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12

'Euganean Hills' within the limits of lyrical unity, is commended with much diffidence to the judgment of readers acquainted with the original pieces. Presence in line 12 is here conjecturally printed for present. A very few similar corrections of (it is presumed) misprints have been made:-as thy for my, XXII, 9: men for me, XLI, 3: viol for idol, CCLII, 43: and one for our, 90: locks for looks, CCLXXI, 5: dome for doom, CCLXXV, 23:- with two or three more less important.

xv This charming little poem, truly 'old and plain, and dallying with the innocence of love' like that spoken of in Twelfth Night, is taken, with v, XVII, XX, XXXIV, and XL, from the most characteristic collection of Elizabeth's reign, 'England's Helicon,' first published in 1600.

XVI

15 XVIII 19 XXIII

21 XXVII

Readers who have visited Italy will be reminded of
more than one picture by this gorgeous Vision of
Beauty, equally sublime and pure in its Paradisiacal
naturalness. Lodge wrote it on a voyage to
'the
Islands of Terceras and the Canaries'; and he seems
to have caught, in those southern seas, no small por-
tion of the qualities which marked the almost con-
temporary Art of Venice,- - the glory and the glow
of Veronese, or Titian, or Tintoret, when he most
resembles Titian, and all but surpasses him.

The clear (1. 1) is the crystalline or outermost heaven
of the old cosmography. For resembling (1. 7) other
copies give refining: the correct reading is perhaps
revealing. For a fair there's fairer none: If you
des're a Beauty, there is none more beautiful than
Rosaline.

that fair thou owest: that beauty thou ownest.
the star Whose worth's unknown, although his height
be taken apparently, Whose stellar influence is un-
calculated, although his angular altitude from the
plane of the astrolabe or artificial horizon used by
astrologers has been determined.
keel: skim.

22 XXIX expense: waste.

Nativity once in the main of light: when a star has risen and entered on the full stream of light; -an

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other of the astrological phrases no longer familiar. Crooked eclipses: as coming athwart the Sun's apparent course.

Wordsworth, thinking probably of the 'Venus' and the 'Lucrece,' said finely of Shakespeare: 'Shakespeare could not have written an Epic; he would have died of plethora of thought.' This prodigality of nature is exemplified equally in his Sonnets. The copious selection here given, (which, from the wealth of the material, required greater consideration than any other portion of the Editor's task,). - contains that will not be fully felt and understood without some earnestness of thought on the reader's part. But he is not likely to regret the labour.

many

24 XXXI upon misprision growing: either, granted in error, or, on the growth of contempt.

XXXII With the tone of this Sonnet compare Hamlet's 'Give

me that man That is not passion's slave' &c. Shakespeare's writings show the deepest sensitiveness to passion - hence the attraction he felt in the contrasting effects of apathy.

25 XXXIII grame: sorrow. It was long before English Poetry returned to the charming simplicity of this and a few other poems by Wyat.

26 XXXIV Pandion in the ancient fable was father to Philomela.

28 XXXVIII ramage: confused noise.

29 XXXIX censures: judges.

30 XL

31 XLI

33 XLIV

By its style this beautiful example of old simplicity
and feeling may be referred to the early years of
Elizabeth. Late forgot lately.

haggards: the least tamable hawks.
cypres or cyprus, used by the old writers for crape;
whether from the French crespe or from the Island
whence it was imported. Its accidental similarity in
spelling to cypress has, here and in Milton's Penseroso,
probably confused readers.

34 XLVI, XLVII '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.'

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37 LI crystal: fairness.

This 'Spousal Verse' was written in honour of the Ladies Elizabeth and Katherine Somerset. Although beautiful, it is inferior to the Epithalamion' on Spenser's own marriage, — omitted with great reluctance as not in harmony with modern manners.

1. 13 feateously: elegantly.

1. 11 shend: put out.

1. 1 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. L. 13 Eliza: Elizabeth. L. 29 twins of Jove the stars Castor and Pollux: baldric, belt; the zodiac.

A fine example of a peculiar class of Poetry ; — - that written by thoughtful men who practised this Art but little. Wotton's, LXXII, is another. Jeremy Taylor, Bishop Berkeley, Dr. Johnson, Lord Macaulay, have left similar specimens.

Summary of Book Second

THIS division, embracing the latter eighty years of the sevententh 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 exhibit the wider and grander range which years and experience and the struggles of the time conferred on Poetry. Our Muses now give expression to political feeling, to religious thought, to a high philosophic statesmanship in writers such as Marvell, Herbert, and Wotton: whilst in Marvell and Milton, again, we find the first noble attempts at pure description of nature, destined in our own ages to be continued and equalled. Meanwhile the poetry of simple passion, although before 1660 often deformed by verbal fancies and conceits of thought, and afterward by levity and an artificial tone, produced in Herrick and Waller some charming pieces of more finished art than the Elizabethan: until in the courtly compliments of Sedley it seems to exhaust itself, and lie almost

dormant for the hundred years between the days of Wither and Suckling and the days of Burns and Cowper. That the change from our early style to the modern brought with it at first a loss of nature and simplicity is undeniable: yet the far bolder and wider scope which Poetry took between 1620 and 1700, and the successful efforts then made to gain greater clearness in expression, in their results have been no slight compensation.

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52 LXII 1. 20 whist: hushed.

1.

-

60 I.XIV

19

13

Pan: used here for the Lord of all.

1. 19 Lars and Lemures: household gods and spirits of relations dead. Flamens (J. 22) Roman priests. That twice-batter'd god (1. 27) Dagon.

1.9 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, represents 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. -It suited the genius of Milton's time to regard this primeval poetry and philosophy of the seasons, which has a further reference to the contest of Good and Evil in Creation, as a malignant idolatry. Shelley's Chorus in Hellas, 'Worlds on worlds,' treats the subject in a larger and sweeter spirit. L. 11 unshower'd grass: as watered by the Nile only.

The Late Massacre: the Vaudois persecution, carried on in 1655 by the Duke of Savoy. This 'collect in verse,' as it has been justly named, is the most mighty Sonnet in any language known to the Editor. Readers should observe that, unlike our sonnets of the sixteenth century, it is constructed on the original Italian or Provençal model, — unquestionably far superior to the imperfect form employed by Shakespeare and Drummond.

LXV Cromwell returned from Ireland in 1650. Hence the

prophecies not strictly fulfilled of his deference to the Parliament, in stanzas 21-24.

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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 nonexistence of a vacuum and the impenetrability of matter:-in st. 17, to the omen traditionally connected with the foundation of the Capitol at Rome. 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.

65 LXVI Lycidas. The person lamented is Milton's college friend Edward King, drowned in 1637 whilst crossing from Chester to Ireland.

Strict Pastoral Poetry was first written or perfected by the Dorian Greeks settled in Sicily: but the conventional use of it, exbibited 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. -The metrical structure of this glorious poem is partly derived from Italian models.

1. 6 Sisters of the sacred well: the Muses said to frequent the fountain Helicon on Mount Parnassus. 1. 14 Mona: Anglesea, called by the Welsh Inis Dowil or the Dark Island, from its dense forests. Deva (1. 15) the Dee: a river which probably derived its magical character from Celtic traditions: it was long the boundary of Briton and Saxon. - These places are introduced, as being near the scene of the shipwreck. Orpheus (1. 18) was torn to pieces by Thracian women. Amaryllis and Neaera (1. 28, 29) names used here for the love-idols of poets: Damoetas previously for a shepherd.

as

1. 3 the blind Fury: Atropos, fabled to cut the thread of life. Arethuse (1. 13) and Mincius: Sicilian and Italian waters here alluded to as synonymous with