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Find out fome uncouth cell,

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Where brooding Darkness spreads his jealous. wings,

And the night-raven fings;

There under ebon fhades, and low-brow'd rocks, As ragged as thy locks,

In dark Cimmerian defert ever dwell,

Sleepe, grim Reproof! My iocund Muse doth fing
In other keyes to nimble fingering;

Dull-fprighted MELANCHOLIE, leave my braine,
To hell, Cimmerian Night. In liuely vaine

I ftriue to paint: then hence all darke intent,
And fullen frownes. Come sporting Merriment,
Cheeke-dimpling Laughter, crowne my uerie foule
With jouifance.-

10

See OBSERVAT. on Spenfer's F. Q. i. 60. And the Note on

V. 10.

6. -Jealous.-] Alluding to the watch which fowl keep when they are fitting. W.

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9. As ragged.] In TITUS ANDRON. A. ii. S. iv. "The RAGGED entrails of this pit." RAGGED is not uncommon in our old writers, applied to rock.

10. In dark Cimmerian defert ever dwell.] It should be remembered, that CIMMERIE TENEBRE were antiently proverbial. But CIMMERIAN darkness and defolation were a common allufion in the poetry that was now written and studied. In Fletcher's FALSE ONE, A. v. S. iv. vol. iv. p. 165. edit. Theob. 1751. O gyant-like Ambition, married to CYMERIAN darkness!

In TITUS ANDRONICUS, Aaron the Moor is called " your fwarth "CYMMERIAN." A. ii. S. iii. In Spenfer's TEARES OF THE MUSES, we have,

Darkneffe more than CYMMERIANS daily night.

And in his VIRGIL'S GNAT, a Cimmerian defert is described.

I carried am to a waste wilderneffe,

Waste wilderneffe among CYM MERIAN fhades,
Where endless paines and hideous heauineffe,
Is round about me heapt in darkfome glades.
VOL. I.

F

But

But come thou Goddess fair and free, In heav'n yclep'd Euphrofyne,

And by Men, heart-eafing Mirth;

Whom lovely Venus at a birth

But our author might perhaps have had an immediate allufion to the cave of fleep in Ovid, MET. xi. 592.

Eft prope CIMMER IOS longo fpelunca receffu,
Mons cavus, &c.-

Or from Homer, whom Ovid copies, ODYSS. xi. 14. And in
Ovid's Uncouth cell, there is perpetual darkness; and, Sleep re-
pofes on an ebon couch, here turned to EBON fhades. Dreams
inhabit Ovid's cave, "Somnia vana," who in L'ALLEGRO are
of the fickle train of Morpheus, or Sleep. See alfo Statius, THEB.
x. 84. And Chaucer, H. FAME, V. 70. p. 458. Urr. And to
all or most of these authors Sylvefter has been indebted in his pro-
lix description of the cave of Sleep. DU BART. p. 316. edit.
fol. 1621. And in that description we trace Milton, both here,
and in the opening of IL PENSEROSO, where fee the Note at v. 5.
Mr. Bowle remarks, that this line of the text bears a near re-
femblance to a paffage in Sydney's ARCADIA, B. iii. p. 407.
edit. 1725.
"Let Cimmerian darkness be my only habitation.'
See Note, IN QUINT. NOVEMBR. v. 60.

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The execration in the text is a tranflation of a paffage in one of his own academic PROLUSIONS, Dignus qui CIMMERIIS OC"clufus tenebris LONGAM et perofam vitam tranfigat." PR. W. vol. ii. 587.

11. But come thou Goddess fair and free.] Compare Drayton, ECL. iv. vol. iv. p. 1401.

A daughter cleped Dowfabell,

A maiden FAIR AND FREE.

In the metrical romances, these two words thus paired together, are a common epithet for a lady. As in SYR EGLAMOUR, Bl. Let. Pr. by J. Allde, 4to. Signat. iii.

The erles daughter FAIR AND FREE..

We have FREE, alone, ibid.

Criftabell your daughter FREE.

Another application may illuftrate its meaning, ibid.

He was curtys and FREE.

See alfo Chaucer, MARCH. T. v. 1655. Urr.

Rise up my wife, my love, my lady FRE

With two fifter Graces more,

To ivy-crowned Bacchus bore:

Or whether (as fome fager fing)

The frolick wind that breathes the spring,

Zephyr with Aurora playing,

As he met her once a Maying;

15

20

There on beds of violets blew,

And fresh-blown roses wafh'd in dew,

So Jonfon makes his beautiful countefs of Bedford to be "

FAIR

AND FREE, and wife." EPIGRAM. lxxvi.

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I know not how far these inftances, to which I could add more, will go to explain a line in TWELFTH NIGHT, A. ii. S. 4. Edit. Steev. Johnf. vol. iv. 204. Of an old Song.

And the FREE maids that weave their threads with bones,
Do use to chaunt it,

Compare Malone's SECOND APPEND. SHAKESP. p. 19.
15. Two fifter Graces.-] MEAT and DRINK, the two
fifters of MIRTH.

-

W.

17. -Some fager fing.-] Because those who give to MIRTH fuch grofs companions as Eating and Drinking, are the less fage mythologists. W.

19. Zephyr with Aurora playing,

As he met her once a Maying.] The rhymes and imagery are from Jonfon, in the Mafke at Sir William Cornwalleis's Houfe at Highgate, 1604. WORKS, edit. fol. 1616. p. 881.

See, who here is come a maying?

Why left we off our playing.

This fong is fung by ZEPHYRUS and AURORA, Milton's two paramours, and Flora. Jonfon's interlude is called "A Private "Entertainment of the King and Queene on May-day in the "Morning."

Milton certainly wrote fager, as in editions 1645, 1673. Tonfon has alfo fager, in his earliest editions. Sages is in Tickell's edition, 1720. And thence copied by Fenton. Milton is the mythologist in both these genealogies.

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22. And fresh-blown roses wash'd in dew.] So Shakespeare, as Mr. Bowle obferves, TAM. SHR. A. ii. S. i.

-She looks as clear

As morning roses newly wash'd with dew.

F 2

23. Fill'd

Fill'd her with thee a daughter fair,
So buxom, blithe, and debonair.

Hafte thee, Nymph, and bring with thee 25 Jeft, and youthful Jollity, .

Quips, and Cranks, and wanton Wiles,

23. Fill'd her, &c.] Mr. Bowle is of opinion, that this paffage is formed from GOWER'S SONG in the Play of PERICLES PRINCE of TYRE. A. i. S. i. See Malone's SUPPL. SH. i. 7.

This king unto him took a phear,
Who died, and left a female heir

So BUCKSOME, BLITHE, and full of face,

As heav'n had lent her all his grace.

See Note on IL PENS. V. 25.

25. Hafte thee, Nymph, and bring with thee, &c.] Mr. Bowle thinks that this paffage is copied from Buchanan, OPP. edit. 1687.

P. 337.

-Vos adefte, rurfus,
Rifus, Blanditia, Procacitates,
Lufus, Nequitiæ, Facetiæque,

Joci, Deliciæque, et Illecebræ, &c.

Peck, and after him Doctor Newton, have produced as plausible a parallel from Statius's DECEMBER.

27. Quips, and cranks, and wanton wiles.] A QUIP is a fatirical joke, a fmart repartee. Jonfon's CYNTHIA'S REVELLS, A. ii. S. iv. "Phil. How liked you my QUIPPE to Hedon about "the garter: waft not wittie?" And Falstaffe fays, "What in "thy QUIPS and thy QUIDDITIES?" FIRST P. HEN. iv. A. i. S. ii. And in Two GENTL. VERON. A. iv. S. ii. Again, our author, APOL. SMECTYMN. "With QUIPS and fnapping adagies to vapour them out." PROSE WORKS, vol. i. 105.

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By CRANKS, a word yet unexplained, I think we are here to understand cross-PURPOSES, or some other fimilar conceit of converfation, furprifing the company by its intricacy, or embarraffing by its difficulty. Such were the festivities of our fimple ancestors! CRANKS, literally taken, in CORIOLANUS, fignify the ducts of the human body, A. i. S. i.

Through the CRANKS and offices of man.

In Spenfer, the fudden or frequent involutions of the planets, F. Q vii. vii. 52.

So many turning CRANKES have they, so many crookes,

Nods, and Becks, and wreathed Smiles,

Such as hang on Hebe's cheek,

And love to live in dimple fleek;

30

In Shakespeare's VENUS AND ADONIS, CRANK is a verb, to

cross, wind, double, &c. 1596. Signat. C.

And when thou haft on foot the purblind hare,
Marke the poore wretch to overfhoote his troubles;
How he outruns the wind, and with what care

He CRANKES, and croffes with a thousand doubles.

The verb CRANKLE, with the fame fenfe, but its frequentative, occurs more than once in Drayton. BAR, W. B. vi. ft. 36. Of a winding cavern.

Now on along the CRANKLING path doth keepe;
Then by a rocke turnes vp another way, &c.

Again, of the windings of a river, POLYOLB. S. vii. vol. ii. p. 789.
Meander who is faid fo intricate to be,

Has not fo many turns nor CRANKLING nooks as fhe. Again, ibid. S. xii. vol. iii. p. 907. "The CRANKLING Manyfold," another meandring ftream. And, if I am not mistaken, CRANKLE is to be found in Shakespeare's FIRST PART OF K. HENRY THE FOURTH, precifely in the fame fignification. Our author has CRANKS, which his context explains, PR. W. i. 165. "To fhew us the ways of the Lord, ftrait and faithful as they are, 66 not full of CRANKS and contradictions.”

28. Nods, and becks, and wreathed fmiles,

Such as hang on Hebe's cheek,

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And love to live in dimple fleek.] The first of thefe lines, is from a stanza in Burton's ANATOMIE of MELANCHOLY, pag. 449. edit. 1628.

With BECKS, AND NODS, he first beganne

To try the wenches minde;

With BECKS, AND NODS, and SMILES againe,

An answer did he finde.

The remainder was probably echoed from Richard Brathwayte's SHEPHEARD'S TALES, Lond. 1621. p. 201.

A DIMPLED chin

Made for Love to LODGE him in.

Compare a Sonnet in Drummond's POEMS, edit. 1616. 4to. P. i. Signat. D.

Who gazeth on the DIMPLE of that chin,

And findes not Venus' fon ENTRENCH'p therein ?

And

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