Such mixture was not held a ftain :
Oft in glimmering bow'rs and glades
He met her, and in fecret fhades
Of woody Ida's inmoft grove,

Whilst yet there was no fear of Jove.

30

Come penfive Nun, devout and pure,
Sober, stedfast, and demure,

All in a robe of darkest grain,
Flowing with majestic train,
And fable stole of Cyprus lawn,

35

The meaning of Milton's allegory is, that Melancholy is the daughter of Genius, which is typified by the bright-haired goddefs of the eternal fire. Saturn, the father, is the god of Saturnine difpofitions, of penfive and gloomy minds.

26. Such mixture, &c.] Much in the same strain, in his D1VORCE, B. ii. c. iv. " If at pleasure you can difpenfe with golden poetick ages of fuch pleafing licence, as in the fabled reign of "old Saturn, &c." PR. W. i. 290. And Warner, of Uranus marrying his fifter Vefta, AL B. ENGL. B. i. ch. i.

This tooke to wife, not then forbid, his fifter VESTA fayre. 30. Before Saturn was driven from his antient kingdom by his fon Jupiter, nurfed on mount Ida.

32. Sober, stedfaft, and demure.] Two of thefe epithets occur together, to express chaltity, in Skelton's PHILIP SPARROW, edit. 1736. p. 249.

Goodly maiftres Jane,

SOBER, DEMURE, Diane !

35. And fable ftole, &c.] Here is a character and propriety in the ufe of the STOLE, which, in the poetical phrafeology of the present day, is not only perpetually mifapplied, but mifreprefented. It was a veil which covered the head and fhoulders; and, as Mr. Bowle obferves, was worn only by fuch of the Roman matrons, as were distinguished for the ftrictness of their modesty, He refers us to the Le IMAGINI delle DONNE, di ENEA VICO. In Vinegia, 1557. P. 77. 4to. See alfo Albert Durer's MELANCHOLIA, where this description is exactly answered.

Ibid. Of Cyprus lawn.] Undoubtedly CYPRUS is the true fpelling. Quinque aurifrigia, quorum tria funt OPERE "CYPRENSI nobliffimo, et unum eft de opere Anglicano." Lib.. Anniv. BASILIC. VATICAN. apud Rubeum in Vit. Bonifacii viii. P. P. p. 345. See alfo Charpentier, SUPPL. GLOSS. Cang,

tom.

Over thy decent shoulders drawn.

Come, but keep thy wonted ftate,

tom. i. col. 391. "Unum pluviale de canceo rubeo, cum aurifrigio de opere CYPRENSI." See LIFE of SIR T. POPE, P 343. edit. 2. It is a thin tranfparent texture. So Shakespeare,

TWELFTH NIGHT, A.iii. S. i.

A CYPRUS, not a bofom,

Hides my poor heart.

And, what is more immediately to our purpose, in Autolycus's Song in the WINT. TALE, we have black Cyprus. A. iv. S. iii. Lawn as white as driven fnow,

CYPRUS BLACK as e'er was crow.

And Donne, POEMS, edit. 4to. 1634. p. 130.
As men which through a CIPRES fee
The rising fun, do think it two.

And, in Jonfon's EPIGRAMS, lxxiii.

Your partie-per-pale picture, one half-drawn
In folemn CYPRUS, th' other cobweb lawn.

Dryden, by a moft ridiculous mifapprehenfion, in his translation of the firft Georgic, has "froud-like cypress," v. 25. Here fays Milbourne," Did not Mr. D. think of that kind of Cypress used "often for the fcarfs and hatbands at funerals formerly, or for "WIDOW'S WAILS?" The laft fenfe feems to explain Milton. See the PURITAN, Stage-direction, A. i. S. i. What has been faid, illuftrates a paffage in TWELFTH NIGHT, perhaps misunderstood, which also reflects light on our text. A. ii. S. iv.

Come away, come away, Death,

And in SAD CYPRESS let me be laid.

That is, in a fhroud, not in a coffin of cyprefs-wood. See alfo Drummond's Sonnets, Edingb. 1616. P.i. Sign. B.

36.

While Cynthia, in pureft CYPRES clad,

The Latmian fhepherd in a trance defcries.

Decent fhoulders.-] Not expofed, therefore decent; more especially, as fo covered. There is an old treatise on "Naked Breafts and Shoulders," to which Baxter wrote a Preface.

37. Come, but keep thy wonted ftate,

With even ftep, and myfing gate.] So Drayton, evidently one of Milton's favourites, in the MUSES ELYSIUM, Nymph. vii. vol. iv. p. 1466.

·So goddess like a gate, Each step fo fall of majefty and ftate.

And

With even step, and mufing gate;
And looks commercing with the skies,
Thy rapt foul fitting in thine eyes:

And Jonfon in CYNTHIA'S REVELS, A. v. S. vi.
Seated in thy filver chaire,

STATE in WONTED manner KEEP.

40

It may be observed, that to KEEP STATE feems to have been antiently a familiar phrase and combination. As in ALBUMAZAR, 1614. Reed's OLD PL. vii. 239...

They come, KEEP STATE, KEEP STATE, or all's discover'd. Again, in B. and Fletcher's WILD-GOOSE CHASE, A. v. S. vi. vol. v. p. 259.

What a STATE fhe KEEPS! How far off they fit from her! Jonfon in his verses to Selden, "The Monarch of Letters," UNDERW. vol. vi. 366.

I first falute thee fo, and gratulate

With that thy ftile, and KEEPING of thy STATE.

In MACBETH, A. iii. S. iv. “Our hoftefs KEEPS her STATE." Where, in the paffage from Hollinfhed cited by Mr. Steevens, in which the king is faid to cause the queen to kepe the efiate, we are to understand, not to quit her throne or chair under the canopy, while the king walked about. See Note on ARCAD. v. 81.

Jonfon has "But kept an EVEN gait." vol. vii. 32.

40. Thy rapt foul fitting in thine eyes.] Thy RAVISHED foul. So in COMUS, v. 794. "Kindle my RAPT fpirits.' And in many

other paffages of our author. Browne, in his PASTORALS, has RAPE, a verb, often. And Drayton, ECL. v. vol. iv. p. 1407. TO RAPE the field with touches of his string.

Jonfon has RAP. MASQUES, vol. v. p. 28.

And did fo lately rap

From forth the mother's lap.

RAPT is fometimes, but lefs frequently, found in its literal fenfe.
As in Drayton, LEGEND of P. Gavefton, vol. ii. p. 569. `
Like sportfull Jove with his RAPT Phrygian page.

And in our author, PARAD. L. B. iii.

522.

RAPT in a chariot drawn by fiery feeds.

And in PARAD. REG. B. ii. 40.

What accident

Hath RAPT him from us?

VOL. I.

K

Perhaps

There held in holy paffion still,

Forget thyself to marble, till

With a fad leaden downward caft

Thou fix them on the earth as fast:

And join with thee calm Peace, and Quiet,
Spare Fast, that oft with Gods doth diet,
And hears the Muses in a ring

Ay round about Jove's altar fing:

And add to these retired Leifure,

45

Perhaps in the two following paffages, if not in the preceding inftance, from the PARADISE LOST, the literal and metaphorical fenfes are blended. B. xi. 706.

Standing on earth, not RAPT above the pole.

As in Pope's MESSIAH, V. 7.

RAPT into future times the bard begun.

Compare Spenfer, F. Q. iv. ix. 6.

That with the fweetneffe of her rare delight

The prince half RAPT.-—

And Berni, ORL. INAM. L.i. C. xxv. 42. "Rapito in paradifo."

41. There held in holy paffion ftill,

Forget thyself to marble.-] It is the fame fort of petrifac tion in our author's EPITAPH on Shakespeare.

There thou our fancy of itself bereaving,

Doft make us MARBLE BY TOO MUCH CONCEIVING.

In both inftances, excefs of thought is the cause.

43. With a fad leaden downward caft.] Hence Gray's expreffive phrafeology, of the fame perfonage, HYMN TO ADVERSITY. With leaden eye that loves the ground.

47. And bears the Mufes in a ring

Ay round about Jove's altar fing.] From the Greek poets. He had given almoft the fame mythology before, in one of his Prolufions. Hinc quoque Mufarum, circa Jovis altaria dies noctefque faltantium, ab ultima rerum origine increbruit fa"bula." PROSEWORKS, ii. 588.

So

That in trim gardens takes his pleasure :
But first, and chiefeft, with thee bring,
Him that yon foars on golden wing,
Guiding the fiery-wheeled throne,

The Cherub Contemplation;

So alfo the learned and elegant L. Gyraldus, to the Muses, OPP. vol. ii. p. 925. edit. Lugd. Bat. 1696. fol.

Et Jovis ad folium dulce movetis ebur] 50. See Note on PARAD. REG. ii. 295. 52. Him that yon foars on golden wing,

Guiding the fiery-wheeled throne,

;

The Cherub Contemplation.] By contemplation, is here meant that ftretch of thought, by which the mind ascends "To the first good, firft perfect, and first fair;" and is therefore very properly faid to foar on golden wing, guiding the fiery-wheeled throne that is, to take a high and glorious flight, carrying bright ideas of deity along with it. But the whole imagery alludes to the cherubic forms that conveyed the fiery-wheeled car in Ezekiel, x. 2. feq. See alfo Milton himself, PAR. L. vi. 750. So that nothing can be greater or juster than this idea of DIVINE CONTEMPLATION. Contemplation, of a more fedate turn, and intent only on human things, is more fitly defcribed, as by Spenfer, under the figure of an old man; time and experience qualifying men best for this office. Spenfer might then be right in his imagery; and yet Milton might be right in his, without being fupposed to ramble after fome fanciful Italian. H.

I cannot agree with Doctor Newton, that this reprefentation of Contemplation has the gaiety of a Cupid. I know not that Cupid is ever feigned to foar on golden wing amid the brightness of the empyreum; nor that a cherub is an infantine angel, except in the ideas of a dauber for a country-church. To fay nothing, that gaiety cannot very properly belong to the notion of a being, who is "guiding the fiery-wheeled throne." Shakespeare has indeed given us the vulgar Cherub, in K. HENR. viii. A. i. S. i. Their dwarfish pages were

As Cherubims, all gilt.

57.

But that Milton's uniform conception of this fpecies of angel was very different, appears from various paffages of the PARADISE LOST. Satan calls Beelzebub " fallen Cherub," B. i. Cherub and Seraph, part of the rebel warriour-angels, are " rolling in the "flood with fcatter'd arms and enfigns." Ibid. 324. Again, "Millions of FLAMING fwords are drawn from the THIGHS of MIGHTY Cherubim." B. i. 665. The cherub Zephon is a leader