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Or wert thou that fweet fmiling youth?

Or that crown'd matron fage white-robed Truth?
Or any other of that heav'nly brood

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Let down in cloudy throne to do the world fome good?

53. Or wert thou that fweet-fmiling youth?

Or that crown'd matron fage white-robed Truth ?] In the first of these verses, a diffyllable word is wanting, which probably fell out at prefs. The late Mr. John Hefkin, of Chrift-Church, Oxford, who published an elegant edition of Bion and Mofchus, propofed in a periodical Mifcellany which appeared about the year 1750, and with the utmost probability, to infert MERCY.

Or wert thou MERCY, that fweet smiling youth?

For, as he observed, MERCY is not only most aptly represented as a fweet-fmiling youth, that is, of the age moft fufceptible of the tender paffions, but Mercy is joined with Juftice and Truth in the Ode on the NATIVITY, ft. xv. Doctor Newton has omitted the name of the author of this conjecture, and gives the reasons for it as his own.

54. Matron fage white-robed Truth.] In fome of the Miscellanies of the reign of James the first, I remember a white-kirtled Matron. See Note on Coм. v. 254. Where the word Kirtle affords me an opportunity of offering a conjecture on a paffage in AS YOU LIKE IT, A. i. S. iii. Rofalind fays, meaning to disguise herself in the drefs of a man.

Were it not better,

Because that I am more than common tall,

That I did fuit me all points like a Man :
A gallant curtle-ax upon my thigh,,

A boar-fpear in my hand, &c.

Here CURTLE-AX has been interpreted a Cutlass, from the French Coutelas. But I fufpect, that Rofalind, who in her difguife affects "a martial and a fwashing outfide," means a fort of fhew-dagger, worn on the KIRTLE or Surcoat. This might have been thence called a Curtle-ax. The original Saxon for KIRTLE is Cyrtel. And Curtelax is the reading of the folios 1623, and 1632. I find "CURTLE-AX "TRIM, in Fairfax's Taffo, C. xx. 84. Against this reafoning there is a paffage in LOCRINE, written 1594. Mention is made of Locrine's mighty"curtle-ax." A. iv. S.i. Mores, in his curious differtation on Letter-founders, calls a cutlafs, as it feems, a courtelafs, among the antique typograpic ornaments, p. 40.

PP

IX. Or

IX.

Or wert thou of the golden-winged hoft,
Who having clad thyself in human weed,
To earth from thy prefixed feat didst post,
And after short abode fly back with speed,
As if to fhow what creatures Heav'n doth breed,

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Thereby to set the hearts of men on fire To fcorn the fordid world, and unto Heav'n aspire?

X.

But oh why didft thou not stay here below
To bless us with thy heav'n-lov'd innocence,

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57. Or wert thou of the golden-winged hoft.] Mr. Bowle here cites Spenfer's HYMNE OF HEAVENLY BEAUTIE.

Bright Cherubins

Which all with GOLDEN WINGS are overdight.

And Spenfer's Heavenly Love has golden wings, ft. i.
Love lift me vp vpon thy GOLDEN WINGS.
Taffo thus defcribes Gabriel's wings, GIER. LIB. i. xiv.
Ali bianche vestì, c'han d'or le cime.

An edging of gold. Fairfax translates the paffage,
Of filver wings he took a fhining payre,
Fringed with gold.

See IL PENS. v. 52.

From the wings of Cherubims, our author, in his book of REFORMATION, has raised a puerile Italian conceit, to exprefs the mildness of the divine mercy. “God, when we least deserved, sent out a "gentle gale, and meffage of peace, from the wings of thofe his Che"rubims that FAN his mercy-feat.' "It is at leaft, unworthy of the fubject. PROSE-WORKS, vol. i. 22. The enthuĥafm of puritanical devotion partook of the myftic vifions of monaftic quietifm. On Pope's blamelefs veftal,

The wings of Seraphs fhed divine perfumes.

But, allowing for the ftate of mind and habitual fentiments of the fair reclufe, the fiction is natural, rational, and, highly poetical without extravagance.

To

To flake his wrath whom fin hath made our foe,
To turn swift rushing black perdition hence,
Or drive away the slaughtering peftilence,

To stand 'twixt us and our deserved smart? 69 But thou canst best perform that office where thou

art.

XI.

Then thou, the Mother of fo fweet a Child,
Her false imagin❜d lofs cease to lament,
And wifely learn to curb thy forrows wild;
Think what a present thou to God hast sent,
And render him with patience what he lent;
This if thou do, he will an ofspring give,
That till the world's laft end fhall make thy name
to live.

67. To turn swift-rubing black perdition bence,

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Or drive away the flaughtering peftilence.] Among the bleffings, which the beaven-loved innocence of this child might have imparted, by remaining upon earth, the application to prefent circumstances, the fuppofition that she might have averted the peftilence now raging in the kingdom, is happily and beautifully conceived. On the whole, from a boy of seventeen, this Ode is an extraordinary effort of fancy, expreffion, and verfification. Even in the conceits, which are many, we perceive ftrong and peculiar marks of genius. I think Milton has here given a very remarkable fpecimen of his ability to fucceed in the Spenferian ftanza. He moves with great ease and address ainidst the embarraffment of a frequent return of rhyme.

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FLY

On TIM E.

LY envious Time, till thou run out thy race, Call on the lazy leaden-stepping hours, Whose speed is but the heavy plummet's pace; And glut thyself with what thy womb devours, Which is no more than what is false and vain, And, merely mortal drofs;

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So little is our lofs,

So little is thy gain.

For when as each thing bad thou haft intomb'd, And last of all thy greedy felf confum'd,

Then long Eternity shall greet our bliss

With an individual kiss;

And Joy shall overtake us as a flood,

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When every thing that is fincerely good

And perfectly divine,

With truth, and peace, and love, shall ever shine About the fupreme throne

Of him, t' whose happy-making fight alone

When once our heav'nly-guided foul fhall clime,

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14. When every thing that is fincerely good.] SINCERELY, is purely, perfectly. As in COMUS, V. 454.

So dear to heaven is faintly chastity,

That when a foul is found SINCERELY fo, &c.

Then

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Then all this earthy grofness quit,

Attir'd with ftars, we fhall for ever fit,

Triumphing over Death, and Chance, and thee, O Time *.

BLES

At a SOLEMN MUSIC.

LEST pair of Sirens, pledges of Heav'ns joy, Sphere-born harmonious fifters, Voice and Verse, Wed your divine founds, and mix'd pow'r employ Dead things with inbreath'd sense able to pierce, And to our high-rais'd phantasy present

That undisturbed fong of pure concent,

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* Milton could not help applying the moft folemn and mysterious truths of religion on all fubjects and occafions. He has here introduced the beatific vifion, and the inveftiture of the foul with a robe of ftars, into an inscription on a clock-cafe. Perhaps fomething more moral, more plain and intelligible, would have been more proper. John Bunyan, if capable of rhyming, would have written fuch an infcription for a clock-cafe. The latter part of these lines may be thought wonderfully fublime: but it is in the cant of the times. The poet should be distinguished from the puritan.

2. Sphere-born barmonious fifters, voice and verfe.] So, fays Mr. Bowle, Marino in his ADONE, C. vii. i.

Mufica e Poefia fon due forelle.

Jonfon has amplified this idea, EPIGR. CXXIX. On E. Filmer's Mufical Work, 1629.

What charming peals are these?

They are the MARRIAGE RITES

Of two the choiceft PAIR of man's delights,

Mufick and Poefie:

French Air and English Verse here WEDDED lie, &c.

See Note, L'ALLEGR. V. 136.

Ay

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