Ay me! I fondly dream! Had ye been there, for what could that have done? The Dee has been made the feene of a variety of antient British traditions. The city of Chester was called by the Britons the Fortress upon DEE; which was feigned to have been founded by the giant Leon, and to have been the place of king Arthur's magnificent coronation. But there is another and perhaps a better reafon, why Deva's is a WISARD ftream. In Drayton, this river is ftyled the hallowed, and the holy, and the ominous flood. POLYOLB. S. x. vol. iii. p. 848. S. ix. vol. iii. p. 287. Š. iv. vol. ii. p. 731. Again, "holy "Dee," HEROICALL EPIST. vol. i. p. 293. And in his IDEAS, vol. iv. p. 1271. Carlegion Chefter boasts her HOLY DEE, Compare Spenfer as above, iv. xi. 39. -Dee which Britons long ygone Did call DIUINE. And Browne, in his BRITANNIA'S PASTORALS, B. ii. S. v, P. 117. edit. 1616. Never more let HOLY Dee Öre other riuers braue, &c. In our author's AT A VACATION EXERCISE, Dee is characterifed, “ ancient HALLOWED Dee." v. 91. Where fee the Note. Much fuperftition was founded on the circumftance of its being the antient boundary between England and Wales and Drayton, in his tenth SONG, having recited this part of its hiftory, adds, that by changing its fords, it foretold good or evil, war or peace, dearth or plenty, to either country. He then introduces the Dee, over which king Edgar had been rowed by eight kings, relating the Story of Brutus. See alfo S. iii. vol. ii. p. 711. S. xii. vol. iii. p. 901, But in the ELEVENTH SONG, Drayton calls the Weever, a river of Cheshire, "The WISARD river," and immediately fubjoins, that in PROPHETICK SKILL it vies with the Dee. S. xi. vol. iii. p. 861. Here we feem to have the origin and the precife meaning of Milton's appellation. In COMUS, WISARD alfo fignifies a Diviner where it is applied to Proteus, v.872. By the Carpathian WISARD's hook. Milton appears to have taken a particular pleasure in mentioning this venerable river. In the beginning of his firft Elegy, he almoft goes out of his way to specify his friend's refidence on the banks of the Dee; which he describes with the picturesque and B 2 real What could the Mufe herself that Orpheus bore, real circumftance of its tumbling headlong over rocks and precipices into the Irish fea. EL. i. 1. Tandem, care, tuæ mihi pervenere tabellæ, But to return home to the text immediately lying before us. In the midft of this wild imagery, the tombs of the Druids, difperfed over the folitary mountains of Denbighshire, the fhaggy fummits of Mona, and the wisard waters of Deva, Milton was in his favourite track of poetry. He delighted in the old British traditions and fabulous hiftories. But his imagination feems to have been in fome measure warmed, and perhaps directed to these objects, by reading Drayton; who in the NINTH and TENTH SONGS of his POLYOLBION has very copiously enlarged, and almost at one view, on this scenery. It is, however, with great force and felicity of fancy, that Milton, in transferring the claffical feats of the Mufes to Britain, has fubftituted places of the most romantic kind, inhabited by Druids, and confecrated by the visions of British bards. And it has been juftly remarked, how coldly and unpoetically Pope, in his very correct paftorals, has on the fame occafion felected only the fair fields of Ifis, and the winding vales of Cam. But at the fame time there is an immediate propriety in the fubftitution of these places, which should not be forgotten, and is not I believe obvious to every reader. The mountains of Denbighshire, the isle of Man, and the banks of the Dee, are in the vicinity of the Irish feas where Lycidas was fhipwrecked. It is thus Theocritus afks the Nymphs, how it came to pafs, that when Daphnis died, they were not in the delicious vales of Peneus, or on the banks of the great torrent Anapus, the facred water of Acis, or on the fummits of mount Etna: becaufe all these were the haunts or the habitation of the shepherd Daphnis. These rivers and rocks have a real connection with the poet's fubject. 56. Ay me, I fondly dream! Had ye been there for what could that have done?] So thefe lines ftand in editions 1638, 1645, and 1673, the two laft of which were printed under Milton's eye. Doctor Newton thus exhibits the paffage. Ay me! I fondly dream Had ye been there, for what could that have done? And When by the rout that made the hideous roar, бо And adds this note. "We have here followed the pointing of "Milton's manufcript in preference to all the editions: and the meaning plainly is, I fondly dream of your having been there, for "what would that have fignified ?" But furely the words, I fondly dream had ye been there, will not bear this conftruction. The reading which I have adopted, to fay nothing of its authority, has an abruptnefs which heightens the prefent fentiment, and more ftrongly marks the diftraction of the fpeaker's mind. "Ah me! "I am fondly dreaming! I will suppose you had been there---but "why should I fuppofe it, for what would that have availed ?" The context is broken and confused, and contains a fudden elleipfis which I have fupplied with the words in Italics. 58. What could the Mufe, &c.] PARAD. L. vii. 37. Of Ore pheus torn in pieces by the Bacchanalians. Nor could the Mufe defend Her fon. And his murtherers are called "that wild rout," v. 34. Calliope was the mother of Orpheus. Lycidas, as a poet, is here tacitly compared with Orpheus. They were both victims. of the water." 60. -Univerfal nature.-] So "univerfal Pan," PARAD. L. iv. 266. 63. Down the fwift Hebrus to the Lefbian fhore.] In calling Hebrus SWIFT, Milton, who is avaricious of claffical authority, appears to have followed a verse in the Eneid, i. 321. -VOLUCREMQUE fuga prævertitur Hebrum. But Milton was misled by a wrong although a very antient reading. Even Servius, in his comment on the line, with an aggravation inftead of apology, blames his author for attributing this epithet to Hebrus," Nam QUIETISSIMUS eft, etiam cum per hyemem "crefcit." [See Burman's VIRGIL, vol. i. p. 95. col. 1. edit. 1746. 4to.] Befides, what was the merit of the amazon huntress Harpalyce to outftrip a river, even if uncommonly rapid? The genuine reading might have been EURUM. -Volucremque fuga prævertitur EURUM. This emendation is propofed by Janus Rutgerfius, LECTION. VENUSIN. C. vi. But Scaliger had partly fuggefted it to Rutgerfius, by reading, "EURO hyemis Sodali," instead of "HE BRO," Alas! what boots it with inceffant care Fame is the fpur that the clear spirit doth raise To fcorn delights, and live laborious days; 65 71 "BRO," Hor. OD. i. xxv. 20, See alfo HUETIANA, lxiv. If, however, a river was here to be made a subject of comparison, there was a local propriety and an elegance, in the poet's selection of the Thracian river Hebrus. When Milton copies the antients, it is not that he wants matter of his own, but because he is fond of fhewing his learning; or rather, because the imagery of the antients was fo familiar to his thoughts. 68. To fport with Amaryllis in the shade, Or with the tangles of Neæra's hair.] In the first edition, 4638, as in the manufcript. HID in the tangles of Neæra's hair. See Note at the end of the ELEGIES. 70. Fame is the fpur, &c.] Thefe noble fentiments he afterwards dilated or improved in PARADISE REGAINED, B. iii. 24. -Glory the reward That fole excites to high attempts, the flame 71. That laft infirmity of noble mind.] Mr. Bowle obferves, that Abate Grillo, in his LETTERE, has called " Quefta fete di famą et gloria, ordinaria INFIRMITA de gli ANIMI GENEROSI." Lib. ii. p. 210. edit. Ven. 1604. 4to. 74. And think to burst out into fudden blaze.] He is fpeaking of fame. So in PARAD. REG. B. iii. 47. For what is glory but the BLAZE OF FAME, &C. Comes Comes the blind Fury with th' abhorred fhears, 75 And flits the thin-fpun life. "But not the praise,' Phoebus reply'd, and touch'd my trembling ears; "Fame is no plant that grows on mortal foil, "Nor in the glift'ring foil 75. Comes the blind Fury with th' abhorred shears.] In Shakespeare are the fhears of Destiny, with more propriety. K. JOHN, A. iv. S. ii. The king fays to Pembroke, Think you I bear the SHEARS OF DESTINY? Milton, however, does not here confound the Fates and the Furies. He only calls Destiny a Fury. In Spenfer, we have BLIND Fury. RUINS OF ROME, St. xxiv. If the BLINDE FURIE which warres breedeth oft. And in Sackville's GORDOBUCKE, A. v. S. iii. O Joue, how are these peoples hearts abvs'd, See OBSERVATIONS on Spenfer FAERIE QUEENE, vol. ii. p. 255. edit. 2. 76. -But not the praife, &c.] "But the praise is not intercepted." From hence, I have arbitrarily thrown the remainder of the paragraph, but not without good reafon, into inverted commas. While the poet, in the character of a fhepherd, is moralifing on the uncertainty of human life, Phebus interposes with a fublime ftrain, above the tone of paftoral poetry. He then, in an abrupt and elleiptical apoftrophe, at O fountain Arethuse, haftily recollects himself, and apologises to his rural Muse, or, in other words, to Arethufa and Minicius, the celebrated ftreams of bucolic fong, for having fo fuddenly departed from paftoral allufions, and the tenour of his subject. "But I could not, he adds, refift the "sudden and aweful impulse of the god of verse, who interrupted "me with a strain of a higher mood, and forced me to quit for a " moment my pastoral ideas :- -But I now refume my rural oaten pipe, and proceed as I began." In the fame manner, he reverts to his rural ftrain, after S. Peter's dread voice, with "Return Alpheus," v. 132. infr. 66 66 78. Fame is no plant, &c.] I think I remember the fublime morality of part of this allegory in Pindar. But I cannot readily turn to the paffage. 79. Nor in the glift'ring foil Set off to the world.-] Perhaps with a remembrance of Shakespeare, PART I. HENR. iv. A. i. S. ii. And |