Aristotelian philosophy; his sons, ten in number, represented Substance and its nine conditions or accidents, Quantity, Quality, Time, Place, etc. These ten, taken together, make up the Aristotelian categories, or, as they are here called, Predicaments, of being. The second part of the verse-fragments consists of a figurative account of Substance, both in himself and as he is affected by the nine accidents. Although thus elaborately introduced, Substance does not speak, perhaps because it is only when affected by the accidents that substance becomes perceptible. The prose speeches of Quantity, Quality, and the other accidents, have not been preserved. It only remains to be noted that the part of Relation was taken by one of the two sons, George and Nizell, of Sir John Rivers, then freshmen at Christ's. The last ten lines of the fragment constitutes a punning allusion to the name. The Latin speeches ended, the English thus be Which deepest spirits and choicest wits desire. I have some naked thoughts that rove about, And loudly knock to have their passage out, And, weary of their place, do only stay Till thou hast decked them in thy best array; That so they may, without suspect or fears, Before thou clothe my fancy in fit sound: pass When beldam Nature in her cradle was; And last of Kings and Queens and Heroes old, Such as the wise Demodocus once told Expectance calls thee now another way. Thou know'st it must be now thy only bent To keep in compass of thy Predicament. Then quick about thy purposed business Come tripping to the room where thou didst lie, And, sweetly singing round about thy bed, Strew all their blessings on thy sleeping head. She heard them give thee this, that thou shouldst still From eyes of mortals walk invisible. For once it was my dismal hap to hear Foresaw what future days should bring to ON SHAKESPEARE These lines first appeared, along with other commendatory verses by various authors, prefixed to the second folio edition of Shakespeare, published in 1632. They are, however, dated two years earlier in the 1645 edition of Milton's poems. The original title is, "An Epitaph on the Admirable Dramatick Poet, W. Shakespeare." WHAT needs my Shakespeare, for his hon oured bones, The labour of an age in pilèd stones? Thou, in our wonder and astonishment Thomas Hobson, the University carrier or expressman," was a well-known figure in Cambridge during Milton's undergraduateship. For more than half a century he had driven a coach between the university and the Bull Inn, in Bishopsgate Street, London, carrying letters, parcels, and passengers. In the spring of 1630 the plague, which was then raging in various parts of England, broke out in the colleges so violently that all academic exercises had to be suspended. As a precaution against the spread of the disease, the coach communication with London was stopped, and old Hobson, at the age of 86, found his occupation gone. When the colleges opened in November the plague had abated, but Hobson was unable to resume his journeys; he died on the 1st of January, 1631, killed, Milton humorously supposes, by the tedium of his enforced idleness. In connection with his coaching, Hobson kept a stable of horses, which he let out to the students and officers of the University. These he assigned by rotation, never allowing the personal preference of a customer to determine his mount; hence arose the phrase "Hobson's choice." Rest, that gives all men life, gave him his death, And too much breathing put him out of breath; Nor were it contradiction to affirm ened, The subject of this epitaph was Jane, wife of John Paulet, fifth Marquis of Winchester, and daughter of Thomas, Viscount Savage. She was noted for her beauty and intelligence; and her death in childbirth, at the age of twenty-three, evoked besides the present poem an elaborate tribute from the poet-laureate, Ben Jonson. What led Milton to write upon her death is unknown, as no record of any connection between him and the Marchioness has reached us. It is possible that the George and Nizell Rivers, addressed in the Vacation Exercise, were her relatives, since her mother was a daughter of the Earl of Rivers. If Milton's acquaintance with them would perhaps have afforded an adequate incentive. THIS rich marble doth inter A viscount's daughter, an earl's heir, So, More than she could own from earth. To house with darkness and with death! 10 Yet, had the number of her days Her high birth and her graces sweet 20 30 40 And with remorseless cruelty Next her, much like to thee in story, Who, after years of barrenness, 50 60 |