Thy drousy nurse hath sworn she did them spie Come tripping to the room where thou didst lie, only a local habitation and a name, but a visible figure. It is extraordinary, that the pedantry of king James the firft was not gratified with the fyftem of logic reprefented in a mask, at fome of his academic receptions. The Predicaments alone would have furnished a confiderable band of Dramatis Perfonæ. The long and hoary beard of father Ens might have been made to exceed any thing that ever appeared on the stage. James was once entertained at Oxford, in 1618, with a play called the Marriage of the Arts. Ibid. For at thy birth The faery ladies danc'd upon the hearth.] This is the firft and last time that the fyftem of the Fairies was ever introduced to illuftrate the doctrine of Ariftotle's ten categories. It may be remarked, that they both were in fashion, and both exploded, at the fame time. 60. Danc'd upon the bearth.] I fear too much has been faid of domeftic fairies in L'ALLEGRO, v. 103. Yet I cannot miss an opportunity of adding a few words on the fubject, which may tend to illuftrate Shakespeare through Milton. It is not yet fatisfactorily decided, what Shakespeare means by calling Mab the Fairies' Midwife. ROM. JUL. A. i. S. iv. Doctor Warburton would read the FANCY'S Midwife: for, he argues, it cannot be understood that the performed the office of midwife to the fairies. Mr. Steevens, much more plaufibly, fuppofes her to be here called the Faeries' Midwife, because it was her "department to deliver the fancies of fleeping men of their "dreams." But I apprehend, and with no violence of interpretation, that the poet means The Midwife among the Fairies, because it was her peculiar employment to fteal the new-born babe in the night, and to leave another in its place. The poet here ufes her general appellation and character, which yet has fo far a proper reference to the prefent train of fiction, as that her illufions were practiced on perfons in bed or afleep for she not only haunted women in childbed, but was likewife the incubus or night-mare. Shakespeare, by employing her here, alludes at large to her midnight pranks performed on fleepers: but denominates her from that most notorious one, of her perfonating the drowfy midwife who was infenfibly carried away into fome diftant water, and fubftituting a new birth in the bed or cradle. It would clear the appellation to read, under the fenfe affigned, The FAIRIE MIDWIFE. The poet avails himself of Mab's appropriate province in giving her this new nocturnal agency. 62. Come tripping to the room, &c.] So barren, unpoetical, and abftracted a fubject, could not have been adorned with finer touches of fancy. See alfo, v. 69. A Sibyl old, &c. And And sweetly finging round about thy bed Strow all their bleffings on thy fleeping head. She heard them give thee this, that thou shouldst ftill From eyes of mortals walk invifible: Yet there is something that doth force my fear, A Sibyl old, bow-bent with crooked age, 65 70 75 O'er all his brethren he shall reign as king, And in this illustration there is great elegance, v. 83. To find a foe it fhall not be his hap, And peace fhall lull him in her flow'ry lap; The addrefs of Ens is a very ingenious enigma on SUBSTANCE: Yet Yet on his brothers fhall depend for clothing. Devouring war shall never cease to roar : To harbour those that are at enmity. 85 What pow'r, what force, what mighty spell, if not Your learned hands, can loose this Gordian knot? The next Quantity and Quality fpake in profe, then Relation was called by his name. R IVERS arife; whether thou be the fon Of utmost Tweed, or Oofe, or gulphy Dun, 84. And peace ball lull bim in her flow'ry lap.] So in Harrington's ARIOSTO, C. xlv. 1. Who long wer LUL'D on high in Fortune's LAP. And in William Smith's CHLORIS, 1596. Whom Fortune never dandled in her LAP. And in Spenfer's Teares of the Mufes, TERPSICH. ft. i. Been long time LUL'D. 91. Rivers arife, &c.] Milton is fuppofed in the invocation and affemblage of thefe rivers, to have had an eye on Spenfer's Epifode of the Nuptials of Thames and Medway, F. Q. iv. xi. I rather think he confulted Drayton's POLYOLBION. It is hard to fay, in what fense, or in what manner, this introduction of the rivers was to be applied to the fubject, Or 95 Or Trent, who like fome earth-born giant spreads 93. Or Trent, who like fome earth-born giant Spreads His thirty arms along th' indented meads.] It is faid that there were thirty forts of fish in this river, and thirty religious houfes on its banks. See Drayton, POLYOLB. S. xii. vol. iii. p. 906. Drayton adds, that it was foretold by a wisard, And thirty feveral ftreames, from many a fundry way, These traditions, on which Milton has raised a noble image, are a rebus on the name TRENT. 95. Or jullen Mole that runneth underneath.] At Micklesham near Darking in Surrey, the river Mole during the fummer, except in heavy rains, finks through its fandy bed into a fubterraneous and invifible channel. In winter it conftantly keeps its current. This river is brought into one of our author's religious difputes, "To "make the word Gift, like the river MOLE in Surrey, to run under "the bottom of a long line, and fo to ftart up and to govern the word presbytery, &c." ANIMADV. REM. DEF. &c. PROSE-WORKS, vol. i. 92. 96. Or Severn fwift, guilty of maiden's death.] The maiden is Sabrina. See Comus, v. 827. 98. Antient hallow'd Dee.] See Note on LYCIDAS, V. 55. 99. Or Humber loud that keeps the Scythian's name.] Humber, a Scythian king, landed in Britain three hundred years before the Roman invafion, and was drowned in this river by Locrine, after conquering king Albanact. See Drayton, POLYOL B. S.viii. vol. ii. p.796. Drayton has made a most beautiful ufe of this tradition in his Elegy, "Upon three fons of the Lord Sheffield drowned in Humber." ELEGIES, vol. iv. p. 1244. O cruell Humber, guiltie of their gore! Or Humber loud that keeps the Scythian's name, Or Medway smooth, or royal towred Thame. 100 [The reft was profe. ] An EPITAPH on the admirable dramaticke Poet W. SHAKESPEARE *. WH HAT needs my Shakespeare for his honour'd bones The labour of an age in piled ftones, With bloud wert chriften'd, bloud-thirsty, till now The Oufe and Done. 100. Or Medway smooth, or royal towred Thame.] The fmoothness of the Medway is characterised in Spenfer's MoURNING MUSE OF THESTYLIS. The Medwaies filuer ftreames, That wont fo STILL TO GLIDE, The royal towers of Thames imply Windfor caftle, familiar to Milton's view, and to which I have already remarked his allufions. Birch, and from him doctor Newton, affert, that this copy of verses was written in the twenty fecond year of Milton's age, and printed with the Poems of Shakespeare at London in 1640. It first appeared among other recommendatory verfes, prefixed to the folio edition of Shakespeare's plays in 1632. But without Milton's name or initials. This therefore is the first of Milton's pieces that was published. It was with great difficulty and reluctance, that Milton firft appeared as an author. He could not be prevailed upon to put his name to CoмUS, his firft performance of any length that was printed, notwithstanding the fingular approbation with which it had been previously received in a long and extenfive courfe of private circulation. LYCIDAS in the Cambridge collection is only fubfcribed with his initials. Most of the other contributors have left their names at full length. We have here restored the title from the second folio of Shakespeare. · My Shakespear.—] Of all the many encomiums paffed on our great dramatic poet, the most truly poetical one, feems to be con 1. Sf tained |