How could'st thou find this dark sequester'd nook? 500 SPIRIT. 0 my lov'd master's heir, and his next joy, I came not here on such a trivial toy As a stray'd ewe, or to pursue the stealth Of pilfering wolf; not all the fleecy wealth That doth enrich these downs, is worth a thought 505 To tell thee sadly, Shepherd, without blame, SPIRIT. Aye me unhappy! then my fears are true. ELDER BROTHER. What fears, good Thyrsis? Prythee briefly shew. SPIRIT. I'll tell ye; 'tis not vain or fabulous (Though so esteem'd by shallow ignorance) 510 What the sage poets, taught by th' heav'nly Muse, 515 500.-sequester'd nook?] Com- herd,] Sadly, soberly, seriously, pare P. L. iv. 789. Search thro' this garden, leave unsearch'd no nook. Again, ix. 277. As in a shady nook I stood behind. And sequestered occurs in the same application, P. L. iv. 706. In shadier bower, more sacred and sequester'd. T. Warton. as the word is frequently used by our old authors, and in Paradise Lost, vi. 541. where see the note. 512. What fears, good Thyrsis ?] He had written at first good Shep herd, but this was altered to good Thyrsis for variety, as he had just before addressed him by the name of Shepherd. 513. I'll tell ye;] In the Manuscript and edition of 1637 it is, 509. To tell thee sadly, Shep- I'll tell you. Storied of old in high immortal verse, Of dire chimeras and inchanted isles, And rifted rocks whose entrance leads to hell; Within the navel of this hideous wood, By sly enticement gives his baneful cup, With many murmurs mix'd, whose pleasing poison Fixes instead, unmoulding reason's mintage 516.-dire chimeras] P. L. ii. 628. T. Warton. 520. Within the navel] That is, in the midst, a phrase borrowed from the Greeks and Latins. 523. Deep skill'd] He had writ ten at first Inur'd. 526. With many murmurs mix'd,] That is, in preparing this inchanted cup, the charm of many barbarous unintelligible words was intermixed, to quicken and strengthen its operation. Warburton. 530. Character'd in the face;] The word is often pronounced with this accent by our old writers. So Spenser, Faery Queen, b. iii. cant. 3. st. 14. 520 525 530 And writing strange charácters in the ground. So Shakespeare, Two Gentlemen of Verona, act ii. s. 10. Who art the table wherein all my thoughts Are visibly charácter'd and ingrav'd. And 2 Henry VI. act iii. s. 4. Show me one scar charácter'd on thy skin. 530. So in his Divorce, b. i. Pref. "A law not only written "by Moses, but charactered in "us by nature.” Pr. W. i. 167. See Observat. Spenser's F. Q. ii. 162. T. Warton. 531.-i' th' hilly crofts,] He had written at first i' th' pastur'd lawns, which agrees not so well with what follows. That brow this bottom glade, whence night by night Like stabled wolves, or tigers at their prey, In their obscured haunts of inmost bowers. 534. Like stabled wolves, or tigers at their prey,] This compari son in all probability was formed from what Virgil says of Circe's island, Æn. vii. 15. 535 540 542. Of knot-grass_dew-besprent,] This species of grass is mentioned in Shakespeare's Midsummer Night's Dream, act iii. s. 7. And dew-besprent is sprinkled Hinc exaudiri gemitus, iræque leo- with dew. Spenser's Shepherd's num -ac formæ magnorum ululare lupo rum: Quos hominum ex facie Dea sæva potentibus herbis Induerat Circe in vultus ac terga fe rarum. 540. by then the chewing The Calendar, December, My head besprent with hoary frost I find. Fairfax, cant. 12. st. 101. His silver locks with dust he foul besprent. 544. With ivy canopied, and interwove With flaunting honey-suckle,] Perhaps from Shakespeare, Mids. N. Dr. act ii. s. 2. Quite over canopied with luscious woodbine. With flaunting honey-suckle, and began, Wrapt in a pleasing fit of melancholy, 545 Till fancy had her fill, but ere a close Canopied, in the same applica- 545. With flaunting honeysuckle,] It was at first spreading or blowing. 545. Milton therefore changed the epithets, which were simply descriptive, for one which ascribed to the plant an attribute of an animated, or even of a sentient, being. See note on P. R. i. 500. Mr. Warton refers to Lycidas 146, "well-attir'd woodbine," and 40, "the gadding vine." And the same remark applies to these epithets, and to several others near them, cowslips wan," "joyous leaves," &c. E. 547. To meditate my rural minstrelsy,] We have the expression "rural minstrelsy" in Browne's Pastorals, b. i. s. i. p. 2. and in the Eclogues of Brooke and Davies, Lond. 1614; but the whole context is Virgil's "Syl "vestrem tenui musam meditaris 66 arena," Bucol. i. 2. As in Lycidas, 66. meditate the thankless musc. Close, in the next line, is a mu 550 sical close on his pipe. See the note on the Ode on the Nativity, 100. T. Warton. 553.-the drowsy flighted steeds, That draw the litter of close curtain'd sleep;] So I read drowsy-flighted according to Milton's Manuscript; and this genuine reading Dr. Dalton has also preserved in Comus. Drowsy-frighted is nonsense, and manifestly an error of the press in all the editions. There can be no doubt that in this passage Milton had his eye upon the following description of night in Shakespeare, 2 Henry VI. act iv. s. 1. And now loud howling wolves arouse That drag the tragic melancholy night, The idea and the expression of Night, do not steal away: I woo That draw the litter of close-curtain'd sleep; At last a soft and solemn breathing sound And as Mr. Thyer farther observes, the epithet also of closecurtain'd sleep was perhaps borrowed from Shakespeare, Macbeth, act ii. s. 2. -and wicked dreams abuse The curtain'd sleep. 553. But he makes the horses of Night headlong in their course, In Quint. Novembr. v. 70. Præcipitesque impellit equos. It must be allowed, that drowsyflighted is a very harsh combination. Notwithstanding the Cambridge manuscript exhibits drousie-flighted, yet drousie frighted without a composition, is a more rational and easy reading, and invariably occurs in the editions 1637, 1645, and 1673. That is, "The drowsy steeds of "Night, who were affrighted on "this occasion, at the barbarous "dissonance of Comus's nocturnal revelry." Milton made the emendation after he had forgot his first idea. Compare Browne, Brit. Past. b. ii. s. i. p. 21. 555 555. The idea is strongly implied in these lines of Jonson's Vision of Delight, a Masque presented at Court in the Christmas of 1617, vol. vi. 21. Yet let it like an odour rise To all the senses here; But the thought appeared before, where it is exquisitely expressed, in Bacon's Essays. "And because "the breath of flowers is farre "sweeter in the aire, where it "comes and goes like the warbling “of musicke.” Of Gardens, Ess. xlvi. Milton means the gradual increase and diffusion of odour in the process of distilling perfumes; for he had at first written "slow-distill'd." In the edition of 1673, we G |