462 REMARKS ON L'ALLEGRO AND IL PENSEROSO.

I admit, that the choice of the imagery of these pieces could only have been made by a true poet, of nice discernment and brilliant fancy; of a mind constantly occupied by contemplation, and skilful in making use of all those superstitions in which the visionary delight; and that the whole are woven into one web of congenial associations, which make a beautiful and splendid constellation; still a large portion of the ingredients, taken separately, have been anticipated by other poets.

These remarks will probably draw forth the question, "Whence, then, has arisen the superior popularity of these two compositions?" I may now be forgiven for asserting, that popularity is a doubtful test of merit. One reason may be, that they are more easily understood; that they are less laboured and less deep; that they do not try and fatigue, either the heart or the intellect. The mass of the people like slight amusement, and subjects of easy apprehension; the greater part of Milton's poetry is too solemn and thought-working for their taste or their power.

In the sublime bard's latter poems,-in his epics and his drama, and even in his early monody of "Lycidas,"-his rural images, though not more picturesque, nor perhaps, except in "Lycidas," quite so fresh, yet derive a double force from their position-from the circumstances of the persons on whom they are represented as acting; as, for instance, on Adam, Eve, Satan, our Saviour, Samson, and on the mourners for the death of Lycidas.

When the description of scenery forms part of a fable, and is connected with the development of a story, the mind of the reader is already worked up into a state of sensitiveness and sympathy, which confers upon surrounding objects hues of augmented impression.

When Milton recalls to his mind those images with which he had been familiar in the society of his friend Lycidas, they awaken, from the accident of his death, affections and regrets which they never had done before. When Eve is about to be expelled from Paradise, how she grieves over her lost flowers and garden-delights! How the "air of heaven, fresh-blowing," invigorates and charms Samson, when brought out from a close prison! How affecting is the scene in the wilderness, when, after a night of tremendous tempest, our Saviour is cheered by a balmy morning of extreme brilliance!

These are what make fable necessary to constitute the highest poetry. I do not recollect that this has been sufficiently insisted upon by former critics. The want of it is assuredly experienced in Thomson's beautifully SIR EGERTON BRYDGES. descriptive poem of "The Seasons."

L'ALLEGRO.

(THE CHEERFUL man.)

HENCE, loathed Melancholy,

Of Cerberus and blackest Midnight born,

In Stygian cave forlorn,)

"'Mongst horrid shapes, and shrieks, and sights unholy! Find out some uncouth cell,

Where brooding darkness spreads his jealous wings,
And the night-raven sings:

There, under ebon shades, and low-brow'd rocks,"

As ragged as thy locks,

In dark Cimmerian desert ever dwell,

But come, thou goddess fair and free,
In Heaven yclep'd Euphrosyne,

And by men, heart-easing Mirth;
Whom lovely Venus at a birth,

With two sister Graces more,

To ivy-crowned Bacchus bore:
Or whether, as some sager) sing,

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The frolick wind, that breathes the spring,

Zephyr, with Aurora playing,

As he met her once a-Maying;

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There on beds of violets blue,

And fresh-blown roses wash'd in dew,

So buxom, blithe, and debonair..

Fill'd her with thee a daughter fair,

Haste thee, nymph, and bring with thee

Jest, and youthful jollity,

Quips, and cranks, and wanton wiles,
Nods, and becks, and wreathed smiles,
Such as hang on Hebe's cheek,
And love to live in dimple sleek ;

2. Of Cerberus. Erebus, not Cerberus, was the legitimate husband of Night. Milton was too universal a scholar, to be unacquainted with this mythology; but as Melancholy is here the creature of Milton's imagination, he had a right to give her what parentage he pleased, and to marry Night, the natural mother of Melancholy, to any ideal husband that would best serve to heighten the allegory.-T. WARTON.

4. Unholy: Abominable, execrable.
6. Jealous: Alluding to the watch which

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fowl keep when they are sitting.-WABBURTON.

15. Two sister graces: Meat and Drink, the two sisters of Mirth. Some sager sing, because those who give to Mirth such gross companions as Eating and Drinking, are the less sage mythologists. WARBURTON.

27. Quips: Satirical jokes, smart repartees. Cranks: turnings in speech; conceits which consist in the change of the form or meaning of a word.

Sport that wrinkled Care derides,
And Laughter holding both his sides.
Come, and trip it, as you go,
On the light fantastick toe;

And in thy right hand lead with thee
The mountain-nymph, sweet Liberty;
And, if I give thee honour due,
Mirth, admit me of thy crew,
To live with her, and live with thee,
In unreproved pleasures free;
To hear the lark begin his flight,
And singing, startle the dull night,
From his watch-tower in the skies,
Till the dappled dawn doth rise;
Then to come, in spite of sorrow,
And at my window bid good morrow,
Through the sweet-briar, or the vine,
Or the twisted eglantine:
While the cock, with lively din,
Scatters the rear of Darkness thin
And to the stack, or the barn-door,
Stoutly struts his dames before:

Oft listening how the hounds and horr
Cheerily rouse the slumbering morn,
From the side of some hoar hill,
Through the high wood echoing shrill
Some time walking, not unseen,
By hedge-row elms, on hillocks green,
Right against the eastern gate,
Where the great sun begins his state,
Robed in flames, and amber light,
The clouds in thousand liveries dight;
While the plowman, near at hand,
Whistles o'er the furrow'd land,
And the milkmaid singeth blithe
And the mower whets his sithe,
And every shepherd tells his tale
Under the hawthorn in the dale.

40. Unreproved: Blameless, innocent, | lyze the context. The poet is describing not subject to reproof. Sandy's has “un- a very early period of the morning; and reproved kisses." this he describes, by selecting and as48. Twisted eglantine: The honey-sembling such picturesque objects as acsuckle. All these three plants are often seen growing against the side or walls of a house.

57. Not unseen. In the Penseroso, (line 65,) he walks unseen. Happy men love witnesses of their joy: the splenetick love solitude.

company that period, and such as were familiar to an early riser. He is waked by the lark, and goes into the fields; the sun is just emerging, and the clouds are still hovering over the mountains; the cocks are crowing, and with their lively notes scatter the lingering remains of 67. His tale. It was suggested to me darkness; human labours and employby the late ingenious Mr. Headley, that ments are renewed with the dawn of the the word tale does not here imply stories day; the hunter (formerly much earlier told by shepherds, but is a technical term at his sport than at present) is beating for numbering sheep. This interpreta- the covert, and the slumbering morn is tion I am inclined to adopt. Let us ana-roused with the cheerful echo of hounds

Straight mine eye hath caught new pleasures,
Whilst the landskip round it measures;
Russet lawns, and fallows gray,

Where the nibbling flocks do stray;
Mountains, on whose barren breast
The labouring clouds do often rest;
Meadows trim with daisies pide,
Shallow brooks, and rivers wide:
Towers and battlements it sees
Bosom'd high in tufted trees,
Where perhaps some beauty lies,
The Cynosure of neighbouring eyes.
Hard by, a cottage chimney smoaks
From betwixt two aged oaks,
Where Corydon and Thyrsis, met,
Are at their savoury dinner set

Of herbs, and other country messes,
Which the neat-handed Phillis dresses;
And then in haste her bower she leaves,
With Thestylis to bind the sheaves;
Or, if the earlier season lead,
To the tann'd haycock in the mead
Sometimes with secure delight
The upland hamlets will invite,
When the merry bells ring round,
And the jocund rebecks sound
To many a youth, and many a maid,
Dancing in the chequer'd shade;
And young and old come forth to play
On a sunshine holyday,
Till the livelong daylight fail:
Then to the spicy nut-brown ale,

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and horns; the mower is whetting his scythe to begin his work; the milk-maid, whose business is of course at daybreak, comes abroad singing; the shepherd opens his fold, and takes the tale of his sheep, to see if any were lost in the night. Now for shepherds to tell tales, .or to sing, is a circumstance trite, common, and general, and belonging only to ideal shepherds; nor do I know that such shepherds tell tales or sing more in the morning than at any other part of the day. A shepherd taking the tale of his sheep which are just unfolded, is a new image, correspondent and appropriate, beautifully descriptive of a period of time, is founded in fact, and is more pleasing as more natural.-WARTON. pide for pied. 77. Towers and battlements. This was the great mansion-house in Milton's early days, before the old-fashioned architecture had given way to modern arts and improvements. Turrets and battlements were conspicuous marks of the numerous new buildings of the reign of King Henry

VIII., and of some rather more ancient many of which yet remained in their original state, unchanged and undecayed. Where only a little is seen, more is left to the imagination. These symptoins of an old palace, especially when thus dis posed, have a greater effect than a discovery of larger parts, and even a full display of the whole edifice. The embosomed battlements, and the spreading top of the tall grove, on which they reflect a reciprocal charm, still further interest the fancy, from the novelty of combination; while just enough of the towering structure is shown to make an accompaniment to the tufted expanse of venerable verdure, and to compose a picturesque association. With respect to their rural residence, there was a coyness in our Gothic ancestors: modern seats are seldom so deeply ambushed,-they disclose all their glories at once, and never excite expectation by concealment. by gradual approaches, and by inter rupted appearances.-T. WARTON.

With stories told of many a feat,
How faery Mab the junkets eat:
She was pinch'd and pull'd, she sed:
And he by friar's lantern led,
Tells how the drudging goblin swet,
To earn his cream-bowl duly set,

When in one night, ere glimpse of morn,
His shadowy flail hath thresh'd the corn,
That ten day-labourers could not end:
Then lies him down the lubbar fiend,

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And, stretch'd out all the chimney's length,
Basks at the fire his hairy strength;

And crop-full out of doors he flings,

Ere the first cock his matin rings.

Thus done the tales, to bed they creep,
By whispering winds soon lull'd asleep.
Tower'd cities please us then,

And the busy hum of men,

Where throngs of knights and barons bold,

In weeds of peace, high triumphs hold,

With store of ladies, whose bright eyes
Rain influence, and judge the prize
Of wit or arms, while both contend
To win her grace, whom all commend.
There let Hymen oft appear
In saffron robe, with taper clear,
And pomp, and feast, and revelry,
With mask, and antique pageantry;
Such sights as youthful poets dream
On summer eves by haunted stream.
Then to the well-trod stage anon,
If Jonson's learned sock be on ;

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102. Faery Mab. See Shakspeare, Rom. | of corn in the barn, which could not and Juliet, Act I., sc. iv. This bewitch-have been threshed in so short a time by ing fancy sketch of Queen Mah is quoted in "Compendium of English Literature," p. 139.

103. He was pinch'd. He and she are persons of the company assembled to spend the evening after a country wake at a rural junket.-T. WArton.

ten labourers. Ile then returns into the house, fatigued with his task; and, overcharged with his reward of the creambowl, throws himself before the fire, and, stretched along the whole breadth of the fire-place, basks till the morning.-T. WARTON.

104. Friar's lantern is the Jack-o'-lan- 117. Tower'd cities, &c. Then, that is, tern, which led people in the night into at night. The poet returns from his dimarshes and waters. Milton gives thegression, perhaps disproportionately prophilosophy of this superstition, "Paradise Lost," (ix. 634-642.) In the midst of a solemn and learned enarration, his strong imagination could not resist a romantic tradition consecrated by popular credulity.-T. WARTON.

105. Drudging goblin. This goblin is Robin Goodfellow. His cream-bowl was earned, and he paid the punctuality of those by whom it was duly placed for his refection, by the service of threshing with his invisible fairy flail, in one night, and before the dawn of day, a quantity

lix, concerning the feats of fairies and goblins, which protract the conversation over the spicy bowl of a village-supper, to enumerate other pleasures or amusements of the night or evening. Then is, in this line, a repetition of the first "Then," line 100. Afterwards, we have another "Then," with the same sense and reference, line 131. Here, too, is a transition from mirth in the country to mirth in the city.-T. WARTON.

120. Triumphs: Shows, masks, reveis