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spelling to cypress has, here and in Milton's Penseroso, probably confused readers.

ramage: confused noise.

lxvi 'I never saw anything like this funeral dirge,' says Charles Lamb, 'except the ditty which reminds Ferdinand of his drowned father in the Tempest. As that is of the water, watery; so this is of the earth, earthy. Both have that intenseness of feeling, which seems to resolve itself into the element which it contemplates.' lxx Paraphrased from an Italian madrigal

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lxxiv

Non so conoscer poi

Se voi le rose, o sian le rose in voi.

crystal: fairness.

stare: starling.

This Spousal Verse' was written in honour of the Ladies Elizabeth and Katherine Somerset. Nowhere has Spenser more emphatically displayed himself as the very poet of Beauty: The Renaissance impulse in England is here seen at its highest and purest.

The genius of Spenser, like Chaucer's, does itself justice only in poems of some length. Hence it is impossible to represent it in this volume by other pieces of equal merit, but of impracticable dimensions. And the same applies to such poems as the Lover's Lament or the Ancient Mariner.

entrailed: twisted. Feateously: elegantly.

shend: shame.

a noble peer: Robert Devereux, second Lord Essex, then at the height of his brief triumph after taking Cadiz: hence the allusion following to the Pillars of Hercules, placed near Gades by ancient legend.

Elisa: Elizabeth.

twins of Jove: the stars Castor and Pollux: baldric, belt; the zodiac.

lxxix This lyric may with very high probability be assigned to Campion, in whose first Book of Airs it appeared (1601). The evidence sometimes quoted ascribing it to Lord Bacon appears to be valueless.

Summary of Book Second.

THIS division, embracing generally the latter eighty years of the Seventeenth century, contains the close of our Early poetical style and the commencement of the Modern. In Dryden we see the first master of the new: in Milton, whose genius dominates here as Shakespeare's in the former book,-the crown and consummation of the early period. Their splendid Odes are far in advance of any prior attempts, Spenser's excepted: they

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le to the modem bronak with it at first a loss of nature and bes the bolder and wider woope which Poetry Sook "ATTEET 1620 and 1700, and the sumes f ther trade to gain greater clearness in expression, in their results have veel no aught compensation

PICE YO

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L 32 than: obsolete for then: Pan: used here for the
Lord of al..

1. 38 consort: Milton's spelling of this word. here and
msewhere, has been followed, as it is uncertain whether
he need it in the sense of accompanying, or simply for
concert.

1. 21 Lars and Lemures: household gods and spirits of relations dead. Flamens 1. 24 Roman priests. That twice-batter'd god 1. 29, Dagon.

1. 6 Osiris, the Egyptian god of Agriculture here, perhaps by confusion with Apis, figured as a Bull, was torn to pieces by Typho and embalmed after death in a sacred chest. This mythe, reproduced in Syria and Greece in the legends of Thammuz, Adonis, and perhaps Absyrtus, may have originally signified the annual death of the Sun or the Year under the influences of the winter darkness. Horus, the son of Osiris, as the New Year, in his turn overcomes Typho. L. 8 unshower'd grass: as watered by the Nile only. L. 33 youngest-teemed: last-born. Bright-harness'd (1. 37) armoured. 1xxxvii The Late Massacre: the Vaudois persecution, carried on in 1655 by the Duke of Savoy. No more mighty Sonnet than this 'collect in verse,' as it has been justly named, probably can be found in any language. Readers should observe that it is constructed on the original Italian or Provençal model. This form, in a language such as ours, not affluent in rhyme, presents great difficulties; the rhymes are apt to be forced, or the substance commonplace. But, when success

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fully handled, it has a unity and a beauty of effect which place the strict Sonnet above the less compact and less lyrical systems adopted by Shakespeare, Sidney, Spenser, and other Elizabethan poets.

115 lxxxviii Cromwell returned from Ireland in 1650, and Marvell probably wrote his lines soon after, whilst living at Nunappleton in the Fairfax household. It is hence not surprising that (st. 21-24) he should have been deceived by Cromwell's professed submissiveness to the Parliament which, when it declined to register his decrees, he expelled by armed violence:-one despotism, by natural law, replacing another. The poet's insight has, however, truly prophesied that result in his last two lines.

This Ode, beyond doubt one of the finest in our language, and more in Milton's style than has been reached by any other poet, is occasionally obscure from imitation of the condensed Latin syntax. The meaning of st. 5 is rivalry or hostility are the same to a lofty spirit, and limitation more hateful than opposition.' The allusion in st. 11 is to the old physical doctrines of the non-existence of a vacuum and the impenetrability of matter:-in st. 17 to the omen traditionally connected with the foundation of the Capitol at Rome: -forced, fated. The ancient belief that certain years in life complete natural periods and are hence peculiarly exposed to death, is introduced in st. 26 by the word climacteric.

118 lxxxix Lycidas: The person here lamented is Milton's college contemporary, Edward King, drowned in 1637 whilst crossing from Chester to Ireland.

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Strict Pastoral Poetry was first written or perfected
by the Dorian Greeks settled in Sicily: but the con-
ventional use of it, exhibited more magnificently in
Lycidas than in any other pastoral, is apparently of
Roman origin. Milton, employing the noble freedom
of a great artist, has here united ancient mythology,
with what may be called the modern mythology of
Camus and Saint Peter, to direct Christian images.
Yet the poem, if it gains in historical interest, suffers
in poetry by the harsh intrusion of the writer's narrow
and violent theological politics.-The metrical structure
of this glorious elegy is partly derived from Italian
models.

1. 11 Sisters of the sacred well: the Muses, said to fre-
quent the Pierian Spring at the foot of Mount Olympus.
1. 10 Mona: Anglesea, called by the Welsh
Dark Island, from its dense forests.
Deva poets, the
11) the
Dee: a river which may have derived its magical char-
acter from Celtic traditions: it was long the boundary
of Briton and English.-These places are introduced,
as being near the scene of the shipwreck. Orpheus (1.
14) was torn to pieces by Thracian women. Amaryllis

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and Negera 4. 24, 25, names used here for the loveidols of poets: as Damoetas previously for a shepherd. L. 31 the blind Fury: Atropos, fabled to cut the thread of life. Ixxxix Arethuse (1. 1) and Mincius: Sicilian and Italian waters here alluded to as representing the pastoral poetry of Theocritus and Vergil. L. 4 oat: pipe, used like Collins' oaten stop 1. 1, No. 186, for Song. L. 12 Hippotades: Aeolus, god of the Winds. Panope (1. 15) a Nereid. Certain names of local deities in the Hellenic mythology render some feature in the natural landscape, which the Greeks studied and analysed with their usual unequalled insight and feeling. Panope seems to express the boundlessness of the ocean-horizon when seen from a height, as compared with the limited sky-line of the land in hilly countries such as Greece or Asia Minor. Camus (1. 19) the Cam: put for King's University. The sanguine flower (1. 22) the Hyacinth of the ancients: probably our Iris. The Pilot (1. 25) Saint Peter, figuratively introduced as the head of the Church on earth, to foretell the ruin of our corrupted clergy,' as Milton regarded them, 'then in their heighth' under Laud's primacy.

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1. 1 scrannel: screeching; apparently Milton's coinage (Masson). L. 5 the wolf: the Puritans of the time were excited to alarm and persecution by a few conversions to Roman Catholicism which had recently occurred. Alpheus (1.9) a stream in Southern Greece, supposed to flow underseas to join the Arethuse. Swart star (1. 15) the Dog-star, called swarthy because its heliacal rising in ancient times occurred soon after midsummer: 1. 19 rathe: early. L. 36 moist vows: either tearful prayers, or prayers for one at sea. Bellerus (1. 37) a giant, apparently created here by Milton to personify Belerium, the ancient title of the Land's End. great Vision:-the story was that the Archangel Michael had appeared on the rock by Marazion in Mount's Bay which bears his name. Milton calls on him to turn his eyes from the south homeward, and to pity Lycidas, if his body has drifted into the troubled waters off the Land's End. Finisterre being the land due south of Marazion, two places in that district (then through our trade with Corunna probably less unfamiliar to EngHish ears), are named, Namancos now Mujio in Galicia, Bayona north of the Minho, or perhaps a fortified rock (one of the Cies Islands) not unlike Saint Michael's Mount, at the entrance of Vigo Bay.

193 lxxxix 1. 6 ore: rays of golden light. Doric lay (1. 25) Sicilian, pastoral.

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xelli The assault was an attack on London expected in 1642, when the troops of Charles I reached Brentford. Written on his door' was in the original title of this Nonnet. Milton was then living in Aldersgate Street.

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The Emathian Conqueror: When Thebes was destroyed (B.C. 335) and the citizens massacred by thousands, Alexander ordered the house of Pindar to be spared. 1. 2, the repeated air Of sad Electra's poet: Plutarch has a tale that when the Spartan confederacy in 404 B.C. took Athens, a proposal to demolish it was rejected through the effect produced on the commanders by hearing part of a chorus from the Electra of Euripides sung at a feast. There is however no apparent congruity between the lines quoted (167, 168 Ed. Dindorf) and the result ascribed to them.

XCV A fine example of a peculiar class of Poetry; that written by thoughtful men who practised this Art but little. Jeremy Taylor, Bishop Berkeley, Dr. Johnson, Lord Macaulay, have left similar specimens.

xcviii

These beautiful verses should be compared with Wordsworth's great Ode on Immortality: and a copy of Vaughan's very rare little volume appears in the list of Wordsworth's library.-In imaginative intensity, Vaughan stands beside his contemporary Marvell.

xcix Favonius: the spring wind.

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Themis: the goddess of justice. Skinner was grandson by his mother to Sir E. Coke:-hence, as pointed out by Mr. Keightley, Milton's allusion to the bench. L. 8: Sweden was then at war with Poland, and France with the Spanish Netherlands.

ciii 1. 28 Sidneian showers: either in allusion to the conversations in the 'Arcadia,' or to Sidney himself as a model of gentleness' in spirit and demeanour.

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Delicate humour, delightfully united to thought, at once simple and subtle. It is full of conceit and paradox, but these are imaginative, not as with most of our Seventeenth Century poets, intellectual only.

Elizabeth of Bohemia: Daughter to James I, and ancestor of Sophia of Hanover. These lines are a fine specimen of gallant and courtly compliment.

cxi Lady M. Ley was daughter to Sir J. Ley, afterwards Earl of Marlborough, who died March, 1629, coincidently with the dissolution of the third Parliament of Charles' reign. Hence Milton poetically compares his death to that of the Orator Isocrates of Athens, after Philip's victory in 328 B.C.

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A masterpiece of humour, grace, and gentle feeling, all, with Herrick's unfailing art, kept precisely within the peculiar key which he chose, or Nature for him, -in his Pastorals. L. 2 the god unshorn: Imberbis Apollo. St. 2 beads: prayers.

cxxiii With better taste, and less diffuseness, Quarles might (one would think) have retained more of that

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