. KING JOHN, A. iv. S. ii. The king fays to Pembroke. Think you I bear the SHEARS of DESTINY? Milton, however, does not here confound the Fates and the Furies. He only calls Destiny a Fury. In Spenfer, we have BLIND Fury.. RUINS OF ROME, St. xxiv. If the BLINDE FURIE which warres breedeth oft. And in Sackville's GORDOBUCKE, A. v. S. iii. O Joue, how are these peoples hearts abvs'd, See OBSERVATIONS on Spenfer's FAERIE QUEENE, vol. ii. p. 255. edit. 2. Fame |