Alas, how foon our fin

Sore doth begin

His infancy to feife!

O more exceeding love, or law more just ?
Juft law indeed, but more exceeding love!
For we by rightful doom remedilefs

Were loft in death, till he that dwelt above
High thron'd in fecret blifs, for us frail duft
Emptied his glory, ev'n to nakedness ;

;

And that great covenant which we ftill tranfgrefs Entirely fatisfied,

And the full wrath befide

Of vengeful justice bore for our excess,

Again, B. ii. 516.

Towards the four winds five fpeedy cherubims

Put to their mouths the founding alchemy

By HERALDS Voice proclaim'd.

Or HERALDRY may mean retinue, train, the proceffion itself. What he otherwise calls pomp. PARAD. L. B. viii. 564.

While the bright pomp afcended jubilant.

Again, B. v. 353

More folemn than the tedious POMP which waits

On princes, &c.

-

So again, Eve goes forth, B. viii. 60.

Not unattended, for on her as queen

A POMP of winning graces waited ftill.

Her train of regal attendants were winning graces. It is the fame, and it is the true, fenfe of POMP, in L'ALLEGR. V. 127.

With POMP, and feaft, and revelry.

But I believe Jonfon, affecting claffical phrafeology, made the word technical in Masques.

And

And feals obedience firft with wounding smart

This day, but O ere long

Huge pangs and strong

Will pierce more near his heart *.

On the DEATH of a FAIR INFANT, dying of a Cough.

I.

Fairest flow'r no fooner blown but blafted,
Soft filken primrose fading timelefly,

26

Summer's chief honour, if thou hadft out-laftedBleak Winter's force that made thy blossom dry; For he being amorous on that lovely dye

5

That did thy cheek envermeil, thought to kifs, But kill'd, alas, and then bewail'd his fatal bliss.

II.

For fince grim Aquilo his charioteer

By boiftrous rape th' Athenian damfel got,
He thought it touch'd his deity full near,

likewise he fome fair one wedded not,

ΙΟ

*It is hard to fay, why these three odes on the three grand incidents or events of the life or hiftory of Chrift, were not at first printed together. I believe they were all written about the year 1629.

5. For he being amorous on that lovely dye, &c.] In ROMEO AND JULIET, Affliction, and Death, turn paramours.

V. 8. Boreas ravished Orithyia, Ovid. METAM. vi, 677.

Thereby

Thereby to wipe away th' infamous blot

Of long-uncoupled bed, and childless eld, Which 'mongst the wanton Gods a foul reproach was held.

III.

So mounting up in icy-pearled car,

15

Through middle empire of the freezing air
He wander'd long, till thee he spy'd from far
There ended was his queft, there ceas'd his care.
Down he defcended from his fnow-foft chair,

But all unwares with his cold-kind embrace 20 Unhous'd thy virgin foul from her fair biding place,

IV.

Yet art thou not inglorious in thy fate;
For fo Apollo, with unweeting hand,
Whilome did flay his dearly-loved mate,

15. So mounting up in icy-pearled car.] We fhould rather read ice. ypearled. And fo in the Mask, rub-yfringed for ruby fringed, v. 890. Otherwife, we have two epithets inftead of one, with a weaker sense. Milton himself affords an inftance in the Ode on the NATIVITY, V. 155.

Yet first to thofe YCHAIN'D in fleep.

Of the prefixure of the augment y, in a concatenated epithet, there is an example in the Epitaph on Shakespeare, v. 4.

Under a STAR-YPOINTING pyramid.

23. For fo Apollo, with unweeting band, Whilome did flay bis dearly-loved mate,

Young Hyacinth.] From thefe lines one would fufpect, although it does not immediately follow, that a boy was the fubject of the Ode. The child is only called a fair infant in the edition 1673,

where

Young Hyacinth born on Eurotas' strand,

Young Hyacinth the pride of Spartan land;

25

But then transform'd him to a purple flower : Alack that so to change thee Winter had no power.

V.

Yet can I not perfuade me thou art dead,

Or that thy corfe corrupts in earth's dark womb,
Or that thy beauties lie in wormy bed,

;

Hid from the world in a low-delved tomb
Could Heav'n for pity thee so strictly doom?

31

Oh no! for fomething in thy face did shine + Above mortality, that show'd thou was divine. 35

VI.

Refolve me then, oh Soul moft surely bleft,
(If fo it be that thou these plaints dost hear)

where this piece firft appeared, although it was written in 1625. So alfo in Tonfon, 1705. Tickell's title is, A fair Infant, a NEPHEW of bis, &c. This is adopted by Fenton. But in the last stanza the poet fays expressly;

But thou, the mother of fo fweet a child,

HER falfe imagin'd lofs cease to lament.

Yet in the eighth ftanza, the perfon lamented is alternately fuppofed to have been fent down to earth in the shape of two divinities, one of whom is ftyled a juft maid, and the other a fweet-fmiling youth. But the child was certainly a niece, a daughter of Milton's fifter Philips. 31. Or that thy beauties lie in wormy bed.] This fine periphrafis for grave, is from Shakespeare, MIDS. N. DR. A. iii. S. ult.

Already to their WORMY BEDS are gone.

Tell

Tell me bright Spirit, where'er thou hovereft,
Whether above that high first-moving sphere,
Or in th' Elyfian fields (if such there were)

40

Oh say me true, if thou wert mortal wight, And why from us fo quickly thou didst take thy flight.

VII.

Wert thou fome star which from the ruin'd roof
Of shak'd Olympus by mifchance didst fall;
Which careful Jove in nature's true behoof
Took up, and in fit place did reinstall?
Or did of late earth's fons befiege the wall

45

Of sheeny Heav'n, and thou fome Goddess fled Amongst us here below to hide thy nectar'd head?

VIII.

Or wert thou that just Maid who once before

50

Forfook the hated earth, O tell me footh,

And cam'ft again to vifit us once more?

38. Tell me bright Spirit, where'er thou hovereft,

Whether above that bigh first-moving jphere, &c.] Thefe hypothetical questions are like thofe in LYCIDAS, Whether beyond, &c." v. 156. Originally from Virgil, GEORG. i. 32. "Anne novum tardis "fydus, &c."

47. Befiege the wall

Of heeny beaven.-] In Spenfer's MOTHER HUBBERD'S TALE.
And beautifie the SHEENIE firmament.

SHEEN, as I fhould have before remarked, occurs in HAMLET, A.iii.

S. ii.

And thirty dozen moons with borrowed SHEEN, &c.

Or