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Verborum sensusque vacans, numerique loquacis?
Silvestres decet iste choros, non Orphea cantus,
Qui tenuit fluvios, et quercubus addidit aures, ..
Carmine, non cithara; simulachraque functa canendo
Compulit in lacrymas: habet has a carmine laudes. 55
Nec tu perge, precor, sacras contemnere Musas,
Nec vanas inopesque puta, quarum ipse peritus
Munere, mille sonos numeros componis ad aptos,
Millibus et vocem modulis variare canoram
Doctus, Arionii merito sis nominis hæres.
Nunc tibi quid mirum, si me genuisse poetam
Contigerit, charo si tam prope sanguine juncti,
Cognatas artes, studiumque affine sequamur?
Ipse volens Phoebus se dispertire duobus,
Altera dona mihi, dedit altera dona parenti;
Dividuumque Deum, genitorque puerque, tenemus.

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Drew iron tears down Pluto's cheek.

52. He alludes to the Song of Here we have, Orpheus, in Apollonius Rhodius, i. 277. He " sung of Chaos to "the Orphean lyre," Par. Lost, b. iii. 17. See also Onomacritus, Argon. v. 438.

53. quercubus addidit aures,] So also of Orpheus, Par. Lost,

b. vii. 35.

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See above, at v. 22.

66. Dividuumque Deum, geni torque puerque, tenemus.] The topic of persuasion is happily selected. Dividuus our author has twice Anglicised in Paradise Lost, b. vii. 382. Where see the note. And again, b. xii. 85.

Milton's father was well skilled in music. Philips says, that he composed an In nomine of forty parts, for which he was honoured with a gold chain and medal by a Polish prince, to whom he presented it. He is mentioned by Wood in his manuscript History of English Musicians. "John "Milton, a musician livinge in "the reigne of Queene Elizabeth, "James I. Charles I. We have "some of his compositions in the

Tu tamen ut simules teneras odisse Camœnas, Non odisse reor; neque enim, pater, ire jubebas Qua via lata patet, qua pronior area lucri, Certaque condendi fulget spes aurea nummi : Nec rapis ad leges, male custoditaque gentis Jura, nec insulsis damnas clamoribus aures ;

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publick Musicke Schoole at "Oxford." MSS. Mus. Ashm. D. 19. 4to. Among the psalm tunes, published by Thomas Ravenscroft in 1633, are many with the name of John Milton; more particularly, that common one called York tune, the tenor part of which was such a favourite, as to be used by nurses for a lullaby, and as a chime-tune for churches. He has several songs for five voices, in "The Tears or "lamentations of a sorrowfull soule, composed with musical ayres and songs both for voices "and divers instruments," containing also compositions by Bird, Bull, Orlando Gibbons, Dowland the lutanist, Ferabosco, Coperario, Weelks, Wilbye, and others the most celebrated masters of the times, written and published by Sir William Leighton, knight, a gentleman-pensioner, and a good musician, in 1614. He has a madrigal for five voices, among the numerous contributions of the most capital performers, in the Triumphs of Oriana, pub lished by Morley in 1601. [See note on Comus, v. 495.] This collection is said to have been planned by the Earl of Nottingham, Lord High Admiral; who, with a view to sooth Queen Elizabeth's despair for the recent execution of Lord Essex by flattering her preposterous vanity,

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gave for a prize-subject to the best poets and musicians, whom he liberally rewarded, the beauty and accomplishments of his royal mistress, now a decrepit virgin on the brink of seventy. But maiden queens are in perpetual bloom.

Our author's father seems also to have been a writer. For in the Register of the Stationers, John Busby enters on Dec. 15, 1608, "A Sixe fold Politician by "John Milton." A copy of this book is in the Bodleian library, which appears to have belonged to Burton, who wrote on Melancholy.

66. The "Six-fold Politician" ought probably to be ascribed to John Milton, author of the Astrologaster. Hayley.

71. He had Ovid in his head. Amor. i. xv. 5.

Non me verbosas leges ediscere, nec

me

Ingrato vocem prostituisse foro, &c. He speaks with a like contempt for the study of the Law to Hartlib, Tract. Educat. "Some "allured to the Trade of Law, "grounding their purposes not "on the prudent and heavenly "contemplation of justice and "equity which was never taught "them, but on the promising "and pleasing thoughts of liti

gious terms, fat contentions, "and flowing fees."

Sed magis excultam cupiens ditescere mentem,
Me procul urbano strepitu, secessibus altis
Abductum, Aoniæ jucunda per otia ripæ,
Phœbæo lateri comitem sinis ire beatum.
Officium chari taceo commune parentis,
Me poscunt majora: tuo, pater optime, sumptu
Cum mihi Romulea patuit facundia linguæ,
Et Latii veneres, et quæ Jovis ora decebant
Grandia magniloquis elata vocabula Graiis,
Addere suasisti quos jactat Gallia flores;
Et quam degeneri novus Italus ore loquelam
Fundit, barbaricos testatus voce tumultus ;
Quæque Palæstinus loquitur mysteria vates.
Denique quicquid habet cœlum, subjectaque cœlo
Terra parens, terræque et cœlo interfluus aer,
Quicquid et unda tegit, pontique agitabile marmor,

75. Aubrey, in Milton's manuscript Life, says, that he " was "ten yeares old by his picture, " and then a poet." The picture is that by Cornelius Jansen.

83. novus Italus, &c.] Milton was so well skilled in Italian, that at Florence, the Crusca, an academy instituted for recovering and preserving the purity of the Florentine language, often consulted him on the critical niceties of that language. He tells Benedetto Buonmatteo, who was writing an Italian grammar, in a Latin Letter dated at Florence, 1638, that although he had indulged in copious draughts of Roman and Grecian literature, yet that he came with a fresh eagerness and delight to the luxuries of Dante and Petrarch, and the rest of the Italian poets;

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and that Athens with its pellucid Ilissus, and Rome with its banks of the Tiber, could not detain him from the Arno of Florence, and the hills of Fesole. Prose Works, ii. 570. See also Francini's panegyric. His Italian Sonnets shew that he was a master of the language. Dr. Johnson is of opinion, that Milton's acquaintance with the Italian writers may be discovered in his Lycidas, by the mixture of longer and shorter verses, according to the rules of the Tuscan poetry.

84. barbaricos testatus voce tumultus;] The pure Roman language was corrupted by barbaric, or Gothic, invaders. He adopts Barbaricus, used by Virgil more than once, into English. Par. Lost, b. ii. 4. "Barbaric pearl " and gold."

Per te nosse licet, per te, si nosse libebit:
Dimotaque venit spectanda scientia nube,
Nudaque conspicuos inclinat ad oscula vultus,
Ni fugisse velim, ni sit libasse molestum.

I nunc, confer opes, quisquis malesanus avitas
Austriaci gazas, Peruanaque regna præoptas.
Quæ potuit majora pater tribuisse, vel ipse
Jupiter, excepto, donasset ut omnia, cœlo ?
Non potiora dedit, quamvis et tuta fuissent,
Publica qui juveni commisit lumina nato,
Atque Hyperionios currus, et fræna diei,
Et circum undantem radiata luce tiaram.
Ergo ego jam doctæ pars quamlibet ima catervæ,
Victrices hederas inter, laurosque sedebo;
Jamque nec obscurus populo miscebor inerti,
Vitabuntque oculos vestigia nostra profanos.
Este procul vigiles curæ, procul este querelæ,
Invidiæque acies transverso tortilis hirquo,
Sæva nec anguiferos extende calumnia rictus;
In me triste nihil fœdissima turba potestis,
Nec vestri sum juris ego; securaque tutus
Pectora, vipereo gradiar sublimis ab ictu.
At tibi, chare pater, postquam non æqua merenti

93. I nunc, confer opes, &c.] Ovid, Epist. Heroid. xii. 204.

I nunc, Sisyphias, improbe, confer opes. 106. Invidiæque acies transverso tortilis hirquo, The best comment on this line is the following description of envy, raised to the highest pitch, in Par. Lost,

iv. 502.

-Aside the Devil turn'd

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107. Anguiferos rictus is certainly an inaccurate expression. Calumnia is, I fear, the property of prose rather than of poetry. Many of Milton's expressions in his Latin poems are not supported by high classical authority. Symmons.

109. Perhaps Milton might be justified in lengthening the last

For envy, yet with jealous leer malign syllable of ego, as the ictus of Ey'd them askance.

the verse falls on it. Symmons.

Posse referre datur, nec dona rependere factis,
Sit memorasse satis, repetitaque munera grato
Percensere animo, fidæque reponere menti.

Et vos, O nostri, juvenilia carmina, lusus,
Si modo perpetuos sperare audebitis annos,
Et domini superesse rogo, lucemque tueri,
Nec spisso rapient oblivia nigra sub Orco;
Forsitan has laudes, decantatumque parentis
Nomen, ad exemplum, sero servabitis ævo.*

PSALM CXIV.†

ΙΣΡΑΗΛ ὅτε παιδες, ὅτ' ἀγλαὰ φυλ ̓ Ἰακώβου
Αἰγύπτιον λίπε δῆμον, ἀπεχθέα, βαρβαρόφωνον,

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+ Whoever will carefully compare this Psalm with Duport's version, will find this of Milton far superior; for in Duport's version are many solecisms. "Quod "infortunium, says Dawes very candidly, in cæteros itidem quosque, qui a sæculis recen"tioribus Græce scribere tenta"runt, cadere dicendum est." Miscellan. p. 1. Dr. J. Warton. Milton sent it to his friend Alexander Gill, in return for an elegant copy of hendecasyllables. "Mitto itaque quod non plane 66 meum est, sed et vatis etiam "illius vere divini, cujus hanc "oden altera ætatis septimana, "nullo certo animi proposito, "sed subito nescio quo impetu,

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"ante lucis exortum, ad Græci
"carminis heroici legem, in le-
"ctulo fere concinnabam."
adds, "It is the first and only

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66

He

thing I have ever wrote in "Greek, since I left your school; "for, as you know, I am now "fond of composing in Latin or "English. They in the present age who write in Greek, are singing to the deaf. Farewell, " and on Tuesday next expect "me in London among the book"sellers." Epist. Fam. Dec. 4, 1634. Prose Works, ii. 567. He was now therefore twenty-eight years old. In the postscript to Bucer on Divorce, he thus expresses his aversion to translation. "Me who never could delight "in long citations, much less in "whole traductions; whether it "be natural disposition or edu"cation in me, or that my mo"ther bore me a speaker of what "God made mine own, and not

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