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Weep no more, woful Shepherds, weep no more, For Lycidas your forrow is not dead,

Sunk though he be beneath the watry floor;
So finks the day-ftar in the ocean bed,

And yet anon repairs his drooping head,

166

And tricks his beams, and with new-fpangled ore

"CORINEIDA Loxo." MANS. V. 46. Where fee the Note. And he is mentioned in Spenser's M. M. of THESTYLIS.

Vp from his tombe

The mightie Corineus rofe, &c. See Geoffr. Monm. L. xii. c. i. Milton, who delighted to trace the old fabulous ftory of Brutus, relates, that to Corineus Cornwall fell by lot," the rather by him liked, for that the hugest giants in rocks and caves were faid to lurk there ftill; which "kind of monfters to deal with was his old exercife." HIST. ENG. ubi fupr. i. 6. On the fouth-western fhores of Cornwall, I faw a moft ftupendous pile of rock-work, ftretching with immense ragged cliffs and fhapeless precipices far into the fea: one of the topmost of thefe cliffs, hanging over the reft, the people informed me was called the GIANTS CHAIR. Near it is a cavern called in Cornish the CAVE WITH THE VOICE.

165. Weep no more, &c.] The fame change of circumstances, and ftyle of imagery, occur in Spenfer's NOVEMBER, which is a paftoral elegy.

Cease now, my Mufe, now cease thy forrowes fourfe!
She raignes a goddeffe now amid the faints,

That whilom was the faint of fhepheards light;

And is enftalled now in heauens hight..
No danger there the shepheard can aftert,
Fayre fields and pleafant leas there beene,
The fields aye fresh, the groves aye greene.-
There liues fhe with the bleffed gods in bliffe,
There drinkes fhe nectar with ambrofia mixt, &c.

See the EPITAPHIUM DAMONIS, V. 201-218. And, Ode on the DEATH of a FAIR INFANT, ft. X.

166. Is not dead, &c.] So in Spenfer's ASTROPHEL, ft. 48. Ah no! it is not dead, ne can it die,

But lives for aye in blissful Paradise, &c.

See fupr. at v. 50.

169. -Repairs his drooping head.] I have heard it observed, that the use of repairs in the following paffage of Gray's BARD is hard and uncommon,

Hath

Flames in the forehead of the morning sky:

So Lycidas funk low, but mounted high,

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175

Thro' the dear might of him that walk'd the waves;
Where other groves, and other ftreams along,
With nectar pure his oozy locks he laves,
And hears the unexpreffive nuptial song,
In the bleft kingdoms meek of joy and love.
There entertain him all the faints above,
In folemn troops, and fweet focieties,

-Hath quench'd the orb of day?

To morrow he REPAIRS the GOLDEN flood.
But Milton, fays Mr. Steevens, was here in Gray's mind.

172. Through the dear might of him that walk'd the waves.] Of him, over whom the waves of the sea had no power. It is a defignation of our Saviour, by a miracle which bears an immediate reference to the fubject of the poem.

176. The unexpreffive nuptial fong.] So in the Latin poem AD PATREM, V. 37.

Immortale melos, et INE NARRABILE carmen.

177. Even here, after Lycidas is received into heaven, Milton does not make him an angel. He makes him, indeed, a being of a higher order, the Genius of the shore, as at v. 183. If the poet in finally difclofing this great change of circumftances, and in this prolix and folemn defcription of his friend's new fituation in the realms of blifs after fo difaftrous a death, had exalted him into an angel, he would not have foreftalled that idea, according to Thyer's interpretation, at v. 163.

179. In folemn troops, and fweet focieties.] Compare PARAD LOST, B. xi. 80.

From their blissful bowres

Of amaranthine fhade, fountain, or spring,
By the waters of life whereer they fate

In FELLOWSHIPS of JOY, the fons of light
Hafted.

See alfo B. vii. 198. x. 86. 460. i. 128. 315. 360. ii. 11. 310. v. 591. 601. 772. 840. Milton's angelic fyftem, containing many whimsical notions of the affociations and fubordinations of these fons of light, is to be feen at large in Thomas Aquinas and Peter Lombard. But it was not yet worn out in the common theology of his own times.

180

That fing, and finging in their glory move,
And wipe the tears for ever from his eyes.
Now, Lycidas, the fhepherds weep no more;
Henceforth thou art the Genius of the fhore,
In thy large recompenfe, and fhalt be good
To all that wander in that perilous flood.
Thus fang the uncouth fwain to th' oaks and rills,
While the still morn went out with fandals gray;
He touch'd the tender stops of various quills,

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185

This doctrine, which makes such a figure in PARADISE LOST, he very gravely delivers in his CH. GOVERNM. B. i. ch. i. "The Angels themselves are diftinguished and quaternioned into their "celeftial princedoms and fatrapies." PROSE WORKS, i. 41. The fame system, which afforded fo commodious a machinery for modern chriftian poetry, is frequent in the Italian poets.

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187. The ftill morn went out with fandals gray, &c.] "The GRAY dawn," PARAD. L. vii. 373.-STILL, because all is filent at day-break. But though he began to fing at day-break, he was fo eager, fo intent on his fong, that he continued it till the

evening.

188. He touch'd the tender ftops of various quills.] Some readers are here puzzled with the idea of fuch STOPS as belong to the Organ. By STOPS he here literally means what we now call the HOLES of a flute or any species of pipe. Thus in Browne, BRITAN. PAST. B. ii. S. iii. p. 85. ut fupr.

What muficke is there in a fhepherd's quill,
If but a STOP of two therein we spie?

And in HAMLET, where the Players Enter with Recorders. "Haml "Govern these ventages with your finger and thumb: --- Look “you, these are the STOPS. Guild. You would play upon me : you "would feem to know my STOPS, &c." A. iii. S. ii. And in the INDUCTION to the SECOND P. HENR. iv.

Rumour is a pipe

Blown by furmifes, jealoufies, conjectures;
And of fo easy and fo plain a STOP, &c.

That is, "fo eafily to be plaid upon." And Drayton, Mus. ELYS.

Nymph. iii. vol. iv. p. 1477.

おむ

Euterpe, next to thee will we proceed,

That first found'ft out the muficke on the reed; pri

With breath and fingers giving life

To the fhrill cornet and the fife;

VOL. I.

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Teaching

34

With eager thought warbling his Doric lay:
And now the fun had ftretch'd out all the hills,
And now was dropt into the western bay:

At laft he rofe, and twitch'd his mantle blue:

To morrow to fresh woods, and pastures new.'

Teaching every STOP and kay

To thofe that on the pipe do play.

And our author in Coмus, v. 345.

Or found of pastoral reed with oaten STOPS.

He mentions the stops of an organ, but in another manner,
PARAD. L. xi. 561. See alfo vii. 596.

191

in

In Drummond, STOP is applied to a Lute, but I think metathetically for note. SONNETS, Edingb. 1616. 4to. Signat. H. 2. Thy pleasing notes be pleafing notes no more,

But orphane wailings to the fainting eare;

Each STOPPE a figh, each sound draws forth a teare.

Unlefs he means a CLOSE, or interval.

189. With eager thought warbling his Doric lay.] See Note on v. z. This is a DORIC Lay, because Theocritus and Mofchus had respectively written a bucolic on the Deaths of Daphnis and Bion And the name LYCIDAS, now first imported into English paftoral was adopted, not from Virgil, but from Theocritus, IDYLL. vii. 27 -ΛΥΚΙΔΑ φίλε, φαντὶ τὸ πάντες

Εμμεν ΣΥΡΙΤΑΝ μεγ ̓ ὑπείροχον, ἔντε νομεῦσι,
Ἐν τ' ἀμητήρεσσι. —
Care Lycida, omnes te dicunt

Effe eximium fiftulatorem, inter et paftores,
Et meffores.

His character is afterwards fully juftified in the Song of Lyci das. And he is styled "dear to the Muses," v. 95. And ou author's fhepherd Lycidas could " build the lofty rhyme." A Ly cidas is again mentioned by Theocritus, IDYLL. xxvii. 41. An a Lycidas supports a Sicilian dialogue in one of Bion's Bucolics vii. See EPITAPH. DAMON. V. 132.

193. To morrow to fresh woods, and paftures new.] So Ph Fletcher, PURPLE ISL. C. vi. ft. 77. p. 84. edit. 1633. 4to. To morrow fhall ye feaft in PASTURES NEW,

And with the rifing funne banquet on pearled dew.

* I fee no extraordinary wildness and irregularity, according doctor Newton, in the conduct of this little poem. 'Tis true, the

is a very original air in it, although it be full of claffical imitations : but this, I think is owing, not to any disorder in the plan, nor entirely to the vigour and luftre of the expreffion, but, in a good degree, to the looseness and variety of the metre. Milton's ear was a good second to his imagination. H.

Addison says, that He who defires to know whether he has a true tafte for History or not, should confider, whether he is pleased with Livy's manner of telling a story; so, perhaps it may be faid, that He who wishes to know whether he has a true tafte for Poetry or not, fhould confider whether he is highly delighted or not with the perufal of Milton's LYCIDAS. If I might venture to place Milton's Works, according to their degrees of Poetic Excellence, it fhould be perhaps in the following order; PARADISE LOST, COMUS, SAMSON AGONISTES, LYCIDAS, L'ALLEGRO, IL PENSEROSO. The three laft are in fuch an exquifite strain, fays Fenton, that though he had left no other monuments of his genius behind him, his name had been immortal. Dr. J. WARTON.

Doctor Johnfon obferves, that LYCIDAS is filled with the heathen deities; and a long train of mythological imagery, fuch as a College easily supplies. But it is fuch alfo, as even the Court itself could now have eafily fupplied. The public diverfions, and books of all forts and from all forts of writers, more especially compofitions in poetry, were at this time overrun with claffical pedantries, But what writer, of the fame period, has made these obsolete fictions the vehicle of fo much fancy and poetical description? How beautifully has he applied this fort of allufion, to the Druidical rocks of Denbighshire, to Mona, and the fabulous banks of Deva! It is objected, that its paftoral form is disgusting. But this was the age of pastoral: and yet LYCIDAS has but little of the bucolic cant, now so fashionable. The Satyrs and Fauns are but just mentioned, If any trite rural topics occur, how are they heightened!

Together both, ere the high lawns appear'd
Under the opening eye-lids of the morn,
We drove afield, and both together heard
What time the gray-fly winds her fultry horn,
Batt'ning our flocks with the fresh dews of night,

Here the day-break is described by the faint appearance of the upland lawns under the firft gleams of light: the fun-fet by the buzzing of the chaffer: and the night sheds her fresh dews on their flocks. We cannot blame paftoral imagery, and paftoral allegory, which carry with them fo much natural painting. In this piece there is perhaps more poetry than forrow. But let us read it for its poetry. It is true, that paffion plucks no berries from the myrtle and ivy, nor calls upon Arethuse and Mincius, nor tells of rough Satyrs with cloven heel. But poetry does this; and in the hands of

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Milton,

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