Quickly to the green earth's end, Where the bow'd welkin flow doth bend, 1015 And thus the Satyre in Fletcher's FAITHFUL SHEPHERDESS, who bears the character of our attendant spirit, when his office or commiffion is finished, difplays his power and activity, promifing any further fervices. S. ult. p. 195. The reader fhall compare Milton's chafte dignity on this occafion, with Fletcher's licentious indulgence of a warmer fancy. What new fervice now is meetest And bring thee coral, making way MISCHIEF, or fad MISCHANCE. Sat. Holy virgin, I will dance Round about thefe woods, as quick As the breaking light, and prick Down the lawns and down the vales, Fafter than the windmill sailes, So I take my leave, &c. And at his affumption of this office, he had before faid, A. i. S. i. p. 107. I must go, and I must run, Swifter than the fiery fun. Again, p. 162. Brighteft, if there be remaining To catch the nimble wind, or get Shadows One is surprised, that Fletcher in the FAITHFUL SHEPHERDESS fhould have borrowed no conceits from the AMINTA and PASTOR FIDO, now the fashionable and only models of pastoral comedy. But Fletcher's genius kept him at home. 1015. Where the bow'd welkin flow doth bend.] A curve which benda or defcends flowly, from its great fweep. BENDING has the fame fense, of Dover cliff, in K. LEAR, A. iv. S. i. There is a cliff, whofe high and BENDING head And in the FAITHF. SHEPHERDESS, 66 Jonfon has " BENDING vale," vii. 39. 1016. And from thence can foar as foon BENDING plain." p. 105. To the corners of the moon.] Oberon fays of the swiftness of his fairies, MIDS. N. DR. A. iv. S. i. We the globe can compass soon Swifter than the wandering moon. And Drayton, NYMPHID. vol. ii. p. 552. Whence lies a way up to the moon, Compare MACBETH, A. iii. S. v. Upon the CORNER of the MOON There hangs a vaporous drop profound. And B. and Fletcher, SEA VOYAGE, A. i. S. i. vol. ix. p. 81. Shot from a wave. And Puck's Fairy, in MIDS. N. DR. A. ii. S. i. I do wander every where Swifter than the moon's sphere. We plainly perceive Milton's track of reading. She She can teach ye how to clime 1020 Higher than the sphery chime; Or if Virtue feeble were, Heav'n itself would stoop to her *. 1021. Higher than the sphery chime.] The mufic of the spheres. As in Machin's DUMBE KNIGHT, 1608. Reed's OLD PL. iv. 447. It was of filver as the CHIME of SPHERES. See PARAD. L. B. xi. 559. The found Of inftruments that made melodious CHIME. And PARAD. REG. B. ii. 363. And all the while melodious airs were heard In the fame fenfe, AT A SOLEMN MUSIC, v. 9. Jarr'd against nature's CHIME. "Nature's MUSIC." And in the ODE ON THE NATIVITY, A. xië. And let your filver CHIME Move in melodious time. Milton is fond of the word CHIME in this acceptation, and it has been hence adopted by Dryden. Jonfon has, "as fome foft CHIME had "ftroak'd the air," vol. vii. 26. EPHEME. Again, "the air so smile, "the wind fo CHIME," ibid. 49. Again, SAD SHEPHERD, A. iii. S. i. To hear the changed CHIME of his eighth sphere. And in a MASQUE, VI. 158. To mix this mufic with the vulgars CHIME. SPHERY Occurs in MIDS. N. DR. A. ii. S. vii. "Hermia's 66 SPHERY eyne." We must not read COMUS with an eye to the ftage, or with the expectation of dramatic propriety. Under this restriction, the abfurdity of the Spirit fpeaking to an audience in a folitary forett at midnight, and the want of reciprocation in the dialogue, are overlooked. COMUS is a fuite of Speeches, not interefting by difcrimination of character; not conveying a variety of incidents, nor gradually exciting curiofity: but perpetually attracting attention by fublime fentiment, by fanciful imagery of the richest vein, by an exuberance of picturelque : picturesque description, poetical allufion, and ornamental expreffion. While it widely departs from the grotefque anomalies of the Mak now in fashion, it does not nearly approach to the natural constitution of a regular play. There is a chastity in the application and conduct of the machinery and Sabrina is introduced with much address, after the Brothers had imprudently fuffered the inchantment of Comus to take effect. This is the first time the old English Mask was in fome degree reduced to the principles and form of rational compofition. A great critic obferves, that the difpute between the Lady and Comus is the most animated and affecting scene of the piece. Perhaps fome other fcenes, either confifting only of a foliloquy, or of three or four fpeeches only, have afforded more true pleasure. The action is faid to be improbable becaufe the Brothers, when their fifter finks with fatigue in a pathlefs wilderness, wander both away together in fearch of berries, too far to find their way back, and leave a helpless lady to all the sadness and danger of folitude. But here is no desertion, or neglect of the lady. The Brothers leave their fifter under a spreading pine in the foreft, fainting for refreshment: they go to procure berries or fome other fruit for her immediate relief, and, with great probability, lofe their way in going or returning. To fay nothing of the poet's art, in making this very natural and fimple accident to be productive of the diftrefs, which forms the future bufiness and complication of the fable. It is certainly a fault, that the Brothers, although with fome indications of anxiety, should enter with fo much tranquillity, when their fifter is loft, and at leifure pronounce philofophical panegyrics on the myfteries of virginity. But we must not too fcrupulously attend to the exigencies of fituation, nor suffer ourselves to fuppofe that we are reading a play, which Milton did not mean to write. Thefe fplendid infertions will pleafe, independently of the itory, from which however they refult; and their elegance and fublimity will overbalance their want of place. In a Greek tragedy, fuch fentimental harangues, arifing from the fubject, would have been given to a chorus. On the whole, whether Coмus, be or be not, deficient as a drama, whether it is confidered as an Epic drama, a series of lines, a Mask, or a poem, I am of opinion, that our author is here only inferiour to his own PARADISE LOST. O DE S. ON THE MORNING OF CHRIST's T NATIVITY*. I. 'HIS is the month, and this the happy morn, Wherein the Son of Heav'n's eternal King, Of wedded Maid, and Virgin Mother born, Our great redemption from above did bring; *This Ode, in which the many learned allufions are highly poetcal, was probably compofed as a college-exercife at Cambridge, our author being now only twenty one years old. In the edition of 1645, in its title it is faid to have been written 1629. We are informed by himself, that he was employed in writing this piece, in the conclufion of the fixth Elegy to his friend Deodate, which appears to have been sent about the clofe of the month December. Deodate had inquired how he was spending his time. Milton answers, v. 81. Paciferum canimus cœlefti femine regem, Fauftaque facratis fæcula pacta libris ; Stelliparumque polum, modulantefque æthere turmas. The concluding pentameter of the paragraph points out the best part of the Ode. Et fubito elifos ad fua fana deos. See ft. xix. xxvi. The Oracles are dumb, No voice or hideous hum, &c. &c. The |