- I

how impoffible it was for it not to impress a young and curious mind.-Milton was only five years old, when this 4to edition. of Sylvefter's Du Bartas was published. Poffibly Milton's father and Lownes were in habits of intimacy; and books, printed by the one, foon found their way to the houfe of the other; and there made a part of the library, which furnished young Milton with his earliest reading. might hence fuggeft an earlier date for Milton's first acquaintance with Sylvefter's Du Bartas, than I had at first done; and I might, not unfoundedly perhaps, conjecture it to have been one of the first books of poetry, (if not the very first,) which he perufed.-At all events you will, I think, allow, that the wannish white letters, produced by the tears of the mourner on the black leaves of his lugubrious page, are the Lachrymæ Lachrymarum of Sylvefter, from the prefs of Lownes; a circumstance, that cannot but ftrengthen my general hypothefis.

41. There doth my foul in holy vifion fit,

In penfive trance, and anguish, and ecftatic fit.]

And yet far higher is this HOLY FIT,

When,

from flesh cares acquit,

The wakeful foul itself affembling fo

All felfly dies,

But above all that's the DIVINEST TRANCE,

When the foul's eye beholds God's countenance.

p. 178.

ECSTASIED in a HOLY TRANCE;

P. 528.

AT A SOLEMN MUSIC.

17. That we on earth with undiscording voice
May rightly anfwer that melodious noise;
As once we did, till difproportion'd Sin
Farr'd against Nature's chime, and with harsh din
Broke the fair music that all creatures made
To their great Lord, whofe love their motion fway'd
In perfect diapafon, whilst they flood

In firft obedience and their fate of good.]

The FURIES, or iii d. Part of the ft. Day of the id. Week, of Sylvefter's Du

Bartas,

Bartas, defcribes the fatal confequences of

the FALL.

thus:

The ARGUMENT of it

opens

The world's transform'd from what it was at first;

For Adam's fin all creatures else accurf'd;
THEIR HARMONY DISTUNED BY HIS JAR:
Yet all again CONCENT, to make him war; &c.

p. 201.

where the two laft lines may illuftrate a preceding verfe in this finely finely-conceived, and exquifitely - finifhed, little poem;

That UNDISTURBED fong of pure CONCENT,

The Book itself, after an invocation, thus begins;

Ere that our fire, (O too too proudly base !)
Turn'd tail to God, and to the fiend his face,

This mighty world did feem an inftrument

True-ftrung, well-tun'd, and handled excellent;
Whofe fymphony refounded, sweetly fhrill,
The Almighty's praife,

While man ferv'd God, the world ferv'd him;

the 'live

And lifelefs creatures feemed all to ftrive

In fweet accord; the bafe with high rejoic'd,
The hot with cold, the folid with the moist;
And innocent Aftræa did combine

All with the maftic of a LOVE DIVINE.

For th' hidden love that now a days doth hold
The fleel and loadftone, Hydrargire and gold,
Is but a spark and shadow of that love,
Which at the firft in every thing did move,
When the earth's Mufes with harmonious found
To Heaven's fweet mufick humbly did refound..
But Adam, being chief of all the ftrings
Of this large lute, o'er-reached, quickly brings
All out of tune; and now, for melody
Of warbling charms, it yells fo hideously,
That it affrights fell Enyon*, who turmoils
To raife again old Chaos' antique broils. p. 202.

I must request you here to make some allowance for the ftylus Enniani fæculi.

* The fame as Bellona, fifter to Mars, and Goddefs of Battle. Glossary to Sylvefter. See Milton's iv th. ELEGY, ver. 75.

I might

I might observe to you, that "Phantafy," ver. 5, "Noife" for Mufic, ver. 18, and " Diapafon," ver. 23, fimilarly used, are all to be found in Sylvester. At present I haften to the two delightful poems of L'ALLEGRO and IL PENSERoso; in each of which I fhall point

ROSO;

out an obligation, or two, to my wormeaten volume.

L'ALLEGRO.

10. dark Cimmerian defert,]

Mr. Warton, having obferved that "Cimmerian darknefs was a common al"lufion in the poetry then written and "ftudied," cites inftances from Shakefpeare, Fletcher, and Spenfer. It is also frequent in Sylvefter;

The