. Whom Jove's great son to her glad husband gave, faint. Mine, as whom wash'd from spot of child-bed taint Purification in the old Law did fave, And fuch, as yet once more I trust to have Full fight of her in Heav'n without restraint, Came vested all in white, pure as her mind Her face was veil'd, yet to my fancied fight 5 This Sonnet was written about the year 1661, on the death of his fecond wife, Catharine, the daughter of captain Woodcock of Hackney, a rigid fectarist. She died in child-bed of a daughter, within a year after their marriage. Milton had now been totally blind for two or three years fo that this might have been one of his day-dreams. Captain Woodcock had a brother Francis, as I collect, a covenanter, and of the affembly of divines, who was prefented by the ufurping powers to the benefice of S. Olave in Southwark, 1646. One of his furname, perhaps the fame with this Francis, was appointed by parliament in 1659, to approve of minifters; was a great frequenter of conventicles, and has fome puritanical fermons extant in The morning exercise methodized, 1676. 2. Brought to me like Alceftis.-] The last scene of the ALCESTIS of Euripides, our author's favourite writer, to which he alludes in this paffage, is remarkably pathetic; particularly at v. 1155. Ω φίλτατης γυναικός όμμα, &c. And all that follows on Hercules's discovering that it was his wife whom Hercules had brought to him covered with a veil. And equally tender and pathetic is the paffage in the first Act, which describes Alceftis taking leave of her family and house, when she had refolved to die to fave her husband: particularly from v. 175. to v. 196. Thomfon clofely copied this paffage in his EDWARD and ELEONORA. I have often wondered, that Addifon, who has made fo many obfervations on the allegory of SIN and DEATH, in the PARADISE LOST, did not recollect, that the perfon of DEATH, was clearly and obviously taken from the ANATO of Euripides in this Tragedy of ALCESTIS. Dr. J. WARTON. Love, sweetness, goodness, in her person shin'd So clear, as in no face with more delight. But O, as to embrace me she inclin'd, I wak'd, fhe fled, and day brought back my night *. Birch has printed a Sonnet said to be written by Milton, in 1665, when he retired to Chalfont on account of the plague, and to have been lately feen infcribed on the glafs of a window in that place. LIFE, p. xxxviii. It has the word SHEENE as a fubftantive. But Milton was not likely to commit a fcriptural mistake. For the Sonnet improperly reprefents David as punished by a peftilence for his adultery with Bathsheba. Birch, however, had been informed by Vertue, that he had feen a fatirical medal, ftruck upon Charles the fecond, abroad, without any legend, having a correspondent device. TRANS TRANSLATIONS. The FIFTH ODE of HORACE, Lib. I. * WH HAT flender youth bedew'd with liquid Courts thee on rofes in fome pleasant cave, In wreaths thy golden hair, * This piece did not appear in the first edition of the year 1645. 1. What flender youth.] In this measure, my friend and schoolfellow Mr. William Collins wrote his admired Ode to EVENING; and I know he had a defign of writing many more Odes without rhyme. In this measure alfo, an elegant Ode was written on the PARADISE LOST, by the late captain Thomas, formerly a ftudent of Chrift-church Oxford, at the time that Mr. Benson gave medals as prizes for the best verfes that were produced on Milton, at all our great schools. It feems to be an agreed point, that Lyric poetry cannot exist without rhyme in our language. The following Trochaics of Mr. Glover are harmonious, however, without rhyme. Pride of art, majestic columns, Lift your flow'r-infculptur'd heads; Plain in thy neatness? O how oft shall he Who now enjoys thee credulous, all gold, Hopes thee, of flattering gales Unmindful. Hapless they 5 IO To whom thou untry'd feem'ft fair. Me in my vow'd Picture, the facred wall declares t' have hung Dr. J. WARTON might have added, that his own ODE to EVENING was written before that of his friend Collins; as was a Poem of his, entitled the ASSEMBLY OF THE PASSIONS, before Collins's favourite Ode on that fubject. There are extant two excellent Odes, of the trueft tafte, written in unrhyming metre many years ago by two of the students of ChriftChurch Oxford, and among its chief ornaments, now high in the church. One is on the death of Mr. Langton who died on his travels: the other is addreffed to George Onilow efquire. But it may be doubted, whether there is fufficient precifion and elegance in the English language for metre without rhyme. In England's HELICON, there is Oenone's complaint in blank verfe, by George Pecle, written about 1590. Signat. Q.4. edit. 1614. The verfes indeed are heroic, but the whole confifts of quatrains. I will exhibit the firft ftanza. Melpomene, the mufe of tragicke fongs With mournfull tunes, in ftole of dismall hue; And leave thy luftie company behind. v. 5. Plain in thy neatness?-] Rather, "plain in your ornaments.” Milton mistakes the idiomatical ufe and meaning of Munditia. She was plain in her drefs: or, more paraphraftically, in the manner of adorning berfelf. The fenfe of the context is, "For whom do you, who ftudy no ornaments of dress, thus unaffectedly bind up your "yellow locks?” A a a My My dank and dropping weeds To the ftern God of sea. GEOFFREY OF MONMOUTH. 15 BRUTUS thus addresses DIANA in the country of LEOGECIA. Goddess of fhades, and huntress, who at will Walk'ft on the rowling* fpheres, and through the deep; On thy third reign the earth look now, and tell. To whom, fleeping before the altar, DIANA answers in a vifion the fame night. Brutus, far to the weft, in th' ocean wide, Beyond the realm of Gaul, a land there lies, Sea-girt it lies, where gyants dwelt of old, Now voyd, it fits thy people: thither bend Thy course, there shalt thou find a lasting seat ; There to thy fons another Troy fhall rife, And kings be born of thee, whofe dreadful might a HIST. BRIT. i. xi. "Diva potens nemorum, &c." * Tickell and Fenton read lowring. Shall |