Quis putet? hic quoque Amor, pictæque in nube pharetræ, Arma corusca faces, et spicula tincta pyropo; 195 Tu quoque in his, nec me fallit spes lubrica, Damon, Tu quoque in his certe es, nam quo tua dulcis abiret Sanctaque simplicitas, nam quo tua candida virtus? 200 Nec te Lethæo fas quæsivisse sub orco, Nec tibi conveniunt lacrymæ, nec flebimus ultra, Ite procul lacrymæ, purum colit æthera Damon, Æthereos haurit latices, et gaudia potat Ore sacro. Quin tu, cœli post jura recepta, Dexter ades, placidusqus fave quicunque vocaris, 195. He aims his darts up wards, per orbes, among the stars. He wounds the gods. 198. Tu quoque in his, &c.] The transition is elegant. 201. Nec te Lethao fas quasivisse sub orco, &c.] From this line to the last but one, the imagery is almost all from his own Lycidas, v. 165–185. 210. For the accommodation 205 210 of his verse, the poet has in this place happily translated the name of his friend Deodati into Greek. But Milton was fond of these versions of a name which was so susceptible of translation. In each of the two familiar letters to his friend, which are extant, he calls him Theodotus. Sym mons. Grata fuit, quod nulla tori libata voluptas, Jan. 23. 1646. Ad JOANNEM ROUSIUM Oxoniensis Academice Bibliothecarium.† 215 De libro Poematum amisso, quem ille sibi denuo mitti postulabat, ut cum aliis nostris in Bibliotheca publica reponeret, Ode. STROPHE 1. GEMELLE cultu simplici gaudens liber, 214. En etiam tibi virginei servantur honores ;] Deodate and Lycidas were both unmarried. See Revelations, for his allusion, xiv. 3, 4. * Doctor Johnson observes, that this poem is "written with "the common but childish imi"tation of pastoral life." Yet there are some new and natural country images, and the common topics are often recommended by a novelty of elegant expression. The pastoral form is a fault of the poet's times. It contains also some passages which wander far beyond the bounds of bucolic song, and are in his own original style of the more sublime poetry. Milton cannot be a shepherd long. His own native powers often break forth, and cannot bear the assumed disguise. † John Rouse, or Russe, Master of Arts, Fellow of Oriel College, Oxford, was elected chief librarian of the Bodleian, May 9, 1620. He died in April, 1652, and was buried in the chapel of his college. He succeeded to Thomas James, the first that held this office from the foundation. In painted glass, in a window of the Provost's Lodgings at Oriel College, are the heads of Sir Thomas Bodley, James, and Rouse, by Van Ling. Hearne says, they were put up by Munditieque nitens non operosa; Rouse: they were probably brought from Rouse's apartment to the Provost's Lodgings, when the College was rebuilt" about "1640." Hearne, MSS. Coll. xii. p. 13. Rouse's portrait, large as life, a three quarters length, and coeval, is in the Bodleian library. He published an Appendix to James's Bodleian Catalogue, Oxon. 1636. 4to. In 1631, the University printed, Epistola ad Johannem Cirenbergium, ob acceptum Syno"dalium Epistolarum Concilii "Basileensis AvToygaQov, præfixa "variorum carminibus honora"riis in eundem Cirenbergium. "Oxon. 1631." In quarto. Where among the names of the writers in Latin, are Richard Busby of Christ Church, afterwards the celebrated Master of Westminster: Jasper Maine, and Thomas Cartwright, both well known as English poets, and of the same college: and Thomas Masters of New college, author of the famous Greek Öde on the Crucifixion. The Dedication, to Cirenberg, is written by our librarian Rouse, who seems to have conducted the publication. In it he speaks of his Travels, and particularly of his return from Italy through Basil. He has a copy of not inelegant Latin Elegiacs, in the Oxford verses, called Britannia Natalis, Oxon. 1630. 4to. p. 62. Hearne says, Hearne says, that Rouse was intimate with Burton, author of the celebrated book on Melancholie; and that he furnished Burton with choice books for that work. MSS. Coll. cxli. p. 114. He lived on terms of the most intimate friendship with G. J. Vossius; by whom he was highly valued and respected for his learning, and activity in promoting literary undertakings. This appears from Vossius's Epistles to Rouse, viz. Epp. 73, 130, 144, 256, 409, 427. See Colomesius's Vossii Epistolæ, Lond. 1690. fol. There is also a long and well-written Epistle from Rouse to Vossius, Ep. 352. ibid. ad calc. p. 241. Degory Wheare, the first Camden Professor, sends his Book De Ratione et Methodo_legendi Historias, in 1625, to Rouse, with a Letter inscribed, "Joanni Rousao litera"tissimo Academico meo." See Wheare Epistolarum Eucharisticarum Fasciculus, Oxon. 1628. 12mo. p. 113. Not only on account of his friendship with Milton, which appears to have subsisted in 1637, but because he retained his librarianship and fellowship through Cromwell's Usurpation, we may suppose Rouse to have been puritanically inclined. See Notes on Sir Henry Wotton's Letter prefixed to Comus, supr. p. 119. However, in 1647, he was expelled from his fellowship; but soon afterwards, making his peace with the Presbyterian Visitors, was restored. Walker's Suff. Cler. p. ii. p. 132. We are told also by Walker, that when the presbyterian officers proceeded to search and pillage Sir Thomas Bodley's chest in the library, they quitted their design, on being told what there was to be found there, "by Rouse the librarian, a con"fiding brother." Ibid. p. i. p. 143. Juvenilis olim, Wood says, that when Lord Pembroke, Cromwell's Chancellor of the University of Oxford, took his chair in the Convocation house, in 1648, scarcely any of the loyal members attended, but that Rouse was present. Hist. Ant. Univ. Oxon. i. 401. col. 2. See a visionary letter of Dionysia Fitzherbert, of Bristol, to Rouse, Bibl. Bodl. MSS. Which, I find, is printed in Ashmole's Berkshire, iii. 377. Probably Milton might become acquainted with Rouse, when he was incorporated a Master of Arts at Oxford in 1635. Neale says, the Assembly of Divines in 1645, recommended the new version of the Psalms by Mr. Rouse, to be used instead of Sternhold's, which was grown obsolete. Hist. Pur. vol. iii. 315. edit. 1736. But this was Francis Rouse originally of Broadgate Hall, Oxford, one of the Assembly of Divines, the presbyterian Provost of Eton College, and an active instrument in the Calvinistic visitation of Oxford, who was bred in Broadgate Hall, and at his death in 1657, became a liberal benefactor to Pembroke college. 5 now tween the Latin and English Poems. It is the same marked M. 168. Art. 8vo. In the same library, is another small volume, uniformly bound with that last mentioned, of a few of Milton's prose tracts, the first of which is of Reformation touching Church Discipline, printed for T. Underhill, 1641. 4to. Marked F. 56. Th. In the first blank leaf, in Milton's own hand-writing, is this inscription, never before printed. "Doctissimo viro pro"boque librorum æstimatori Jo"hanni Rousio, Oxoniensis Aca"demiæ Bibliothecario, gratum "sibi hoc fore testanti, Joannes "Miltonus opuscula hæc sua, in' "Bibliothecam antiquissimam at"que celeberrimam adsciscenda, "libens tradit: tanquam in me"moriæ perpetuæ famam, eme"ritamque, uti sperat, invidiæ "calumniæque vacationem, si "veritati bonoque simul eventui "satis sit litatum. Sunt autem "De Reformatione Angliæ, lib. "2.-De Episcopatu Prælatico, "lib. 1.-De ratione Politiæ Ec"clesiasticæ, lib. 1.--Animad" versiones in Remonstrantis De"fensionem, lib. 1.-Apologia, "lib. 1.-Doctrina et disciplina r Divortii, lib. 2.-Judicium Bu"ceri de Divortio, lib. 1.-Co"lasterion, lib. 1.-Scripturæ lo Milton, at Rouse's request, had given his little volume of poems, printed in 1645, to the Bodleian library. But the book being lost, Rouse requested his friend Milton to send another copy. In 1646, another was sent by the author, neatly but plainly bound, munditie nitens non operosa, in which this ode to Rouse, in Mil-" ton's own hand-writing, on one sheet of paper, is inserted be ca de Divortio, instar lib. 4.— "Areopagitica, sive de libertate "Typographiæ oratio.-De E"ducatione Ingenuorum episto"la. [Tractate of Education to Hartlib.] Poemata Latina, et Anglicana seorsim." About the year 1720, these two volumes, with other small books, were Dum vagus Ausonias nunc per umbras, Nunc Britannica per vireta lusit, Indulsit patrio, mox itidem pectine Daunio Vicinis, et humum vix tetigit pede : ANTISTROPHE. Quis te, parve liber, quis te fratribus Subduxit reliquis dolo? Cum tu missus ab urbe, hastily, perhaps contemptuously, thrown aside as duplicates, either real or pretended: and Mr. Nathaniel Crynes, an esquire beadle, and a diligent collector of scarce English books, was permitted, on the promise of some future valuable bequests to the library, to pick out of the heap what he pleased. But he, having luckily many more grains of party prejudice than of taste, could not think any thing worth having that bore the name of the republican Milton; and therefore these two curiosities, which would be invaluable in a modern auction, were fortunately suffered to remain in the library, and were soon afterwards honourably restored to their original places, 1. Gemelle cultu simplici gaudens liber, Fronde licet gemina, &c.] By Fronde gemina we are to understand, metaphorically, the two-fold leaf, the Poems both English and Latin, of which the 10 15 volume consisted. So the Bodleian manuscript: and printed copies: but fronte is perhaps a better reading. This volume of Poems, 1645, has a double front or title-page; both separate and detached from each other, the one, at the beginning, prefixed to the Latin, and the other, about the middle, to the English poems. Under either reading, the volume is liber gemellus, a double book, as consisting of two distinct parts, yet cultu simplici, under the form and appearance, the habit, of a single book. 9. Insons populi,] Guiltless as yet of engaging in the popular disputes of these turbulent times. 10. mox itidem pectine Daunio] His Italian Sonnets, 16. Doclo jugiter obsecrante amico,] Hence it appears, that Rouse had importuned Milton to give the volume that was lost to the library. I suppose it was presented immediately on its publication in 1645. |