Or rocky Avon, or of fedgy Lee, Or coaly Tine, or ancient hallow'd Dee, Or Humber loud that keeps the Scythian's name, [The rest was profe.] 100 96. Or Severn fwift, guilty of maiden's death.] The maiden is Sabrina. See COMUS, V. 827. 98.Antient hallow'd Dee.] In Apollonius Rhodius we have σε Φάσιδι συμφέρεται ἹΕΡΟΝ ῥέον.” iv. 134. And in Theocritus, "Axidos IEPON dwg." IDYLL. i. 69. See alfo "DIVINE Al"pheus," in ARCADES, V. 30. Other proofs might be added. But Milton is not claffical here. Dee's divinity was Druidical. From the fame fuperftition, fome rivers in Wales are still held to have the gift or virtue of prophecy. Gyraldus Cambrenfis, who writes in 1188, is the first who mentions Dee's fanctity, and from the popular traditions. See Note on LYCIDAS, V. 55. 99. Or Humber loud that keeps the Scythian's name.] Humber, a Scythian king, landed in Britain three hundred years before the Roman invafion, and was drowned in this river by Locrine, after conquering king Albanact. See Drayton, POLYOL B. S. viii. vol. ii. p. 796. Drayton has made a moft beautiful ufe of this tradition in his Elegy, Upon three fons of the Lord Sheffield drowned in "Humber." ELEGIES, vol. iv. p. 1244. O cruell Humber, guiltie of their gore! By thee deuoured: for 'tis likely thou With bloud wert chriften'd, bloud-thirsty, till now 100. Or Medway fmooth, or royal toured Thame.] The fmooth nefs of the Medway is characterised in Spenfer's MOURNING MUSE OF THESTYLIS. The Medwaies filuer ftreames, That wont fo STILL TO GLIDE, Were troubled now and wroth. The royal towers of Thames imply Windsor castle, familiar to Mil◄ ton's view, and to which I have already remarked his allufions. AN AN EPITAPH WHA on the admirable dramaticke Poet W. SHAKESPEARE.* WHAT needs my Shakespeare for his honour'd bones, The labour of an age in piled ftones? Or that his hallow'd reliques should be hid Dear fon of memory, great heir of fame, What need'st thou fuch weak witness of thy name? 5 *This is but an ordinary poem to come from Milton, on fuch a fubject. But he did not yet know his own strength, or was content to diffemble it, out of deference to the falfe tafte of his time, The conceit, of Shakespeare's lying fepulcher'd in a tomb of his own making, is in Waller's manner, not his own. But he made Shakefpeare amends in his L'ALLEGRO, v. 133. H. Birch, and from him doctor Newton, afferts, that this copy of verses was written in the twenty fecond year of Milton's age, and printed with the Poems of Shakespeare at London in 1640. It firft appeared among other recommendatory verfes, prefixed to the folio edition of Shakespeare's plays in 1632. But without Milton's name or initials. This therefore is the first of Milton's pieces that was published. It was with great difficulty and reluctance, that Milton first appeared as an author. He could not be prevailed upon to put his name to CoмUs, his firft performance of any length that was printed, notwithstanding the fingular approbation with which it had been previously received in a long and extenfive course of private circulation. LYCIDAS in the Cambridge collection is only fubfcribed with his initial. Moft of the other contributors have left their names at full length. We have here restored the title from the fecond folio of ShakeSpeare. 8. A live-long monument.] It is lafting in the folio Shakefpeare, and the edition of thefe Poems, 1645. So in Tonfon, 1695, and For whilft to th' fhame of flow-endevoring art 10 15 On the UNIVERSITY CARRIER, who fickened in the time of his vacancy, being forbid to go to London, by reason of the plague.* HER ERE lies old Hobfon; Death hath broke his girt, 5 And here, alas, hath laid him in the dirt; And thinking now his journey's end was come, and 1765. And in Tickell, and Fenton. Milton I fuppofe, altered it to livelong, edit. 1673. * I wonder Milton fhould fuffer these two things on Hobfon to appear in his edition of 1645. He, who at the age of nineteen, had fo just a contempt for, Those new-fangled toys, and trimming flight, H. And And that he had ta'en up his latest inn, In the kind office of a chamberlin 14 Show'd him his room where he must lodge that night, Pull'd off his boots, and took away the light: If any afk for him, it fhall be fed, Hobfon has fupt, and's newly gone to bed. H' ANOTHER on the fame.* ERE lieth one, who did moft truly prove That he could never die while he could move; So hung his destiny, never to rot While he might still jog on and keep his trot, Until his revolution was at stay. 5 14. In the kind office of a Chamberlin, &c.] I believe the Chamberlain is an officer not yet discontinued in fome of the old inns in the city. But Chytraeus a German, who vifited England about 1580, and put his travels into Latin verfe, mentions it as an extraordinary circumftance, that it was the custom of cur inns to be waited upon by women. In Peele's OLD WIVES TALE, of which before, Fantastique fays, "I had euen as liue the chamberlaine of "the White Horse had called me vp to bed." A. i. S. i. Hobfon's inn at London was the Bull in Bishops-gate-street, where his figure in fresco with an inscription, was lately to be feen. Peck, at the end of his MEMOIRS of CROMWELL, has printed Hobfon's Will, which is dated at the clofe of the year 1630. He died Jan. 1, 1630, while the plague was in London. This piece was written that year. The proverb, to which Hobfon's caprice, founded perhaps on good fenfe, gave rife, needs not to be repeated. Milton was now a student at Cambridge. • Among archbishop Sancroft's tranfcripts of poetry made by him at Cambridge, now in the Bodleian library, is an anonymous poem on the death of Hobfon. It was perhaps a common fubject for the wits of Cambridge. I take this opportunity of obferving, that in the fame bundle is a poem on Milton's friend LYCIDAS, Mr. King, by Mr. Booth, of Corpus Chrifti, not in the published collection. Coll. MSS. TANN. 465. See pp. 235. 237. Time Time numbers motion, yet (without a crime Too long vacation haften'd on his term. Merely to drive the time away he ficken'd, IO 15 Fainted, and died, nor would with ale be quicken'd; 20 That even to his last breath (there be that fay't) 25 He had been an immortal carrier. Yet (strange to think) his wain was his increase: Only remains this fuperfcription. 30 On |