Impoftor, do not charge most innocent Nature,
As if fhe would her children should be riotous
With her abundance; fhe, good caterefs,
Means her provision only to the good,
That live according to her fober laws,
And holy dictate of fpare temperance:
If every just man, that now pines with want,
Had but a moderate and befeeming share,
Of that which lewdly-pamper'd luxury
Now heaps upon fome few with vaft excess,
Nature's full bleffings would be well difpens'd
In unfuperfluous even proportion,

And the no whit incumber'd with her store;
And then the giver would be better thank'd,
His praise due paid: for swinish gluttony
Ne'er looks to heav'n amidst his gorgeous feast,
But with befotted base ingratitude

765

779

775

Crams, and blafphemes his feeder. Shall I go on?
Or have I faid enough? To him that dares

66

780

And our author himself, ANIMADV. REMONSTR. DEF. &c. "To SIFT Mass into no Mass, and popish into no popish: yet saving "this paffing fine SOPHISTICALL BOULTING hutch, &c." PR. W. vol. i. 84. In fome of the Inns of Court, I believe the exercifes or difputations in law are ftill called BOULTINGS. Hence Shakespeare is to be explained, CORIOLAN. A. iii. S. i. Who indeed explains himself.

-Is ill fchool'd

In BOULTED language, meal and bran together
He throws without diftinction.

It is the fame allufion in the MERCH. OF VEN. A. i. S. i. "His
reasons are as two grains of wheat hid in two bushels of chaff
66 you fhall feek all day ere you find them, &c." The meaning of
the whole context is this, "I am offended when vice pretends to
"difpute and reafon, for it always ufes fophiftry."

767. And holy dictate of Spare temperance.] In IL PENS. v. 46. SPARE FAST that oft with gods doth diet.

Arm

Arm his profane tongue with contemptuous words
Against the fun-clad pow'r of Chastity,
Fain would I fomething fay, yet to what end?
Thou haft nor ear, nor foul to apprehend
The fublime notion, and high mystery,
That must be utter'd to unfold the fage
And ferious doctrine of Virginity,

785

And thou art worthy that thou should'st not know

784. Thou hast nor ear, nor foul to apprehend

ver. 453.

The fublime notion, and high mystery,

That must be utter'd to unfold the fage

And ferious doctrine of virginity.] He had faid before,

So dear to heav'n is faintly chastity,
That when a foul is found fincerely fo,
A thousand liveried Angels lacky her,
Driving far off each thing of fin and guilt;

And in clear dream and folemn vifion,

Tell her of things that no grofs ear can hear, &c.,

By ftudying the reveries of the Platonic writers, Milton contracted a theory concerning chastity and the purity of love, in the contemplation of which, like other vifionaries, he indulged his imagination with ideal refinements, and with pleafing but unmeaning notions of excellence and perfection. Plato's fentimental or metaphyfical love, he seems to have applied to the natural love between the fexes. The very philofophical dialogue of the Angel and Adam, in the eighth book of PARADISE LOST, altogether proceeds on this doctrine. In the SMECTYMNUUs, he declares his initiaion into the mysteries of this immaterial love. "Thus " from the laureate fraternity of poets, riper years, and the ceaf"less round of study and reading, led me to the fhady spaces of 66 philofophy but chiefly to the divine volume of Plato, and his equal Xenophon. Where if I fhould tell ye what I learned of CHASTITY and LOVE, I mean that which is TRULY fo, &c. -With such abstracted fublimities as thefe, &c." PR. W. i. III. But in the dialogue juft mentioned, where Adam afks his celeftial güeft whether Angels are fufceptible of love, whether they express their paffion by looks only, or by a mixture of irradiation, by virtual or immediate contact, our author feems to have over-leaped the Platonic pale, and to have lost his way among the folemn conceits of Peter Lombard and Thomas Aquinas. It is no wonder that the Angel blushed, as well as smiled, at fome of these questions.

More

More happiness than this thy present lot.
Enjoy your dear wit, and gay rhetoric,

That hath so well been taught her dazling fence,
Thou art not fit to hear thyfelf convinc'd;

Yet fhould I try, the uncontrolled worth
Of this pure caufe would kindle my rapt spirits
To fuch a flame of facred vehemence,

799

795

That dumb things would be mov'd to fympathize,
And the brute earth would lend her nerves, and shake,
Till all thy magic ftructures rear'd so high,
Were scatter'd into heaps o'er thy false head.
Com. She fables not, I feel that I do fear
Her words fet off by fome fuperior power;

790. Enjoy your dear wit, and gay rhetoric,

800

That hath fo well been taught her dazling fence.] We have the fubftantive FENCE in Shakespeare, MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING, A. v. S. i.

Defpight his nice FENCE, and his active practice.

Compare alfo K. JOHN, A. ii. S. iii.

The George that fwing'd the dragon, and ere fince
Now fits on horseback at mine hoftefs' door,

TEACH US fome FENCE.

See B. and Fletcher, PHILASTER, A. iv. S. i. vol. i. p. 151, "I know not your RHETORICK; but I can lay it on, &c."

797. And the brute earth, &c.] The unfeeling earth would fympathife and affift. It is Horace's "Bruta tellus." OD. i.

xxxiv. II.

800. She fables not. -] The verb FABLE, but not neutrally, Occurs in PARAD. L. B. vi. 292.

Or turn this heaven itself into the hell

Thou FABLEST.

FABLED, the participle, is more common in Milton. In either the First or Second Part of Shakespeare's HENRY THE SIXTH, I recollect,

"He FABLES not." I hear the enemy.

There is a dignity in the word, which in the text gives it a peguliar and fuperiour propriety.

And

And though not mortal, yet a cold fhudd'ring dew
Dips me all o'er, as when the wrath of Jove
Speaks thunder, and the chains of Erebus,

To fome of Saturn's crew. I must diffemble, 805
And try her yet more ftrongly. Come, no more,
This is mere moral babble, and direct

Against the canon laws of our foundation;

I must not fuffer this, yet 'tis but the lees
And fettlings of a melancholy blood:
But this will cure all ftrait, one fip of this.

810

802. And though not mortal, yet a cold shudd'ring dew, &c.] Her words are affifted by fomewhat divine; and I, although IMMORTAL, and above the race of man, am fo affected with their force, that a cold fhuddering dew, &c. Here is the nobleft panegyric on the power of virtue, adorned with the fublimeft imagery. It is extorted from the mouth of a magician and a preternatural being, who although actually poffeffed of his prey, feels all the terrours of human nature at the bold rebuke of innocence, and shudders with a fudden cold fweat like a guilty man.

Ibid. Yet a cold.-] Yet had better been omitted. H.

808. Against the canon laws of our foundation.] Canon-laws, a joke! W.

Here is a ridicule on establishments, and the canon law now greatly encouraged by the church. Perhaps on the Canons of the Church, now rigidly enforced, and at which Milton frequently glances in his profe tracts. He calls Gratian "the compiler of sc CANON-INIQUITY." PR. W. i. 211. In his book on REFORMATION, he speaks of " an insulting and only CANON-WISE prelate." PR. W. vol. i. 7. And his arguments on DIVORCE, afford frequent opportunities of expofing what he calls the Ignorance and Iniquity of the Canon-Law. See particularly, ch. iii. 809. -Yet 'tis but the lees

And fettlings of a melancholy blood.] I like the manufcript reading beft,

"This is mere moral ftuff, the very lees."

Yet is bad. But very inaccurate. H.

So in SAMS. Agon. 599.

Believe not thefe fuggeftions, which proceed
From anguish of the mind and humours black,
That mingle with the fancy.-

Will bathe the drooping fpirits in delight,
Beyond the blifs of dreams. Be wife, and tafte.-

The Brothers rush in with fwords drawn, wrest bis glafs out of his band, and break it against the ground; bis rout make fign of refiftance, but are all driven in. The Attendent Spirit comes in.

SPIRIT.

What, have you let the false inchanter 'scape? O ye mistook, ye should have snatcht his wand, 815 And bound him faft; without his rod revers'd,

811. One fip of this

Will bathe the drooping spirits in delight,

Beyond the blifs of dreams.] So Fletcher, FAITHF. SHEPH. A. iv. S. i. vol. iii. p. 164,

It PASSETH DREAMS,

Or madmen's fancy, when the many streams

Of new imaginations rife and fall.

Compare the delicious but deadly fountain of Armida in Tafso,
GIER. LIB. C. xiv. 74.

Ch'UN PICCIOL SORSO di fue lucide onde
INEBRIA ALMA tofto, e la fai lieta, &c.

But Milton seems to have remembered Fairfax's version.
ONE SUP thereof the drinker's heart doth bring
To fudden ioy, whence laughter vaine doth rise, &c.

See alfo PARAD. L. B. ix. 1046.

We

may

Soon as the force of that fallacious fruit,

That with exhilarating vapour bland

About their fpirits had play'd, and inmoft power's

Made err.

add the fame effects of the forbidden fruit, ibid. 1008.

As with new wine intoxicated both,

They fwim in mirth and fancy, &c.

Perhaps Bathe is in Spenfer's fenfe, F, Q. i. vii. 47

And BATHE in plefaunce of the ioyous shade.

See Upton, GL. F. Q. in V. BATHE,

And