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He that has light within his own clear breast
May sit i' th' centre, and enjoy bright day:
But he that hides a dark soul and foul thoughts,
Benighted walks under the mid-day sun;

Himself is his own dungeon.

2. BROTHER.

'Tis most true,

385

That musing meditation most affects

The pensive secrecy of desert cell,

Far from the cheerful haunt of men and herds,

And sits as safe as in a senate-house;

For who would rob a hermit of his weeds,

390

His few books, or his beads, or maple dish,
Or do his gray hairs any violence?
But beauty, like the fair Hesperian tree

381. He that has light &c.] This whole speech is a remarkably fine encomium on the force of virtue : but there is something so vastly striking and astonishing in these last five lines, that it is impossible to pass them over without stopping to admire and enjoy them. I do not know any place in the whole circle of his poetical per formances, where dignity of sentiment and sublimity of expression are so happily united. Thyer.

384. Benighted walks &c.] Instead of these two lines the poet had written at first,

Walks in black vapours, though the noontide brand

Blaze in the summer solstice.

Afterwards he blotted them out, and made this alteration much for the better.

388. of men and herds,] It was at first, men or herds.

389. And sits as safe as in a senate house;] Not many years after this was written, Milton's friends shewed that the safety of a senate-house was not inviolable. But, when the people turn legislators, what place is safe from the tumults of innovation, and the insults of disobedience? T. Warton.

390. For who would rob &c.] These two lines at first stood thus in the Manuscript.

For who would rob a hermit of his beads,

His books, his hairy gown, or maple dish.

sentiments are heightened from 393. But beauty, &c.] These the Faithful Shepherdess, act i.

s. 1.

Laden with blooming gold, had need the guard
Of dragon-watch with uninchanted eye,
To save her blossoms, and defend her fruit
From the rash hand of bold incontinence.

You may as well spread out the unsunn'd heaps..
Of miser's treasure by an out-law's den,.
And tell me it is safe, as bid me hope
Danger will wink on opportunity,
And let a single helpless maiden pass
Uninjur'd in this wild surrounding waste.
Of night, or loneliness it recks me not;
I fear the dread events that dog them both,

395

400

405

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404.-it recks] I care not for, &c. So "what recks it them?" Lycid. v. 122. and Par. L.-ix. 178. "Let it, I reck not." And ii. 50." Of god, or hell, or worse, "he recked not." See Note on v. 836. infr. From reck comes retchlessness, or recklessness, in the

Thirty-nine Articles, where the common reading is, " into wretch"lessness of most unclean living." Artic. xvii. As if, yet with a manifest perversion of terms, a wretched profligacy was intended. The precise meaning is, a carelessness, a confident negligence, consisting of the most aban"doned course of life." Reck, with its derivatives, is the lan

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and at present it stands in the guage of Chaucer and Spenser.

Manuscript,

T. Warton.

Lest some ill-greeting touch attempt the person
Of our unowned Sister.

ELDER BROTHER.

I do not, Brother,

Infer, as if I thought my Sister's state
Secure without all doubt, or controversy:
Yet where an equal poise of hope and fear
Does arbitrate th' event, my nature is
That I incline to hope, rather than fear,
And gladly banish squint suspicion.
My Sister is not so defenceless left

As you imagine; she' has a hidden strength
Which you remember not.

2. BROTHER.

What hidden strength,

Unless the strength of heav'n, if you mean that?
ELDER BROTHER.

I mean that too, but yet a hidden strength,
Which if heav'n gave it, may be term'd her own:

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410

415

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'Tis chastity, my Brother, chastity:

She that has that, is clad in cómplete steel,

And like a quiver'd nymph with arrows keen

420. 'Tis chastity, my Brother,

chastity;

She that has that, is clad in

cómplete steel,

And like a quiver'd nymph with

arrows keen, &c.] Perhaps Milton remembered a stanza in Fletcher's Purple Island, published but the preceding year, b. x. st. 27. It is in a personification of Virgin

chastitie.

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420

Where through the sacred awe of

chastity,

No savage fierce, bandite, or mountaineer

Shall dare to soil her virgin purity.

421. The phrase "complete "steel" was, I rather think, a common expression for "armed in Dekker's Untrussing of the "from head to foot." It occurs Humorous Poet, which was acted by the Lord Chamberlain's servants, and the choir-boys of St. Paul's, in 1602. Hamlet appeared at least before 1598. Again, in The weakest goeth to the wall, of which the first edition was in 1600. Hence an expression in our author's Apology, which also confirms what is here said, s. 1. "Zeal, whose sub"stance is ethereal, arming in complete diamond, ascends his fiery chariot, &c." Pr. W. i. 114. T. Warton.

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422. And like a quiver'd nymph with arrows keen] I make no doubt but Milton in this passage had his eye upon Spenser's Belphoebe, whose character, arms, and manner of life perfectly correspond with this description. What makes it the more certain that personage to represent the is, that Spenser intended under virtue of chastity. Thus in the introduction to the third book of his Faery Queen, complimenting his virgin sovereign Queen Elizabeth, he says,

But either Gloriana let her choose,
Or in Belphæbe fashioned to be:
In th' one her rule, in th' other her
rare chastity.

F

Thyer.

May trace huge forests, and unharbour'd heaths,
Infamous hills, and sandy perilous wilds,
Where through the sacred rays of chastity,
No savage fierce, bandite, or mountaineer
Will dare to soil her virgin purity:

Yea there, where very desolation dwells

By grots, and caverns shagg'd with horrid shades,

428. May trace huge forests, &c.] Shakespeare's Oberon would breed his child-knight to "trace "the forests wild." Mids. N. Dream, act ii. s. 3. In Jonson's Masques, a fairy says, vol. v. 206.

Only we are free to trace
All his grounds, as he to chace.
T. Warton.

423. huge forests, and un-
harbour'd heaths,
Infamous hills, and sandy peril-
ous wilds, &c.]
Perhaps there is more merit in
Horace's particularizations, Od.

xxii. 5.

Sive per Syrtes iter æstuosas,
Sive facturus per inhospitalem
Caucasum, &c.

T. Warton.

424. Infamous hills,] Expressed from Horace, Od. i. iii. 20. Infames scopulos Acroceraunia.

425. Where through the sacred

rays of chastity, No savage fierce, bandite, or mountaineer,

425

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p. Will dare to soil her virgin purity.]

So Fletcher, Faith. Sheph. act i. s. 1. vol. iii. p. 109. A satyr kneels to a virgin-shepherdess in

a forest.

-Why should this rough thing, who never knew

1454.

This Cleon was a mountaineer,
And of the wilder kind.

T. Warton.

428. Yea there,] In the Manuscript it is, Yea ev'n where &c.

429. By grots, and caverns shagg'd with horrid shades,] This

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