She can teach ye how to clime

1020

Higher than the fphery chime;

Or if Virtue feeble were,

Heav'n itself would stoop to her.

1020. She can teach ye how to Would bow to her, was at first in

clime &c] These four concluding verfes furnish'd Mr. Pope with the thought for the conclufion of his ode on St. Cecilia's day.

1023.

the Manufcript, and we have been at the trouble of transcribing these variations and alterations more for the fatisfaction of the curious, than Warburton. for any entertainment that it af would stoop to her.] forded to ourselves,

LYCIDA S.

In this monody the author bewails a learned friend, unfortunately drown'd in his paffage from Chester

on the Irish feas, 1637. and by occafion foretels the ruin of our corrupted clergy, then in their highth.

Y

ET once more, O ye Laurels, and once more
Ye Myrtles brown, with Ivy never sere,

:

I

to the memory of his deceas'd lady by a gentleman, whose excellent poetry is the leaft of his many ex-.. cellences.

1. Yet once more

-] The poem

begins somewhat like Virgil's Gallus,

Extremum hunc, Arethufa, mihi concede laborem :

orders and the paftoral care, which gives a peculiar propriety to feveral paffages in it and in compofing it the poet had an eye particularly to Virgil's 10th Eclogue lamenting the unhappy loves of Gallus, and to Spenfer's paftoral poems upon the death of the Mufes favorite, Sir Philip Sidney. The reader cannot but obferve, that there are more antiquated and obfolete words in this than in any other of Mil- And this yet once more is said in al-› ton's poems; which I conceive to lufion to his former poems upon be owing partly to his judgment, the like occafions, On the death for he might think them more of a fair infant dying of a cough, ruftic, and better adapted to the Epitaph on the Marchionefst of nature of paftoral poetry; and Winchefter, &c. partly to his imitating of Spenfer, for as Spenfer's ftile is most antiquated, where he imitates Chaucer moft, in his Shepherds Calendar, fo Milton's imitations of Spenfer might have the fame effect upon the language of this poem. It is called a monody, from a Greek word fignifying a mournful or funeral fong fung by a fingle perfon; and we have lately had two admi- ̧ rable poems publish'd under this title, one occafion'd by the death of Mr. Pope by a very ingenious poet of Cambridge, and the other

I.

more

O ye Laurels, and once

Ye Myrtles brown, with Ivy never

fere,] The laurel, as he was a poet, for that was facred to Apollo; the myrtle, as he was of a proper age for love, for that was the plant of Venus; the ivy, as a reward of his learning. Hor. Od. I. I. 29.

doctarum ederæ præmia frontium.

Ivy never fere, that is never dry, never wither'd, being one of the ever-greens. We have the word

I come to pluck your berries harfh and crude,
And with forc'd fingers rude

Shatter your leaves before the mellowing year.
Bitter constraint, and fad occafion dear,
Compels me to disturb your feafon due :
For Lycidas is dead, dead ere his prime,
Young Lycidas, and hath not left his
Who would not fing for Lycidas? he knew
Himself to fing, and build the lofty rhime.

in Paradife Loft X. 1071. where it was explain'd and juftified by parallel inftances from Spenfer.

3. I come to pluck your berries harsh

and crude,] This beautiful allufion to the unripe age of his friend, in which death batter'd bis leaves before the mellowing year, is not antique, I think, but of those fecret graces of Spenfer See his Eclogue of January in the Shepherd's Calendar. The poet there fays of himself under the name of Colin Clout,

peer:

5

ΤΟ

He

Alfo my luftfal leaf is dry and I. III. 24. fére,

feu condis amabile carmen.

which explains too the old word De Arte poet. 436. in the fecond line. Richardfon.

6. Bitter conftraint, and fad occafron dear,] So in Spenfer, Faery Queen, B. 1. Cant. 1. St. 53.

fi carmina condes.

He must not flote upon his watry bier

Jnwept, and welter to the parching wind,
Without the meed of fome melodious tear.
Begin then, Sifters of the facred well,

That from beneath the feat of Jove doth fpring,
Begin, and fomewhat loudly fweep the string.
Hence, with denial vain, and coy excufe,

fome gentle Muse

15

So may
With lucky words favor

And as he paffes turn,

-but honor, virtue's meed, Doth bear the fairest flow'r in honorable feed.

15. Begin then, Sifters of the facred swell,

That from beneath the feat of jove deth Spring,] He means Hip pocrené, a fountain confecrated to the Mufes on mount Helicon, on the fide of which was an altar of Heliconian Jupiter, as Hefiod fays in the invocation for his poem on the generation of the Gods. Μεσαων Ελικωνιάδων αρχώμεθ' test, Αιθ' Ελικων για τε ζαθέοντες Και τε περι κρηνίω το ειδεα ποσσ'

σχεσιν οι με

απαλοισιν, Ορχώνται, και βωμον επιπενεθ Kegrior,

That haunt high Helicon, and the
pure fpring,

And altar of great Jove, with
printless feet
Dancing furround

Jupiter in imitation of the An-
This altar Milton calls the feat of
cients. So Virgil calls the temple.
of Venus Erycina on the fummit
of mount Eryx in Sicily, her feat,
Æn. V. 759-

Tum vicina aftris Erycino in,
vertice fedes
Fundatur Veneri

As he fays well for fountain, ufing
the old Anglo-Saxon word, which
is often used in Chaucer and Spen-
fer. Richardfon.

21. And as he paffes turn,] He for the Mufe feems extraordinary. See Mr. Jortin's note on ver. 973

Begin we from the Mufes ftill to of Samfon Agoniftes, where this change of the gender is confider'd.

fing,

22. And