And timely Night; the which were all endewed

With wondrous beauty fit to kindle love; But they were virgins all, and love efchewed That might forflack the charge to them forefhewed

By mighty Iove; who did them porters make Of heavens gate (whence all the gods iffued) Which they did dayly watch, and nightly

wake

By even turnes, ne ever did their charge forfake.

XLVI.

And after all came Life; and laftly Death: Death with most grim and griefly visage feene,

Yet is he nought but parting of the breath; Ne ought to fee, but like a fhade to weene, Unbodied, unfoul'd, unheard, unfeene:

gate:" So Homer, Iliad é, 749. Ovid introduces Janus in his Faft. Lib. i, faying that he and the Hours together were porters of Heaven: .

"Præfideo foribus cœli cum mitibus Horis."

Milton, likewife, who could not keep himself from mingling his mythological lore with his more divine fubject, affigns the Hours an Office in Heaven; and 'tis remarkable that he gives it an angel's fanction; for Raphael fpeaks, Par. L. B. vi. 3. till Morn,

"Wak'd by the circling Hours, with rofy hand
"Unbarr'd the gates of light." UPTON.

XLVI. 2. Death &c.] Mr. Thyer obferves that Milton borrowed his poetical defcription of Death from Spenfer. See Par. L. B. ii. 666, &c. CHURCH.

See the notes on Milton's unrivalled defcription, in the edition of his Poems in 1801. TODD,

But Life was like a faire young lufty boy, Such as they faine Dan Cupid to have beene, Full of delightfull health and lively ioy, Deckt all with flowres and wings of gold fit to employ.

XLVII.

When these were paft, thus gan the Titaneffe; "Lo! mighty Mother, now be iudge, and fay Whether in all thy creatures more or leffe CHANGE doth not raign and beare the greatest sway:

For who fees not that Time on all doth

pray

?

But times do change and move continually:

XLVI. 6. But Life was like a faire young lufty boy,

Such as they faine Dan Cupid to have beene,
Full of delightfull health, and lively ioy,

Deckt all with flowres and wings of gold fit to employ.]

Chaucer thus reprefents Cupid, Rom. R. v. 890.

"But of his robe to devise

"I dread encumbred for to be;

"For not yclad in filk was he

"But all in floures, and flourettes.”

But the ancients have left us no authority for fuch a representation of Cupid. Our author, ft. 34, above, gives him a green veft; which is equally unwarrantable: though Catullus has given him a yellow veft, Ad Manlium.

"Quam circumcurfans huc illic fæpe Cupido,

66

Fulgebat crocina candidus in tunica."

Where Scaliger remarks, from Julius Pollux, that Sappho attributes a purple veft to this deity; but, according to the general fenfe in which woppup is fometimes used, she may probably mean a rich mantle. T. WARTON.

XLVII. 6. But times do change] So all the editions. The reafoning would be clofer, and the allegory rightly kept up, if we read, as I incline to think our poet himself gave;

"But Time does change." CHURCH.

So nothing here long ftandeth in one Wherefore this lower world who can d But to be fubiect ftill to Mutabilitie ?" XLVIII.

Then thus

gan Iove; "Right true it is

these

And all things elfe that under heaven Are chaung'd of Time, who doth the diffeife

Of being: But who is it (to me tell)
That Time himfelfe doth move and
compell

To keepe his courfe? Is not that namely
Which poure that vertue from our hea

cell

That moves them all, and makes changed be?

So them We gods doe rule, and in then

Thee."

XLIX.

To whom thus Mutability; "The things, Which we fee not how they are mov'd

Ye

fwayd,

may

attribute to yourselves as kings

And fay, they by your fecret power are m

XLVIII. 3.

See the note on F. Q. i. xi. 20. TODD.

XLVIII. 6.

diffeife] Difp

namely] Particu

See the note, F. Q. yi. iii. 14. CHURCH.

But what we fee not, who fhall us per

fwade?

But were they so, as ye them faine to be,
Mov'd by your might, and ordered by your

ayde,

Yet what if I can prove, that even Yee Yourfelves are likewife chang'd, and fubiect unto Mee?

L.

"And firft, concerning her that is the first, Even you, faire Cynthia; whom so much

make

ye

Ioves deareft darling, she was bred and nurst On Cynthus hill, whence the her name did

take;

Then is the mortall borne, howfo ye crake: Besides, her face and countenance every day We changed fee and fundry forms partake,

L. 2. Even you, faire Cynthia ;] The edition of 1751 reads, "Even yon faire Cynthia ;" and Mr. Church thinks that the poet gave it yon. The paffage is indeed improved by yon. Mutability, we may suppose, points at the highest ftage where Cynthia is reprefented fitting, in the preceding Canto, ft. 8. A mistake at the prefs of you for yon is eafy. TODD. crake] Boaft.

L. 5.

So, in Grove's Epigr. and Sonets, 1587. Sig. I. vii. "With me ne wouldst thou striue,

66 ne yet deuifion make,

"But at home on thine own dunghill,

"where all cocks proudly crake."

And, in the old play of Damon and Pithias, bl. 1. Sign. Eiiij.

"Thefe barking whelpes were neuer good biters,

"Ne yet great crakers were euer great fighters." Tops.

Now hornd, now round, now bright brown and gray:

So that as changefull as the moone men fay.

LI.

"Next Mercury; who though he leffe ap To change his hew, and alwayes feeme a Yet he his course doth alter every yea And is of late far out of order gone: So Venus eeke, that goodly paragone, Though faire all night, yet is fhe dar day:

L. 8. Now hornd, now round, now bright, now brown and He feems to have in view Pythagoras's fpeech in Ovic 196.

XV.

"Nec par aut eadem nocturnæ forma Dianæ." U LI. 1. Next Mercury, &c.] Our old poets take all tunities of difplaying their skill in aftronomy. It w favourite study of the dark ages, which have left us a ver number of manufcript fyftems, in various branches fcience. In the ftatutes of a certain college, at Cam founded in the reign of Henry VI. fome of the fello directed," intendere ftudio aftronomia." In the magn reign of Henry VII. it was not deemed ftrange to exh entertainment before the court, formed on this abftrufe fo in honour of the marriage of prince Arthur, and the p Katharine. "In all the devifes and conceits of the tri of this marriage, there was a great deal of aftronomie. ladies being refembled to Hefperus, and the prince to Ard and the old king Alphonfus, that was the greatest aftro of kings, and was ancestor to the ladie, was brought in, the fortune-teller of the match. And whofoever had toyes in compiling, they were not altogether pedan Bacon's Hiftorie of Henry VII. fol. 1622. pag. 205. Ca fays, that queen Elizabeth" expreffed fuch an inclinatio wardes the earl of Leicefter, that fome have imputed regard to the influence of the stars." A fine ftroke of fla founded on fuperftition and falfe philofophy! T. WART