NOTES

A Defence of the People of England

Page 2. Salmasius (Claudius), Latinized name of Claude de Saumaise, b. 1588, d. 1653; regarded in his time, throughout Europe, as the paragon of scholarship; engaged, after the execution of Charles I., to defend the royal cause against the Commonwealth, which he endeavored to do in his Defensio Regia pro Carolo I., addressed to Charles II. In this work he defines a king ('if that,' says Milton, 'may be said to be defined which he makes infinite') 'to be a person in whom the supreme power of the kingdom resides, who is answerable to God alone, who may do whatsoever pleases him, who is bound by no law.'

P. 4, 5. single person: Milton himself, who replied to the Eikon Basilike, and refuted its 'maudlin sophistry' in his Eikonoklastes; antagonist of mine: Salmasius.

The Second Defence of the People of England

P. 7. one eminent above the rest: Salmasius.

P. 9, 10. columns of Hercules: the mountains on each side of the Straits of Gibraltar. It was fabled that they were formerly one mountain, which was rent asunder by Hercules. Triptolemus: the fabled inventor of the plough and the distributor of grain among men, under favor of Ceres.

P. 10. the most noble queen of Sweden: Christina, daughter of Gustavus Adolphus.

P. 12. Monstrum horrendum: a monster horrible, mis-shapen, huge, deprived of his eyesight; description of the Cyclops Polyphemus, whose one eye was put out by Ulysses.—Virgil's Æneid, iii. 658.

P. 14. Tiresias: the blind prophet of Thebes. Apollonius Rhodius: poet and rhetorician (B.C. 280-203), author of the Argonautica, a heroic poem on the Argonautic expedition to Colchis in quest of the golden fleece.

P. 14, 15. Timoleon of Corinth: Greek statesman and general, who expelled the tyrants from the Greek cities of Sicily, and restored the democratic form of government; died blind, 337 B.C. Appius Claudius: surnamed Cæcus from his blindness. Roman consul, 307 and 296; induced the senate, in his old age, to reject the terms of peace which Cineas had proposed on behalf of Pyrrhus. Pyrrhus: king of Epirus (B.C. 318-272), who waged war against the Romans. Cæcilius Metellus: Roman consul, B.C. 251, 249; pontifex maximus for twenty-two years from 243; lost his sight in 241 while rescuing the Palladium when the temple of Vesta was on fire. Dandolo (Enrico): b. 1107(?); elected Doge in 1192; d. 1205. He was ninety-six years old when, though blind, he commanded the Venetians at the taking of Constantinople, June 17, 1203.

—Byron's Childe Harold, Canto iv. St. xii.

Ziska, or Zizka (John): military chief of the Hussites, b. 1360(?), d. 1424; his real name was Trocznow; he lost an eye in battle, and was thence called Ziska, i.e. one-eyed; lost his other eye from an arrow at the siege of Rubi, but his blindness did not prevent his continuing the war against ecclesiastical tyranny. Jerome Zanchius (Girolamo Zanchi), Italian Protestant theologian, b. 1516, d. 1590; was canon regular of the Lateran when he became a Protestant; professor of theology and philosophy, University of Strasburg, 1553-1563; professor of theology, University of Heidelberg, 1568-1576.

P. 16. Æsculapius: the god of medicine. Epidaurus (now Epidauro): chief seat of the worship of Æsculapius; the son of Thetis: Achilles, the hero of the Iliad. I have substituted the Earl of Derby's translation of the lines which follow from the Iliad, for that given by Robert Fellowes.

P. 18. Prytaneum: 'a public building in the towns of Greece, where the Prytanes (chief magistrates in the states) assembled and took their meals together, and where those who had deserved well of their country were maintained during life.'

P. 19, 20. born in London: 9th of December, 1608; grammar-school: St. Paul's, notable among the classical seminaries then in London. The head-master was a Mr. Alexander Gill, Sr., and the sub-master, or usher, Mr. Alexander Gill, Jr.; with the latter Milton afterward maintained an intimate friendship.

P. 20. On my father's estate: at Horton, in Buckinghamshire. Henry Wotton: at this time Provost of Eton. His letter to Milton is dated 13 April, 1638. In the concluding paragraph, Sir Henry writes: 'At Sienna I was tabled in the house of one Alberto Scipioni, an old Roman courtier in dangerous times, . . . at my departure toward Rome (which had been the centre of his experience) I had won confidence enough to beg his advice, how I might carry myself securely there, without offence of others, or of mine own conscience. Signor Arrigo mio (says he), I pensieri stretti, & il viso sciolto: that is, your thoughts close and your countenance loose, will go safely over the whole world. Of which Delphian oracle (for so I have found it) your judgment doth need no commentary; and therefore, Sir, I will commit you with it to the best of all securities, God's dear love, remaining your friend as much at command as any of longer date.' Milton was certainly the last man in the world to make such a prudential, or rather crafty, maxim his rule of conduct, even in such a country as Italy then was. He has stated his own rule further on in this extract. Thomas Scudamore: miswritten for John (Masson).

P. 21. Jacopo Gaddi: a prominent and influential literary man of Florence, member of the Florentine Academy, author of poems, historical essays, etc., in Latin and in Italian. Carlo Dati: his full name was Carlo Ruberto Dati; only in his 19th year when Milton visited Florence; was afterwards one of the most distinguished of the Florentine men of letters and academicians; became strongly attached to Milton, and corresponded with him after his return to England; author of 'Vite de' Pittori Antichi' (Lives of the Ancient Painters) and numerous other works.

P. 21. Frescobaldi (Pietro): a Florentine academician. Coltellini (Agostino): a Florentine advocate; founder of an academy under the name of the Apatisti (the Indifferents). 'Such were the attractions of this academy, and so energetic was Coltellini in its behalf, that within ten or twenty years after its foundation it had a fame among the Italian academies equal, in some respects, to that of the first and oldest, and counted among its members not only all the eminent Florentines, but most of the distinguished literati of Italy, besides cardinals, Italian princes and dukes, many foreign nobles and scholars, and at least one pope.'—Masson. Bonmattei, or Buommattei (Benedetto): an eminent member of various Florentine and other academies; author of various works, among them a commentary on parts of Dante, and a standard treatise, Della Lingua Toscana; by profession a priest. Chimentelli (Valerio): a priest; professor of Greek, and then of Eloquence and Politics, in Pisa; author of an archæological work, entitled Marmor Pisanum. Francini (Antonio): Florentine academician and poet. Lucas Holstenius (in the vernacular, Lukas Holste, or Holsten), secretary to Cardinal Barberini, and one of the librarians of the Vatican. Manso: author of a Life of Tasso, 1619. Milton, just before leaving Naples, addressed to him his Latin poem, Mansus.

P. 22. so little reserve on matters of religion: here it appears that he did not make Sir Henry Wotton's prudential maxim his rule of conduct.

P. 22, 23. the slandering More (Lat. Morus), Alexander: a Reformed minister, then resident in Holland, and at one time a friend of Salmasius. He had formerly been Professor of Greek in the University of Geneva. The real author of the Regii Sanguinis Clamor was the Rev. Dr. Peter Du Moulin, the younger, made, 1660, a prebendary of Canterbury. More was, indeed, the publisher of the book, the corrector of the press, and author of the dedicatory preface in the printer's name, to Charles II. Milton fully believed when he wrote the Second Defence that More was the author of the R. S. C., having received convincing assurances that he was. Diodati (Dr. Jean, or Giovanni), uncle of Milton's friend, Carolo Diodati. He made the Italian translation of the Scriptures, known as Diodati's Bible, published in 1607. at the time when Charles, etc.: Milton's return to England was not, as he himself (by a slip of memory, no doubt) states, 'at the time when Charles, having broken the peace with the Scots, was renewing the second of those wars named Episcopal,' but exactly a twelvemonth previous to that time, and about eight months before the meeting of the Short Parliament.—Keightley.

P. 24. two books to a friend: 'Of Reformation in England, and the causes that hitherto have hindered it. 1641.' two bishops: Dr. Joseph Hall (1574-1656), Bishop of Exeter, afterward Bishop of Norwich; and Dr. James Usher (1580-1656), Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of Ireland. Concerning Prelatical Episcopacy: the full title is, 'Of prelatical episcopacy, and whether it may be deduced from the apostolical times, by virtue of those testimonies which are alleged to that purpose in some late treatises; one whereof goes under the name of James, Archbishop of Armagh. 1641.' Concerning the mode of ecclesiastical government: 'The reason of church government urged against prelaty. 1641.'

P. 24. Animadversions: 'Animadversions upon the remonstrant's defence against Smectymnuus. 1641.'

P. 24. Apology: 'An apology for Smectymnuus.' 1642. The pamphlet by Smectymnuus was published with the following title, which is sufficiently descriptive of its character: 'An Answer to a Book entituled "An Humble Remonstrance" [by Bishop Hall], in which the originall of Liturgy [and] Episcopacy is discussed and quæres propounded concerning both, the parity of Bishops and Presbyters in Scripture demonstrated, the occasion of their unparity in Antiquity discovered, the disparity of the ancient and our modern Bishops manifested, the antiquity of Ruling Elders in the Church vindicated, the Prelaticall Church bounded: Written by Smectymnuus.' 1641. The pamphlet was the joint production of five Presbyterian clergymen, Stephen Marshall, Edmund Calamy, Thomas Young, Matthew Newcomen, and William Spurstow, but written for the most part by Thomas Young, Milton's former tutor. The name Smectymnuus was made up from the several authors' initials: S. M., E. C., T. Y., M. N., U. U. (for W.) S.

P. 24. the domestic species: the titles of the pamphlets on marriage and divorce are: 'The Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce,' 1643, 1644; 'The Judgment of Martin Bucer concerning Divorce,' 1644; 'Tetrachordon: expositions upon the four chief places in Scripture which treat of marriage, or nullities in marriage,' 1644; 'Colasterion: a reply to a nameless answer against the Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce,' 1645.

P. 25. Selden (John), 1584-1654, celebrated English lawyer, statesman, and political writer. His 'Table Talk' was long famous, 'being his sense of various matters of weight and high consequence, relating especially to religion and state.'

P. 25. an inferior at home: many passages in Milton's works, poetical and prose, indicate, on his part, an estimate of woman which may be attributed, in some measure, at least, to his unfortunate first marriage. His own opinions of what should be the relation of wife to husband he, no doubt, expressed in the following passages in the 'Paradise Lost,' Book iv. 635-638, x. 145-156, xi. 287-292, 629-636; and in the 'Samson Agonistes,' 1053-1060. But no one can read the several treatises on Divorce without being impressed with the loftiness of Milton's ideal of marriage, and his sense of the sacred duties appertaining thereto. The only true marriage with him was the union of souls, as well as of bodies, souls whom God hath joined together (Matt. xix. 6, Mark x. 9), not the priest nor the magistrate.

P. 25. the principles of education: 'Of Education. To Master Samuel Hartlib.' 1644. Hartlib was nominally a merchant in London, a foreigner by birth, the son of a Polish merchant of German extraction, settled in Elbing, in Prussia, whose wife was the daughter of a wealthy English merchant of Dantzic. He was a reformer and philanthropist, and an advocate of the views of the educational reformer, Comenius.

P. 25. 'Areopagitica: a speech for the liberty of unlicensed printing, to the Parliament of England.' 1644.

P. 26. what might lawfully be done against tyrants: in his pamphlet entitled, 'The Tenure of Kings and Magistrates: proving that it is lawful, and hath been held so through all ages, for any, who have the power, to call to account a tyrant or wicked king, and, after due conviction, to depose, and put him to death, if the ordinary magistrate have neglected, or denied to do it; and that they who of late so much blame deposing are the men that did it themselves. The author J. M. 1649,'

P. 27. history of my country: 'The History of Britain; that part especially now called England. From the first traditional beginning continued to the Norman Conquest.'

P. 27. I had already finished four books: i.e. in 1648; the work was not published till 1670. It contained the fine portrait of Milton, by William Faithorne, for which he sat in his 62d year.

P. 27. A book . . . ascribed to the king: ten days after the king's death, was published (9 Feb. 1649), 'Ἑἰκὼν Βασιλική: The True Portraicture of His Sacred Majestie in his Solitudes and Sufferings.—Rom. viii. More than conquerour, &c.—Bona agere et mala pati Regium est.—MDCXLVIII.' The book professed to be the king's own production, and Milton answered it as such, tho' it appears he had his suspicions as to its authorship. It was universally regarded, at the time, as the king's; but it was before long well known (though the controversy as to the authorship was long after kept up) to have been written by Dr. John Gauden, Rector of Bocking, and, after the Restoration, Bishop of Exeter, and, a short time before his death, Bishop of Worcester. Milton's reply, published 6th of Oct., 1649, is entitled 'ἙΙΚΟΝΟΚΛΆΣΤΗΣ in Answer To a Book Intitl'd ἘΙΚῺΝ ΒΑΣΙΛΙΚΉ, The Portrature of his Sacred Majesty in his Solitudes and Sufferings. The Author I. M.

Prov. xxviii. 15, 16, 17.

15. As a roaring Lyon, and a ranging Beare, so is a wicked Ruler over the poor people.

16. The Prince that wanteth understanding, is also a great oppressor; but he that hateth covetousnesse shall prolong his dayes.

17. A man that doth violence to the blood of any person, shall fly to the pit, let no man stay him.

Salust. Conjurat. Catilin.

Regium imperium, quod initio, conservandæ libertatis, atque augendæ reipub. causâ fuerat, in superbiam, dominationemque se convertit.

Regibus boni, quam mali, suspectiores sunt; semperque his aliena virtus formidolosa est.

Quidlibet impunè facere, hoc scilicet regium est.

Published by Authority.

London, Printed by Matthew Simmons, next dore to the gilded Lyon in Aldersgate street. 1649.'

P. 27. Salmasius then appeared: that is, with his Defensio Regia pro Carolo I.

To Charles Diodati

P. 28. Chester's Dee: the old city of Chester is situated on the Dee (Lat. Deva).

P. 28. Vergivian wave (Lat. Vergivium salum): the Irish Sea.

P. 28. it is not my care to revisit the reedy Cam, etc.: this was the period of his rustication from Christ's College, Cambridge, due, it seems, to some difficulty which Milton had with his tutor, Mr. Chappell.

P. 28. the tearful exile in the Pontic territory: Ovid, who was relegated (rather than exiled) to Tomi, a town on the Euxine.

P. 28. Maro: the Latin poet, Publius Virgilius Maro.

P. 29. or the unhappy boy . . . or the fierce avenger: as Masson suggests, the allusions here may be to Shakespeare's Romeo and the Ghost in Hamlet.

P. 29. the house of Pelops, etc.: subjects of the principal Greek tragedies.

P. 29. the arms of living Pelops: an allusion to the ivory shoulder of Pelops, by which, when he was restored to life after having been served up at a feast of the gods, given by his father Tantalus, the shoulder consumed by Ceres was replaced.

P. 30. thy own flower: the anemone into which Adonis was turned by Venus, after his dying of a wound received from a wild boar during the chase.

P. 30. alternate measures: the alternate hexameters and pentameters of the Elegy.

To Alexander Gill, Jr. (Familiar Letters, No. III.)

P. 30. Alexander Gill, Jr.: Gill was Milton's tutor in St. Paul's School, of which his father, Alexander Gill, was head-master. Milton was sent to this school in his twelfth year (1620), and remained there till his seventeenth year (1625). He was entered very soon after at Christ's College, Cambridge, beginning residence in the Easter term of 1625.

To Thomas Young. (Familiar Letters, No. IV.)

P. 31. Thomas Young: Young had been Milton's tutor before he entered St. Paul's School, and later; he was one of the authors of the Smectymnuan pamphlet; was appointed Master of Jesus College, Cambridge, in 1644.

P. 31. Stoa of the Iceni (Lat. Stoam Icenorum): a pun for Stowmarket in Suffolk, the Iceni having been the inhabitants of the parts of Roman Britain corresponding to Suffolk, Cambridgeshire, etc.—Masson. Their queen was Boadicea, who led their revolt against the Romans.

P. 31. Zeno: Greek philosopher (about 358-260 B.C.), father of the Stoic philosophy, so called from his teaching in the Stoa Pœcile, in Athens, in which were the frescoes of Polygnotus (about 480-430 B.C.).

P. 31. Serranus: an agnomen, or fourth name, given to L. Quinctius Cincinnatus; Roman consul 460 B.C.; in 458 called from the plough to the dictatorship, whence called by Florus, Dictator ad aratro; the agnomen is said to have been derived from serere, to sow; 'Quis te, magne Cato, tacitum, aut te, Cosse, relinquat? . . . vel te sulco, Serrane, serentem' (Who can leave thee unmentioned, great Cato, or thee, Cossus? . . . or thee, Serranus, sowing in the furrow).—Æneid, vi. 844.

P. 31. Curius: M'. Curius Dentatus, noted for his fortitude and frugality; consul B.C. 290; a second time 275, when he defeated Pyrrhus, king of Epirus; consul a third time, 274; afterward retired to his small farm, which he cultivated himself.

To Charles Diodati, making a Stay in the Country

P. 32. Erato: the muse of erotic poetry.

P. 32. the fierce dog: Cerberus.

P. 32. the Samian master: Pythagoras, who was a native of Samos.

P. 32. Tiresias: the Theban prophet, deprived of sight by Juno; Jupiter, in compensation, bestowed upon him the power of prophecy.

P. 32. Theban Linus: the singer and philosopher.

P. 32. Calchas the exile: a famous soothsayer, who accompanied the Greeks to Troy.

P. 32. Orpheus: the fabulous Thracian poet and musician.

P. 32. Circe: See Comus, 50-53.

P. 33. the heavenly birth of the King of Peace: his ode On the Morning of Christ's Nativity, composed on and just after Christmas, 1629.

Ad Patrem

P. 35. 1. Pieria's: used for Pierian, from Pierus, a mountain of Thessaly sacred to the muses.

P. 36. 18. Clio: the Muse of History, 'inasmuch,' says Masson, 'as what he is to say about his Father is strictly true.'

P. 36. 22. Promethean fire: the fire which Prometheus brought down from heaven.

P. 37. 44. Ophiuchus: i.e. a serpent holder (ὄφις + ἔχειν); a constellation in the northern hemisphere, the outline of which is imagined to be a man holding a serpent; called also Anguitenens and Serpentarius, which have the same meaning; Ophiuchus is the translator's word; the original is sibila serpens, the hissing serpent.

P. 37. 45. Orion: a constellation with sword, belt, and club; 'Orion arm'd.'—P. L., i. 305.

P. 37. 50. Lyæus: an epithet of Bacchus as the deliverer from care (Gk. λυαίος).

P. 37. 53. proposed: set forth.

P. 37. 55. to imitation: i.e. for imitation, to be imitated, i.e. the character of heroes and their deeds.

P. 38. 92. Streams Aonian: so called as if the resort of the muses.

P. 39. 120. the boy: Phaëthon.

P. 40. 141-148. Ye too, . . . my voluntary numbers: it does not seem to me improbable that these six lines [115-120 of the original] were added to the poem just before its publication in the volume of 1645. The phrase 'juvenilia carmina' seems to refer to that volume as containing this piece among others. Anyhow, it was a beautiful ending and prophetic.—Masson.

An English Letter to a Friend

P. 40. English letter to a friend: this letter of which there are two undated drafts in Milton's handwriting in the Library of Trinity College, Cambridge, must have been written in 1632 or 1633. In the second draft (which is given in the text), Milton is content, for the first few sentences, with simply correcting the language of the first; but in the remaining portion he throws the first draft all but entirely aside, and rewrites the same meaning more at large in a series of new sentences. Evidently he took pains with the letter.—Masson.

P. 41. tale of Latmus: i.e. of Endymion's sleeping upon Mount Latmus, and of his being visited by Selene (the moon).

P. 42. 5. Perhaps my semblance might deceive the truth: i.e. he appears younger than he really is. In his Second Defence, he says, 'though I am more than forty years old, there is scarcely any one to whom I do not appear ten years younger than I am.'

P. 42. 8. timely-happy: happy, or fortunate, in the matter of inward ripeness.

P. 42. 10. it: 'inward ripeness.'

P. 42. it shall be still: Milton very early regarded himself as dedicated to the performance of some great work for which he had to make adequate preparation, in the way of building himself up; even: equal, in proportion to, in conformity with.

P. 43. Your true and unfeigned friend, etc.: see penultimate sentence of the passage given, p. 65, from 'The Reason of Church Government urged against Prelaty.'

To Alexander Gill, Jr. (Familiar Letters, No. V.)

P. 43. this ode: Psalm cxiv.

To Charles Diodati. (Familiar Letters, No. VI.)

P. 44. To Charles Diodati: Milton's schoolfellow at St. Paul's, and his dearest friend; he died in August, 1638, while Milton was on his Continental tour; on his return he wrote the In memoriam poem, Epitaphium Damonis.

To Benedetto Bonmattei of Florence. (Familiar Letters, No. VIII.)

P. 46. To Benedetto Bonmattei: mentioned by Milton among his Florentine friends, in the autobiographical passage in the Second Defence; see note, p. 247.

Mansus

P. 47. our native kings: the ancient kings of Britain.

P. 47. stirring wars even under the earth: King Arthur, after his death, was supposed to be carried into the subterraneous land of Faerie, or of Spirits, where he still reigned as a king, and whence he was to return into Britain, to renew the Round Table, conquer all his old enemies, and reëstablish his throne. He was, therefore, etiam movens bella sub terris, still meditating wars under the earth. The impulse of his attachment to this subject was not entirely suppressed; it produced his History of Britain. By the expression revocabo in carmina, the poet means, that these ancient kings, which were once the themes of the British bards, should now again be celebrated in verse.—Warton. Warton renders bella moventem [v. 81 of the Latin] meditating wars, but that is not the true sense; it is waging wars, and Arthur is represented as so employed in Fairy-land in the romances.—Keightley.

P. 47. Paphian myrtle: the myrtle was sacred to Venus; Paphos was an ancient city of Cyprus, where was a temple of Venus.

Areopagitica

P. 48. Galileo: b. 1564, d. 1642; he was seventy-four years old when Milton visited him in 1638; whether he was actually imprisoned at the time is somewhat uncertain; he may have been, as Hales suggests, in libera custodia, i.e. 'only kept under a certain restraint, as that he should not move away from a specified neighborhood, or perhaps a special house.'

P. 48. never be forgotten by any revolution of time: i.e. as Hales explains, caused to be forgotten.

P. 48. other parts: i.e. of the world.

P. 48. in time of parliament: there was no parliament assembled from 1629 to 1640.

P. 48. without envy: without exciting any odium against me.—Hales.

P. 48. he whom an honest quæstorship: Cicero, 75 B.C.

P. 48. Verres: pro-prætor in Sicily, 73-71 B.C. Cicero's Verrine orations were directed against his extortions and exactions.

To Lucas Holstenius. (Familiar Letters, No. IX.)

P. 49. Lucas Holstenius: see note, p. 21.

P. 49. Alexander Cherubini: Roman friend of Milton, 'known in his lifetime as a prodigy of erudition, though he died at the early age of twenty-eight.'

P. 49. Virgil's 'penitus convalle virenti': Virgil's 'souls enclosed within a verdant valley, and about to go to the upper light.'

P. 49. Cardinal Francesco Barberini: b. 1597, d. 1679; librarian of the Vatican, and founder of the Barberini Library.

Epitaphium Damonis

P. 50. In the British legends of Geoffrey of Monmouth and others, the mythical Brutus, before arriving in Britain with his Trojans, marries Imogen, daughter of the Grecian king Pandrasus; Brennus and Belinus are two legendary British princes of a much later age, sons of King Dunwallo Molmutius; Arvirach or Arviragus, son of Cunobeline, or Cymbeline, belongs to the time of the Roman conquest of Britain; the "Armorican settlers" are the Britons who removed to the French coast of Armonica to avoid the invading Saxons; Uther Pendragon, Igraine, Gorlois, Merlin, and Arthur are familiar names of the Arthurian romances.—Masson.

Of Reformation in England

P. 52. their damned designs: the restoration of Papacy and ecclesiastical despotism.

P. 53. antichristian thraldom: he would seem to allude to the invasions of England by the Romans, Saxons, Danes (twice), and Normans, and the War of the Roses, followed by the partial reformation under Henry VIII.—Keightley.

P. 53. Thule: some undetermined island or other land, regarded as the northernmost part of the earth; called in Latin Ultima Thule; often used metaphorically for an extreme limit.

P. 53. that horrible and damned blast: Keightley understands this as referring to the Gunpowder plot.

P. 53. that sad intelligencing tyrant: Philip IV., King of Spain from 1621 to 1665.

P. 53. mines of Ophir: used in a general sense for gold mines.

P. 53. his naval ruins: an allusion to the destruction of the Spanish armada, in 1588, in the reign of his grandfather, Philip II.

P. 54. in this land: when Milton wrote this, he must still have been meditating a poem to be based on British history.

Animadversions upon the Remonstrant's Defence, etc.

P. 56. and thou standing at the door: see introductory remarks on Lycidas.

The Reason of Church Government urged against Prelaty

P. 57. Slothful, and ever to be set light by: thou slothful one, and ever, etc.

P. 57. infancy: not speaking.

P. 58. preventive: going before, forecasting, anticipative.

P. 58. equal: impartial, equitable; Lat. æqualis.

P. 58. the elegant and learned reader: him only Milton addressed, not the common reader. He was no demagogue.

P. 58. anything elaborately composed: he had his meditated great work in mind.

P. 59. another task: poetical composition.

P. 59. empyreal conceit: lofty conceit of himself.

P. 59. envy: odium; Lat. invidia.

P. 60. Ariosto (Lodovico): Italian poet; b. 1474, d. 1533; author of the Orlando Furioso.

P. 60. Bembo (Pietro): b. 1470, d. 1547; secretary to Pope Leo X.; Cardinal, 1539; famous as a Latin scholar.

P. 60. wits: geniuses.

P. 61. Tasso (Torquato): Italian poet; b. 1544, d. 1595; author of the Gerusalemme Liberata (Jerusalem Delivered).

P. 61. a prince of Italy: Alfonso II., Duke of Ferrara?

P. 61. Godfrey's expedition against the Infidels: the subject of Tasso's Jerusalem Delivered; Godfrey of Bouillon, leader of the first crusade; b. about 1058, d. 1100.

P. 61. Belisarius: a celebrated general, in the reign of Justinian; b. about 505 A.D., d. 565.

P. 61. Charlemagne (or Charles the Great): b. 742, d. 814; Emperor of the West and King of the Franks.

P. 61. doctrinal and exemplary: instructive and serving for example.

P. 61. Origen: Christian Father, of Alexandria (185-254).

P. 61. Pareus (David): b. 1548, d. 1622; a Calvinist theologian, Professor of Theology, University of Heidelberg.

P. 62. Pindarus: Greek lyric poet, about 522-442 B.C.

P. 62. Callimachus: Greek poet and grammarian, about 310-235 B.C.

P. 62. most an end: 'almost uninterruptedly, almost always, mostly, for the most part.'—Murray's New English Dictionary, s.v. 'an end.' The phrase occurs again in Chap. III. Book II. of this same pamphlet: 'the patients, which most an end are brought into his [the civil magistrate's] hospital, are such as are far gone,' etc. Vol. II. p. 491, of the Bohn ed. of the P. W.

P. 63. demean: conduct; O. Fr. demener.

P. 63. such (sports, etc.) as were authorized a while since: i.e. in the Book of Sports. Proclamation allowing Sunday sports, issued by James I.

P. 63. paneguries: same as panegyrics.

P. 64. Siren daughters: the Muses, daughters of Memory or Mnemosyne.

P. 65. gentle apprehension: a refined faculty of conception or perception.

Apology for Smectymnuus

P. 66. Solon: Athenian statesman and lawgiver, about 638-558 B.C. 'According to Suidas it was a law of Solon that he who stood neuter in any public sedition, should be declared ἄτιμος, infamous.'

P. 66. doubted: hesitated; or, perhaps, in the sense of feared.

P. 66. most nominated: most frequently named, most prominent.

P. 66, 67. my certain account: the account which I shall certainly have to render.

P. 67. tired out almost a whole youth: see the extract given from 'The Reason of Church Government urged against Prelaty.'

P. 67. this modest confuter: Dr. Joseph Hall, Bishop of Exeter, afterward of Norwich; the reference is to his 'Modest Confutation' of Milton's 'Animadversions.'

P. 69. Animadversions: 'A. upon the Remonstrant's Defence against Smectymnuus.' 1641.

P. 69. devised: described, represented.

P. 70. conversation: in New Testament sense, mode or way of life, conduct, deportment (ἀναστροφή).

P. 70. apology: defence, vindication.

P. 71. propense: inclined, disposed.

P. 71. that place: the University.

P. 71. to obtain with me: prevail, succeed with me, to get the better of.

P. 71. both she or her sister: Cambridge or Oxford University; 'both' requires 'and'; 'or' requires 'either.'

P. 71. that suburb sink: the 'pretty garden-house in Aldersgate street,' as his nephew, Edward Phillips styles it, to which he removed from 'his lodgings in St. Bride's Churchyard,' in 1640, and where he was living when he wrote his 'Apology for Smectymnuus.'

P. 72. I never greatly admired, so now much less: in 'The Reason of Church Government urged against Prelaty' ('The Conclusion. The mischief that Prelaty does in the State'), Milton writes: 'The service of God, who is truth, her (Prelaty's) liturgy confesses to be perfect freedom; but her works and her opinions declare that the service of prelaty is perfect slavery, and by consequence perfect falsehood. Which makes me wonder much that many of the gentry, studious men as I hear, should engage themselves to write and speak publicly in her defence; but that I believe their honest and ingenuous natures coming to the universities to store themselves with good and solid learning, and there unfortunately fed with nothing else but the scragged and thorny lectures of monkish and miserable sophistry, were sent home again with such a scholastic bur in their throats, as hath stopped and hindered all true and generous philosophy from entering, cracked their voices for ever with metaphysical gargarisms, and hath made them admire a sort of formal outside men prelatically addicted, whose unchastened and unwrought minds were never yet initiated or subdued under the true lore of religion or moral virtue, which two are the best and greatest points of learning; but either slightly trained up in a kind of hypocritical and hackney course of literature to get their living by, and dazzle the ignorant, or else fondly over-studied in useless controversies, except those which they use with all the specious and delusive subtlety they are able, to defend their prelatical Sparta.'

P. 72. wisses: knows.

P. 72. the bird that first rouses: the lark; see 'L'Allegro,' 41 et seq.

P. 72. old cloaks, false beards, night-walkers, and salt lotion: the passage alluded to in the 'Animadversions,' is the following: 'We know where the shoe wrings you, you fret and are galled at the quick; and oh what a death it is to the prelates to be thus unvisarded, thus uncased, to have the periwigs plucked off, that cover your baldness, your inside nakedness thrown open to public view! The Romans had a time, once every year, when their slaves might freely speak their minds; it were hard if the free-born people of England, with whom the voice of truth for these many years, even against the proverb, hath not been heard but in corners, after all your monkish prohibitions, and expurgatorious indexes, your gags and snaffles, your proud Imprimaturs not to be obtained without the shallow surview, but not shallow hand of some mercenary, narrow-souled, and illiterate chaplain; when liberty of speaking, than which nothing is more sweet to man, was girded and strait-laced almost to a brokenwinded phthisic, if now, at a good time, our time of parliament, the very jubilee and resurrection of the state, if now the concealed, the aggrieved, and long-persecuted truth, could not be suffered to speak; and though she burst out with some efficacy of words, could not be excused after such an injurious strangle of silence, nor avoid the censure of libelling, it were hard, it were something pinching in a kingdom of free spirits. Some princes, and great statists, have thought it a prime piece of necessary policy, to thrust themselves under disguise into a popular throng, to stand the night long under eaves of houses, and low windows, that they might hear everywhere the utterances of private breasts, and amongst them find out the precious gem of truth, as amongst the numberless pebbles of the shore; whereby they might be the abler to discover, and avoid, that deceitful and close-couched evil of flattery, that ever attends them, and misleads them, and might skilfully know how to apply the several redresses to each malady of state, without trusting the disloyal information of parasites and sycophants; whereas now this permission of free writing, were there no good else in it, yet at some time thus licensed, is such an unripping, such an anatomy of the shyest and tenderest particular truths, as makes not only the whole nation in many points the wiser, but also presents and carries home to princes, men most remote from vulgar concourse, such a full insight of every lurking evil, or restrained good among the commons, as that they shall not need hereafter, in old cloaks and false beards, to stand to the courtesy of a night-walking cudgeller for eaves-dropping, not to accept quietly as a perfume, the overhead emptying of some salt lotion. Who could be angry, therefore, but those that are guilty, with these free-spoken and plain-hearted men, that are the eyes of their country, and the prospective glasses of their prince? But these are the nettlers, these are the blabbing books that tell, though not half your fellows' feats. You love toothless satires; let me inform you, a toothless satire is as improper as a toothed sleekstone, and as bullish.'

P. 73. antistrophon: reasoning turned upon an opponent.

P. 73. mime: a kind of buffoon play, in which real persons and events were ridiculously mimicked and represented.

P. 73. Mundus alter et idem (another world and the same): a satire by Bishop Hall.

P. 73. Cephalus: son of Mercury (Hermes), carried off by Aurora (Eos).

P. 73. Hylas: accompanied Hercules in the Argonautic expedition. His beauty excited the love of the Naiads, as he went to draw water from a fountain, on the coast of Mysia, and he was drawn by them into the water, and never again seen.

P. 73. Viraginea: the land of viragoes.

P. 73. Aphrodisia: the land of Aphrodite (Venus).

P. 73. Desvergonia: the land of shamelessness. Ital. vergona, shame, infamy.

P. 73. hearsay: the hearing of, knowing about.

P. 73. tire: head-dress.

P. 73. those in next aptitude to divinity: divinity students.

P. 73. Trinculoes: Trinculo is the name of a jester in Shakespeare's 'Tempest'; or, according to a note in Johnson's 'Life of Milton,' signed R., referred to by J. A. St. John, 'by the mention of this name he evidently refers to "Albemazor," acted at Cambridge in 1614.'

P. 73. mademoiselles: ladies' maids.

P. 73. Atticism: because he is here imitating a well-known passage in Demosthenes's speech against Æschines.—Keightley.

P. 74. for me: so far as I'm concerned.

P. 74. ἀπειροκαλία: ignorance of the beautiful, want of taste or sensibility (Liddell and Scott).

P. 75. elegiac poets, whereof the schools are not scarce: i.e. they are much read in the schools.

P. 75. numerous: in poetic numbers; 'in prose or numerous verse.'—P. L., v. 150.

P. 75. For that: because.

P. 75. severe: serious.

P. 76. the two famous renowners of Beatrice and Laura: Dante and Petrarch.

P. 76. though not in the title-page: an allusion to his opponent's 'A Modest Confutation.'

P. 78. Corinthian: licentious, Corinth having been noted for its licentiousness.

P. 78. the precepts of the Christian religion: J. A. St. John quotes from Symmons's 'Life of Milton': 'It was at this early period of his life, as we may confidently conjecture, that he imbibed that spirit of devotion which actuated his bosom to his latest moment upon earth: and we need not extend our search beyond the limits of his own house for the fountain from which the living influence was derived.'

P. 78. had been: i.e. might have been.

P. 79. sleekstone: a smoothing stone; a toothed sleekstone would fail of its purpose as much as a toothless satire.

P. 79. this champion from behind the arras: probably an allusion to Polonius, who, in the closet scene (A. III. S. iv.), conceals himself behind the arras to overhear the interview between Hamlet and his mother.

P. 80. Socrates: surnamed Scholasticus; a Greek ecclesiastical historian; b. about 379, d. after 440; author of a 'History of the Church from 306 to 439 A.D.'

P. 81. St. Martin: there are two saints of the name; which one is alluded to is uncertain, but probably Bishop of Tours, 4th century.

P. 81. Gregory Nazianzen: a Greek father, surnamed the Theologian; b. about 328, d. 389 A.D.

P. 81. Murena: Roman consul, 63 B.C.; charged with bribery by Servius Sulpicius; defended by Cicero, in his oration Pro Murena. In Cicero's answer to Sulpicius, 'three months,' as given by Milton, should be 'three days': 'itaque, si mihi, homini vehementer occupato, stomachum moveritis, triduo me jurisconsultum esse profitebor.'

To Carlo Dati. (Familiar Letters, No. X.)

P. 83. tomb of Damon: i.e. of Carolo Diodati.

P. 83. that poem: 'Epitaphium Damonis.'

On his Blindness

P. 84. 1. spent: extinguished.

P. 84. 2. Ere half my days: i.e. are spent; Milton was about forty-four years old when his 'light' was fully 'spent.'

P. 85. 8. fondly: foolishly; prevent: to come before, anticipate, forestall.

P. 85. 12. thousands: i.e. of 'spiritual creatures.' See 'P. L.,' iv. 677.

P. 85. 14. They also serve: i.e. as Verity explains, those other angels too, who, etc.

To Leonard Philaras. (Familiar Letters, No. XII.)

P. 85. Angier (René): resident agent in Paris for the English Parliament.

To Henry Oldenburg. (Familiar Letters, No. XIV.)

P. 87. Henry Oldenburg: b. at Bremen about 1615, d. 1677; sent in 1653 by the Council of Bremen as their agent to negotiate with Cromwell some arrangement by which the neutrality of Bremen should be respected in the naval war between England and Holland ('Dict. of National Biography'); became a member and secretary of the Royal Society of London, and was afterward elected a fellow of the Society; corresponded extensively with the philosopher, Benedict Spinosa; published the 'Transactions' of the Royal Society from 1664 to 1677.

P. 87. 'Cry' of that kind 'to Heaven': the reference is to the Regii Sanguinis Clamor ad Cœlum, adversus Parricidas Anglicanos (The Cry of the Royal Blood to Heaven against the English Parricides).

P. 87. Morus: Alexander More, whom Milton supposed to be the author of 'The Cry of the Royal Blood to Heaven.' See note, p. 248.

To Leonard Philaras. (Familiar Letters, No. XV.)

P. 89. Phineus: see note on 'P. L.,' iii. 36, in this volume.

P. 89. Salmydessus: a town of Thrace, on the coast of the Black Sea.

P. 89. Argonautica: a heroic poem on the Argonautic expedition, by Apollonius Rhodius.

P. 89. κάρος δέ μιν ἀμφεκάλυψεν:

Prof. Charles E. Bennett's translation.

P. 90. the Wise Man: Ecclesiastes xi. 8.

P. 90. Lynceus: the keen-sighted Argonaut.

To Cyriac Skinner

P. 91. 1. this three years' day: this day three years ago. Milton became completely blind in 1652, so this sonnet must have been written in 1655. though clear: see passage from Second Defence, p. 13.

P. 91. 7. bate: from 'abate.'

P. 91. 8. bear up and steer right onward: the nautical sense of 'bear up,' i.e. to put the ship before the wind, is indicated by what follows.

P. 91. 10. conscience: consciousness.

P. 91. 12. talks: the Trin. Coll. Ms. reading; the word 'rings' was substituted by Phillips in his printed copy of 1694; 'talks' does not sound so well, in the verse, but it is more modest.

P. 91. 13. mask: masquerade.

On his deceased wife

P. 91. 1. my late espoused saint: his second wife, Catherine Woodcock, whom he married November 12, 1656; she died in February, 1658.

P. 91. 2. Alcestis: brought back to life by Herakles (Hercules). her glad husband: Admetus, King of Pheræ in Thessaly. See Browning's 'Balaustion's Adventure, including a Transcript from [the Alkestis of] Euripides.'

P. 91. 5. as whom: as one whom.

P. 91. 6. Purification: Leviticus xii.

P. 91. 10. her face was veiled: Alcestis was still in his mind. In Browning's 'Balaustion's Adventure,' when Hercules returns with her:

To Emeric Bigot. (Familiar Letters, No. XXI.)

P. 92. Emeric Bigot: a French scholar, native of Rouen; b. 1626, d. 1689.

P. 92. King Telephus of the Mysians: wounded by Achilles and by him healed with the rust of his spear; and in return Telephus directed the Greeks on their way to Troy.

Autobiographic passages in the Paradise Lost

P. 96. 2. Or of the Eternal: or may I, unblamed, express thee as the coeternal beam of the Eternal.

P. 96. 6. increate: qualifies 'bright effluence.'

P. 96. 7. Or hearest thou rather: or approvest thou rather the appellation of pure ethereal stream; 'hearest' is a classicism: 'Matutine pater, seu Jane libentius audis' (father of the morning, or if Janus thou hearest more willingly).—Horace, Sat. II., vi. 20, cited by Bentley.

P. 97. 13. wing: flight.

P. 97. 17. With other notes: Orpheus made a hymn to Night, which is still extant; he also wrote of the creation out of Chaos. See 'Apoll. Rhodius,' i. 493. Orpheus was inspired by his mother Calliope only, Milton by the heavenly Muse; therefore he boasts that he sung with other notes than Orpheus, though the subjects were the same.—Richardson.

P. 97. 21. hard and rare: evidently after Virgil's Æneid, vi. 126-129.

P. 97. 25. a drop serene: gutta serena, i.e. amaurosis.

P. 97. 26. dim suffusion: cataract.

P. 97. 34. So: appears to be used optatively, as Lat. sic, Greek ὡς, would that I were equalled with them in renown.

P. 97. 35. Thamyris: a Thracian bard, mentioned by Homer, Iliad, ii. 595:

—Earl of Derby's Translation, 692-697.

P. 97. 35. Mæonides: a patronymic of Homer.

P. 97. 36. Tiresias: the famous blind soothsayer of Thebes, 'cui profundum cæcitas lumen dedit' (to whom his blindness gave deep sight), says Milton, in his De Idea Platonica, v. 25.

P. 97. 36. Phineus: a blind soothsayer, who, according to some authorities, was king of Salmydessus, in Thrace. By reason of his cruelty to his sons, who had been falsely accused, he was tormented by the Harpies, until delivered from them by the Argonauts, in return for prophetic information in regard to their voyage.

P. 97. 39. darkling: in the dark.

P. 97. 42. Day: note the emphasis imparted to this initial monosyllabic word, which receives the ictus and is followed by a pause; Milton felt that the loss of sight was fully compensated for by an inward celestial light.

P. 98. 1. Urania: the Heavenly Muse invoked in the opening of the poem.

P. 98. 4. Pegaséan wing: above the flight of 'the poet's winged steed' of classical mythology.

P. 98. 5. the meaning, not the name: Urania was the name of one of the Grecian Muses; he invokes not her, but what her name signifies, the Heavenly one. See vv. 38, 39.

P. 98. 8. Before the hills appeared: Prov. viii. 23-31.

P. 98. 10. didst play: the King James's version, Prov. viii. 30, reads, 'rejoicing always before him'; the Vulgate, 'ludens coram eo omni tempore.'

P. 98. 15. thy tempering: the empyreal air was tempered for, adapted to, his breathing, as a mortal, by the Heavenly Muse.

P. 98. 17. this flying steed: i.e. this higher poetic inspiration than that represented by the classical Pegasus; unreined: unbridled, infrenis.

P. 98. 18. Bellerophon: thrown from Pegasus when attempting to soar upon the winged horse to heaven.

P. 99. 19. Aleian field: in Asia Minor, where Bellerophon, after he was thrown from Pegasus, wandered and perished; πεδίον τὸ Ἀλήïον, Iliad, vi. 201, land of wandering (ἄλη).

P. 99. 20. erroneous there to wander: to wander without knowing whither; Lat. erroneus; forlorn: entirely lost; 'for' is intensive.

P. 99. 21. Half yet remains unsung: 'half of the episode, not of the whole work, . . . the episode has two principal parts, the war in heaven, and the new creation; the one was sung, but the other remained unsung, . . . but narrower bound, . . . this other half is not rapt so much into the invisible world as the former, it is confined in narrower compass, and bound within the visible sphere of day.'—Newton.

narrower: more narrowly.

P. 99. 26. on evil days though fallen: a pathetic emotional repetition; note the artistic change in the order of the words. Macaulay justly characterizes the thirty years which succeeded the protectorate as 'the darkest and most disgraceful in the English annals. . . . Then came those days never to be recalled without a blush—the days of servitude without loyalty, and sensuality without love, of dwarfish talents and gigantic vices, the paradise of cold hearts and narrow minds, the golden age of the coward, the bigot, and the slave. The king cringed to his rival [Louis XIV.] that he might trample on his people, sunk into a viceroy of France, and pocketed, with complacent infamy, her degrading insults and her more degrading gold. The caresses of harlots, and the jests of buffoons regulated the measures of a government which had just ability enough to deceive, and just religion enough to persecute. The principles of liberty were the scoff of every grinning courtier, and the Anathema Maranatha of every fawning dean. . . . Crime succeeded to crime, and disgrace to disgrace, till the race, accursed of God and man, was a second time driven forth, to wander on the face of the earth, and to be a by-word and a shaking of the head to the nations.'

P. 99. 33. Bacchus and his revellers: Charles II. and his Court, from whom Milton had reason to fear a similar fate to that of the Thracian bard, Orpheus, who was torn to pieces by the Bacchanalian women of Rhodope.

P. 99. 38. so fail not thou: i.e. to defend me as the Muse Calliope failed to defend her son, Orpheus.

P. 99. 1. no more of talk: i.e. as in the foregoing episode.

P. 99. 5. venial: allowable, fitting.

P. 100. 14-19. the wrath of stern Achilles . . . Cytherea's son: these are not the arguments (subjects) proper of the three epics, the Iliad, the Odyssey, and the Æneid; as Newton pointed out, the poet mentions certain angers or enmities, the wrath of Achilles, the rage of Turnus, Neptune's and Juno's ire; 'the anger, etc. (v. 10) of Heaven which he is about to sing is an argument more heroic, not only than the anger of men, of Achilles and Turnus, but than that even of the gods, of Neptune and Juno;' his foe: Hector; Turnus: king of the Rutuli when Æneas arrived in Italy; Lavinia: daughter of King Latinus, betrothed to Turnus, but afterward given in marriage to Æneas; the Greek: Ulysses; Cytherea's son: Æneas; Cytherea, a surname of Venus, from the island Cythera, famous for her worship.

P. 100. 19. Perplexed the Greek: a respective construction, 'perplexed the Greek' looks back to 'Neptune's ire,' 'Cytherea's son,' to Juno's ire. Bentley's note is remarkable: 'Juno's that long perplexed the Greek: when, contrary, the Greek was her favourite all along.'

P. 100. 20. answerable: corresponding to the high argument.

P. 100. 21. my celestial Patroness: Urania, the Heavenly Muse.

P. 100. 23. inspires: Milton regarded himself as inspired by the Holy Spirit in the composition of 'Paradise Lost.'

P. 100. 25. Since first this subject: Milton, as has been seen, had meditated, as early as 1638, an epic poem to be based on legendary British history, with King Arthur for its hero, a subject which it appears he abandoned in the course of two or three years. While still undecided, he jotted down ninety-nine different subjects, sixty-one Scriptural, thirty-eight from British history. Among the former, 'Paradise Lost' appears first of all. These jottings occupy seven pages of the Cambridge Mss. It is evident that by 1640, Milton was quite decided as to the subject of 'Paradise Lost,' but not as to the form of his work. It was first as a tragedy that he conceived it, on the model of the Grecian drama with choruses. His nephew, Edward Phillips, informs us that several years before the poem was begun (about 1642, according to Aubrey), Satan's address to the sun (Book iv. 32-41) was shown him as designed for the beginning of the tragedy. The composition of the poem was begun, according to Phillips, about 1658, the poet being then fifty years of age. The student should read, in connection with this subject, the thirteenth chapter of Mark Pattison's 'Life of Milton.'

P. 100. 35. Impresses: 'devices or emblems used on shields or otherwise.' Keightley alludes to the enumeration of the devices of the nobles of England, in the tenth Canto of the 'Orlando Furioso.'

P. 100. 36. bases: 'the base was a skirt or kilt which hung down from the waist to the knees of the knight when on horseback.'

P. 100. 37. marshalled feast: 'from Minshew's "Guide into Tongues," it appears that the marshal placed the guests according to their rank, and saw that they were properly served; the sewer marched in before the meats and arranged them on the table, and was originally called Asseour from the French asseoir, to set down, or place; and the Seneshal was the household-steward.'—Todd.

P. 100. 41. Me . . . higher argument remains: i.e. for me.

P. 101. 44. an age too late: Milton might well feel, in the reign of the 'merry monarch,' that he was treating his high argument in an age too late.

P. 101. 45, 46. my intended wing depressed: 'wing' is used, by metonymy, for 'flight.' Keightley incorrectly puts a comma after 'wing,' 'intended wing depressed' being a case of the placing of a noun between two epithets, usual with Milton, the epithet following the noun qualifying the noun as qualified by the preceding epithet. Rev. James Robert Boyd, in his edition of the 'P. L.,' explains 'intended,' 'stretched out'; but the word is undoubtedly used in its present sense of 'purposed.'

Letter to Peter Heimbach. (Familiar Letters, No. XXXI.)

P. 102. a country retreat: 'a pretty box,' secured for him by his Quaker friend, Elwood, at Chalfont St. Giles; the house still exists, having undergone little or no change.

I hardly like to express in the text a fancy that has occurred to me in translating the letter and studying it in connection with Heimbach's, to wit, that Milton may not merely have been ironically rebuking Heimbach for his adulation and silly phraseology, but may also have been suspicious of the possibility of some trap laid for him politically. Certainly, if this letter of Milton's to a Councillor of the Elector of Brandenburg had been intercepted by the English government, it is so cleverly worded that nothing could have been made of it. But Heimbach may have been as honest as he looks. Even then, however, Milton, knowing little or nothing of Heimbach for the last nine years, had reason to be cautious.—Masson.

Passages in which Milton's Idea of True Liberty is Set Forth

P. 104. Deep versed in books: Milton would, I conceive, have thus characterized his old antagonist, Salmasius.—Dunster.

P. 104. trifles for choice matters: as choice matters.

P. 104. worth a spunge: deserving to be wiped out. So in his 'Areopagitica': 'sometimes five imprimaturs are seen together, dialogue-wise, in the piazza of one title-page, complimenting and ducking each to other with their shaven reverences, whether the author, who stands by in perplexity at the foot of his epistle, shall to the press or to the spunge.'

P. 111. Uzza: see 2 Sam. vi. 3-8.

P. 112. Whom do we count a good man:

—Epistolarum Liber, i. 16, vv. 40-45, Ad Quinctium.

P. 118. Crescentius Nomentanus: Roman patrician, a native of Nomentum (now La Mentana), tenth century, was at the head of the Italian party against the Germans and the popes, with title of Consul; was besieged in the Castle St. Angelo, and finally capitulated on terms honorable to himself, but was basely put to death by Otho III., A.D. 998.

P. 118. Nicholas Rentius: Rienzi, or Rienzo (Niccolo Gabrini), or Cola di Rienzi, 'the last of the Roman Tribunes,' b. about 1313, d. 1354.

—Byron's Childe Harold, Canto iv. St. cxiv.

P. 120. the resentment of Achilles: the subject of the Iliad.

P. 120. the return of Ulysses: the subject of the Odyssey.

P. 120. the coming of Æneas into Italy: the subject of the Æneid.

P. 121. As when those hinds: he compares the reception given it [the doctrine of his Divorce pamphlets] to the treatment of the goddess Latona and her newly born twins by the Lycian rustics. These twins afterward 'held the sun and moon in fee' (i.e. in full possession), for they were Apollo and Diana; and yet, when the goddess, carrying them in her arms, and fleeing from the wrath of Juno, stooped in her fatigue to drink of the water of a small lake, the rustics railed at her and puddled the lake with their hands and feet; for which, on the instant, at the goddess's prayer, they were turned into frogs, to live forever in the mud of their own making (Ovid, Met., vi. 335-381).—Masson. Wordsworth uses the phrase, 'in fee,' in the same way in the opening verse of his sonnet on the 'Extinction of the Venetian Republic': 'Once did She hold the gorgeous east in fee.'

P. 121. lapse: fall.

P. 121. twinned: as a twin.

P. 121. dividual: separate.

P. 121. undeservedly: without right or merit; no thanks to them.

P. 121. virtue, which is reason: 'Virtus est recta ratio, et animi habitus, naturæ modo, rationi consentaneus.'—Cicero.

P. 123. 424. his son Herod: king of Judea when Christ was born.

P. 123. 439. Gideon, and Jephtha; see Judges vi.-viii. and xi., xii.; the shepherd-lad: David; see the Books of Samuel.

P. 123. 446. Quintius: Quintius Cincinnatus: Fabricius: the patriotic Roman who was proof against the bribes of Pyrrhus; Curius: Curius Dentatus: who would accept no public rewards; Regulus: after dissuading the Romans from making peace with the Carthaginians, returned to Carthage, knowing the consequences he would suffer.

Comus

P. 129. 4. With Midas' ears: i.e. with the ears of an ass; committing: bringing together, setting at variance (Lat. committere). Martial says, 'Cum Juvenale meo cur me committere tentas?' i.e. 'why try to match me with my Juvenal,' i.e. in a poetical contest with him.

P. 129. 5. exempts: separates, distinguishes; the compound subject 'worth and skill' is logically singular, and takes a singular verb.

P. 129. 11. story: 'the story of Ariadne, set by him to music,' as explained in a note in 'Choice Psalms,' 1648.

P. 129. 13. Casella: 'a Florentine musician and friend of Dante, who here ['Purgatorio,' ii. 91 et seq.] speaks to him with so much tenderness and affection as to make us regret that nothing more is known of him.—Longfellow's note.

milder shades: i.e. than those of the Inferno which Dante has just left.

3. insphered: in their several spheres.

7. pestered: here, as indicated by 'pinfold,' the word means 'clogged'; 'pester' is a shortened form of 'impester.' Fr. empêtrer (OF. empestrer) 'signifies properly to hobble a horse while he feeds afield. Mid. Lat. pastorium, a clog for horses at pasture.'—Brachet's Etymol. Dict. of the French Language, s.v. dépêtrer.

10. After this mortal change: 'mortal' I understand to be used here as a noun, the subject of 'change,' a verb in the subjunctive; there is evidently an allusion to 1 Cor. xv. 52-54, in which occur the expressions, 'we shall be changed' and 'this mortal must put on immortality.'

16. ambrosial weeds: immortal or heavenly garments, i.e. garments worn by an immortal. Gk. Ἀμβρόσιος, lengthened form of ἄμβροτος, immortal. See v. 83.

20. high and nether Jove: by metonymy for the realms of Jove and Pluto.

23. unadornèd: i.e. but for 'the sea-girt isles.'

25. several: separate; by course: in due order.

29. quarters: not literally, but simply, divides, distributes.

30. this tract that fronts the falling sun: Wales.

31. a noble Peer: the Earl of Bridgewater, Lord President of Wales, before whom 'Comus' was presented at Ludlow Castle, 1634.

32. tempered awe: i.e. tempered with mercy; 'mercy seasons justice.'

34. nursed in princely lore: nurtured in high learning.

38. horror: ruggedness, shagginess. See v. 429. . . . 'densis hastilibus horrida myrtus.'—Virgil's Æneid, iii. 23. brows: overarching branches.

39. forlorn and wandering: entirely lost and, consequently, straying at random.

48. After the Tuscan mariners transformed: a Latinism; so, 'since created man.'—P. L., i. 573. The allusion is to the story of the Etruscan or Tyrrhenian pirates, who attempted to carry off Bacchus, sell him as a slave, and were by him changed into dolphins.—Ovid, Met., 660 et seq.

49. listed: pleased.

50. On . . . fell: happened upon.

59. of: from, by reason of.

60. Celtic and Iberian fields: France and Spain.

61. ominous: portentous.

65. orient: bright. The word was used independently of the idea of 'eastern.' In the ode 'On the Nativity,' v. 231, the setting sun 'pillows his chin upon an orient wave.' Fuller, in his 'Holy War,' Book ii. Chap. I., says of Godfrey of Bouillon, 'His soul was enriched with many virtues, but the most orient of all was his humility, which took all men's affections without resistance.'

66. the drouth of Phœbus: the thirst caused by the sun's heat.

67. fond: foolish.

88. nor of less faith: i.e. than of musical power; 'faith' means the fidelity of his service.

90. Likeliest: the best suited for impersonation by the Attendant Spirit, by reason of his office of mountain watch over the flocks. He would therefore be supposed to be near at hand if aid were needed.

92. viewless: invisible.

93. The star that bids the shepherd fold: the evening star cannot be said to hold the top of heaven, i.e. be in the meridian; any star, the earliest to appear, must be meant.

101. his chamber in the east: an allusion to Psalm xix. 5.

110. saws: sayings, maxims; 'grave' is used contemptuously by Comus.

116. to the moon in wavering morrice move: the sounds and seas beneath the moon reflect dancing lights; 'morrice,' a rapid Moorish dance, once common in England.

129. Cotytto: the goddess of shameless and licentious orgies. Her priests were called Baptæ.

—Gifford's translation of Juvenal, ii. 91, 92.

132. spets: spits.

135. Hecate: goddess of sorcery and magic and 'of all kinds of nocturnal ghastliness, such as spectral sights, the howlings of dogs, haunted spots, the graves of the murdered, witches at their incantations' (Masson). King Lear (I. i. 112) swears by 'the mysteries of Hecate and the night.'

139. nice: fastidious, over-scrupulous; used contemptuously by Comus.

141. descry: reveal.

144. round: a circular dance; in 'L'Allegro,' 34, we have 'the light fantastic toe.'

151. trains: enticements, allurements.

154. spungy air: which absorbs his 'dazzling spells.'

155. blear: dim, deceiving.

156. false presentments: representations which deceive the eye.

157. quaint habits: strange garments.

165. virtue: peculiar power. See v. 621; 'Il Pens.,' 113.

167. country gear: rural affairs.

168. fairly: softly.

175. granges: used in its original sense—barns. (Fr. grange.)

178. swilled: drunken.

180. inform my unacquainted feet: where else shall I learn my way than from these revellers.

203. perfect: perfectly distinct, sure, certain, unmistakable. There is a similar use of the word in Shakespeare: 'Thou art perfect, then, our ship hath touched upon the deserts of Bohemia?'—Winter's Tale, III. iii. 1; 'I am perfect that the Pannonians and Dalmatians for their liberties are now in arms.'—Cymb., III. i. 73; 'What hast thou done? I am perfect what' ('I know full well, I am fully aware.' Schmidt).—Cymb., IV. ii. 118.

204. single darkness: pure darkness, only that and nothing more.

210. may startle well: i.e. may well (or indeed) startle.

212. strong-siding: strongly supporting.

215. Chastity: significantly substituted for Charity, as the companion virtue of Faith and Hope, it being the theme, the central idea of the poem, to which an explicit expression is given in the Elder Brother's speech, vv. 418-475, and in the speech of the Lady to Comus, 780-799.

231. airy shell: the dome of the sky; 'cell' is in the margin of Milton's Ms.

248. his: (old neuter genitive) its, referring to 'something.'

251. fall: cadence.

251, 252. smoothing . . . till it smiled: Dr. Symmons, in his 'Life of Milton,' remarks: 'Darkness may aptly be represented by the blackness of the raven; and the stillness of that darkness may be paralleled by an image borrowed from the object of another sense—by the softness of down; but it is surely a transgression which stands in need of pardon when, proceeding a step further and accumulating personifications, we invest this raven-down with life and make it smile.' The metaphorical use of 'smile' or 'laugh,' applied to inanimate things that are smooth, shining, glossy, bright in colour, and the like, is, perhaps, common in all literatures. The Latin 'rideo' and the Greek γελάω are frequently so used; e.g. 'florumque coloribus almus ridet ager' (and the bounteous field laughs with the colours of its flowers).—Ovid, Met., xv. 205; 'Domus ridet argento' (the house smiles with glittering silver).—Horace, Odes, IV. xi. 6; 'Ille terrarum mihi praeter omnes angulus ridet' (that corner of the earth smiles for me above all others).—Horace, Odes, II. vi. 14.

262. home-felt delight: i.e. delight that keeps one at home with himself, does not carry him out of himself; in contrast with the singing of Circe and the Sirens three, which 'in sweet madness robbed it (the sense) of itself.'

267. unless the goddess: i.e. unless (thou be) the goddess; 'dwell'st' should properly be 'dwells,' the antecedent of the relative 'that' being 'goddess,' third person, not 'thou' in the ellipsis.

273. extreme shift: last resort; Fr. dernier ressort.

279. near ushering: attending near at hand.

285. forestalling night: preventing, or hindering, night came before them; 'forestall' has here the present sense of 'prevent,' and 'prevent' its old, literal sense of come before.

287. imports their loss: does their loss signify other than your present need of them?

290. Hebe: the goddess of youth; cupbearer to the gods before Ganymedes.

293. Swinked: hard-worked. Spenser frequently uses the verb 'swink,' and several times in connection with 'sweat'; severe toil is always implied in his use of the word: 'For which men swinck and sweat incessantly.'—F. Q., 2. 7, 8; 'And every one did swincke, and every one did sweat.'—2. 7, 36; 'For which he long in vaine did sweate and swinke,' 6. 4, 32; 'Of mortal men, that swincke and sweate for nought.'—The Sheapherd's Calender, November, 154; 'For they doo swinke and sweate to feed the other.'—Mother Hubbard's Tale, 163.

301. plighted: folded, involved.

313. bosky bourn: Masson explains 'shrubby boundary or watercourse.' Warton's explanation seems better supported by the context: 'A bourn . . . properly signifies here, a winding, deep, and narrow valley, with a rivulet at the bottom. In the present instance, the declivities are interspersed with trees and bushes. This sort of valley Comus knew from side to side. He knew both the opposite sides or ridges, and had consequently traversed the intermediate space.'

315. attendance: attendants.

329. square: adapt.

332. wont'st: art accustomed; benison: blessing.

333. stoop: the same idea, or impression, rather, in regard to the moon, is expressed in 'Il Penseroso,' 72:

—Coleridge's Dejection: an Ode.

336. influence: (astrological) the effect flowing in, or upon, from the stars. See 'P. L.,' vii. 375, viii. 513, ix. 107, x. 662; 'L'Al.,' 122; 'Od. Nat.,' 71.

340. rule: long horizontal beam of light.

341. Star of Arcady: the constellation of the Greater Bear, by which, or by some star in which, the Greek mariner steered his course.

342. Tyrian Cynosure: the constellation of the Lesser Bear, or the pole star therein, by which the Phœnician (Tyrian) mariner steered.

344. wattled cotes: sheep-pens made of interwoven twigs.

349. innumerous: innumerable.

355. leans: subject 'she' implied in 'her,' above. See note on 'Samson Agonistes', 1671; some editors make 'head' the subject.

358. heat: lust.

359. exquisite: used literally: outsearching; 'consider not too curiously.'

366. so to seek: so wanting, so much at a loss.

367. unprincipled: ignorant of the elements, or first principles.

369. noise: not to be connected with 'single want of'; the meaning is, mere darkness and noise.

373. would: might wish.

375. flat sea: in 'Lycidas,' 98, 'level brine.'

376. oft seeks to: oft resorts to.

380. all to-ruffled: all ruffled up; the prefix 'to-' is an old intensive, with force of Ger. 'zer-'; generally imparts the idea of destruction: 'all to-brake,' broke all in pieces; 'all to-rent,' tore all in pieces.

382. centre: as in Shakespeare, centre of the earth.

386. affects: likes, entirely without any of its present meaning of making a show of.

390. weeds: garments.

391. maple: maple-wood.

393. Hesperian tree: the tree in the Hesperian gardens which bore golden apples and was guarded by the sleepless dragon Ladon, which was slain by Hercules.

395. unenchanted: not to be enchanted, or wrought upon by magical spells.

401. wink on: not take notice or advantage of.

402. single: solitary, alone.

404. it recks me not: I take no account of, care not for.

405. events: outcomes, consequences.

407. unowned: without a protector.

409. without all doubt: i.e. without any doubt; a Latinism.

413. squint: 'looking askance.' Spenser represents Suspect ('F. Q.,' 3. 12, 15) as

419. if: even if Heaven did give it.

423. unharboured: without harbor, or shelter.

424. infámous: of bad reputation.

430. unblenched: fearless, self-sustained.

432. some say: reminds, as has been often noted, of the passage in 'Hamlet': 'some say that ever 'gainst that season comes,' etc.—I. i. 158.

455. lackey: attend, or wait upon, as guardians.

474. and linked itself: and as if it were itself linked.

494. artful: artistic, skilful.

495. huddling: hurrying; Verity understands 'huddling' as the result of 'delayed.'

501. next joy: Thyrsis addresses the elder brother as his master's heir, and then the second brother as 'his next joy,' i.e. object of his joy.

503. stealth: the thing stolen.

509. sadly: seriously; without blame: i.e. on our part.

515, 516. what the sage poets . . . storied: made the theme of story:

—Shakespeare's V. and A., 1013, 14.

520. navel: centre.

526. murmurs: muttered spells, or incantations.

529. mintage: coinage.

533. monstrous rout: rout of monsters; so, 'monstrous world,' world of monsters.—Lycidas, 158.

539. unweeting: not knowing.

540. by then: by the time that.

547. meditate: practice; see 'Lycidas,' 66.

548. had: subj., should have; close: i.e. of his 'rural minstrelsy.'

552. unusual stop of sudden silence: see 145.

553. drowsy-flighted: this is the reading of the Cambridge Ms., which Masson adopts. Lawes's ed., 1637, and Milton's editions, 1645, 1673, read 'drowsy frighted.' Masson quite conclusively supports the reading of the Ms., which he explains, 'always drowsily flying.' Keightley retains 'drowsy frighted,' but says in his note, 'we are strongly inclined to think it [the Ms. reading] the right reading, and the present one a mistake of Lawes himself or his printer.'

558. took: rapt.

560. still: ever.

585. period: sentence.

586. for me: as for me.

603. grisly: horrible. 'So spake the grisly terror (Death).'—P. L., ii. 704.

604. Acheron: a river of the lower world; here used for the lower world itself.

607. purchase: acquisition; the word retains here much of its original meaning, i.e. what has been hunted down or stolen.

610. yet: notwithstanding; emprise: here, readiness for any dangerous undertaking.

619. a certain shepherd-lad: a supposed compliment to Milton's dearest friend, Charles Diodati.

620. to see to: to look upon.

621. virtuous: efficacious, potent.

627. simples: medicinal herbs.

634. and like esteemed: i.e. and (un)esteemed.

635. clouted shoon: patched shoes.

636. Moly: (Gk. μώλυ) a fabulous herb, 'that Hermes [Mercury] to wise Ulysses gave,' as a protection against the spells of Circe.—Od., x. 305. See Pope's note, in his translation, x. 361, Tennyson's 'Lotus Eaters,' 133.

638. Hæmony: supposed to be from Hæmonia, Thessaly, famous for its magic.

641. Furies': used objectively.

642. little reckoning made: see 'Lycidas,' 116.

646. lime-twigs: used metaphorically.

662. root-bound: referring to her metamorphosis into a laurel tree (δάφνη).

673. his: old neuter genitive, its.

675. Nepenthes (Gk. νηπενθὲς, sorrow-soothing): the drug (supposed to be opium) given by Polydamna to Helena, who put it into her husband Menelaus's wine.—Od., iv. 220 et seq. See note to Pope's translation, v. 302.

—Poe's Raven, 83.

685. unexempt condition: condition to which all mortal frailty is subject, namely, refreshment after toil, ease after pain.

688. that: referring to 'you,' 682.

695. oughly: the spelling in Milton's editions; 'as Milton has the common spelling, ugly, in all other cases where he has used the word, he must have intended a different form here, perhaps to indicate a more guttural pronunciation.'—Masson.

698. visored: masked; he appears as 'some harmless villager,' v. 166.

707. budge: austere, morose; fur: used metaphorically for order, sect, profession. Landor remarks that 'it is the first time Cynic or Stoic ever put on fur.' 'Budge' also means a kind of fur, but it certainly cannot have that meaning here; the context requires the other meaning.

708. from the Cynic tub: i.e. from the tub whence Diogenes, the Cynic, delivered them.

714. curious: careful, nice, delicate, fastidious.

719. hutched: hoarded, laid up, as in a hutch or chest.

724. yet: in addition; or, it may have the force of 'even.'

744. it: i.e. beauty.

750. grain: 'a term derived from the Latin granum, a seed or kernel, or grain in the sense of "grain of corn,"—which word granum had come, in later Latin times, to be applied specifically to the coccum, a peculiar dye-stuff consisting of the dried, granular, or seed-like bodies of insects of the genus Coccus, collected in large quantities from trees in Spain and other Mediterranean countries. But that dye was distinctly red. Another name for it, and for the insect producing it, was kermes . . . whence our "carmine" and "crimson." "Grain," therefore, meant a dye of such red as might be produced by the use of kermes or coccum.'—From Masson's note on 'Sky-tinctured grain,' 'P. L.,' v. 285, based on George P. Marsh's dissertation on the etymology of the word, in his 'Lectures on the English Language' (1st S., 4th Am. ed., 1861, pp. 65-75). Masson's note on 'cheeks of sorry grain' is 'i.e. of poor colour,' as if 'grain' were used in the general sense of colour merely. It is better, I think, to understand 'grain' here in its special sense of red, but used by Comus ironically, as indicated by 'sorry.' Beautiful cheeks are presumed to have a delicate reddish hue; but where the features are homely and the complexion coarse, the cheeks may be said, ironically, to be of a sorry grain, i.e. not red at all.

759. pranked: set off, adorned, decked.

760. bolt: sift, refine; a metaphor from the process of separating flour from the bran. But the word may mean, as Dr. Newton explains, 'to shoot,' or, as Dr. Johnson explains, 'to blurt out, or throw out precipitantly.'

782. sun-clad: spiritually refulgent.

785. the sublime notion: see in extract from 'Apology for Smectymnuus,' in this volume.

788. worthy: deserving, in a bad sense.

790. your dear wit: the change from 'thy' to 'your' is not explainable here.

791. her dazzling fence: dear wit's and gay rhetoric's dazzling art of fencing. Todd quotes from Prose Works, 'Hired Masters of Tongue-fence': 'dear wit' and 'gay rhetoric,' not constituting a compound idea in Milton's mind, the relative 'that,' of which they are the antecedents, takes a singular verb, and the two nouns are represented by the singular personal pronoun 'her.' In the following passage from Spenser's 'Faerie Queene,' B. II. C. ii. St. 31, two subjects take a singular verb, and are represented by a singular personal pronoun:

The italicized portion of the following passage from 'The Passions and Faculties of the Soul,' by Reynolds, C. xxxix, given in Trench's 'Select Glossary,' s.v. Wit, defines well 'dear wit': 'I take not wit in that common acceptation, whereby men understand some sudden flashes of conceit whether in style or conference, which, like rotten wood in the dark, have more shine than substance, whose use and ornament are, like themselves, swift and vanishing, at once both admired and forgotten. But I understand a settled, constant and habitual sufficiency of the understanding, whereby it is enabled in any kind of learning, theory, or practice, both to sharpness in search, subtilty in expression, and despatch in execution.'

797. brute: senseless; lend her nerves: i.e. to this sacred vehemence.

800-806. spoken aside.

804. speaks thunder: threatens thunder and the chains of Erebus to some of the Titans who are disposed to be rebellious in their imprisonment in Tartarus. It seems to be meant that Erebus is a more painful region than that into which they were cast after their defeat by Jove (Zeus).

815. snatched his wand: see v. 653.

816. without his rod reversed: the process, as related in Ovid, 'Met.,' xiv. 299-305, by which the companions of Ulysses are, through his intervention, retransformed by Circe.

822. Melibœus: Spenser is probably referred to.

823. soothest: truest, most faithful.

826. Sabrina: the legend of Sabrina is told by Geoffrey of Monmouth, in his 'Latin History of the Britons'; by Drayton, in his 'Polyolbion,' 6th Song; by Warner, in his 'Albion's England'; by Spenser, in his 'Faerie Queene,' II. x. 14-19, and by Milton, in the first book of his 'History of Britain.'

835. Nereus: 'the good spirit of the Ægean Sea,' father of the nereids or sea-nymphs.

852. old swain: Melibœus.

867-889. Listen, and appear to us: Oceanus was the most ancient sea-god, . . . Neptune, with his trident, was a later being. Tethys was the wife of Oceanus, and mother of the river-gods. Hoary Nereus is the 'aged Nereus' of line 835. The Carpathian wizard is the subtle Proteus, ever shifting his shape: . . . Triton, son of Neptune and Aphrodite, . . . he was 'scaly,' because the lower part of him was fish. Glaucus was a Bœotian fisherman who had been changed into a marine god: . . . was an oracle for sailors and fishermen. Leucothea ('the white goddess') was originally Ino, the daughter of Cadmus, and had received her new name after she had drowned herself and been converted into a sea-deity. Her son that rules the strands was Melicertes, drowned and deified with her, and thenceforward known as Palæmon, or Portumnus, the god of bays and harbours. Thetis, one of the daughters of Nereus, and therefore a sea-deity by birth, married Peleus, and was the mother of Achilles: . . . Of the Sirens, or singing sea-nymphs . . . Parthenope and Ligea were two. The 'dear tomb' of the first was at Naples . . . the 'golden comb' of the second is from stories of our own mermaids.—Masson's note, condensed.

900. gentle swain: the attendant spirit is still in the person and habit of the shepherd Thyrsis.

913. cure: curative power.

919. his: old neuter genitive, its.

921. to wait: to attend in the bower (court) of Amphitrite (wife of Neptune).

922. daughter of Locrine: see vv. 827, 828. The order of the legendary 'line' is, Anchises, Æneas, Ascanius, Silvius, Brutus, Locrine.

924. brimmed: full to the brim or edge of the bank; cf. 'full-fed river.'—Tennyson's Palace of Art.

929. scorch: optative subj.

934-937. The true construction of these lines is pointed out by Mr. Calton, quoted in Todd's variorum ed.: 'May thy lofty head be crowned round with many a tower and terrace, and here and there [may] thy banks [be crowned] upon with groves of myrrh and cinnamon.'

960. duck or nod: i.e. of the awkward country dancers.

964. mincing Dryades: daintily stepping wood-nymphs.

968. goodly: interesting and attractive in appearance.

972. assays: trials.

982. Hesperus and his daughters three: brother of Atlas, and father of the Hesperides.

1012. But now, etc.: may be an independent or a subordinate sentence; if the latter, understand 'that' after 'now.' It is, perhaps, preferable to take it as an independent sentence.

1015. bowed welkin: arched sky; the idea is that the bend is the less noticeable at 'the green earth's end.'

1017. corners: horns.

1021. higher than the sphery chime: 'i.e. to the Empyrean, beyond the spheres which give forth their music.'—Keightley.

Lycidas

P. 167. haud procul a littore Britannico: 'the ship having struck on a rock not far from the British shore and been ruptured by the shock, he, while the other passengers were fruitlessly busy about their mortal lives, having fallen forward upon his knees, and breathing a life which was immortal, in the act of prayer going down with the vessel, rendered up his soul to God, August 10, 1637, aged 25.'—Masson's translation.

1-5. Yet once more: these verses express the poet's sense of his unripeness for the exercise of the poetic gift. See his 'English Letter to a Friend,' p. 40; laurel, myrtle, and ivy are poetical emblems.

5. before the mellowing year: i.e. before the mellowing year or period of his own life; 'mellowing' is intransitive, growing or becoming mellow; 'year' is not a nominative, the subject of 'does' or 'shatters,' understood, as several editors make it, but is the object of the preposition 'before.'

6. dear: of intimate concernment; the word was formerly applied to what is precious, or painful, to the heart; it has here, of course, the latter application.

7. Compels me to disturb your season due: i.e. compels me to write a poem before I have attained to the requisite 'inward ripeness.' The compound subject, 'bitter constraint and sad occasion dear,' is logically singular, and takes a singular verb. The placing of a noun between two epithets is usual with Milton, especially when the epithet following the noun qualifies the noun as qualified by the preceding epithet; e.g. 'hazel copses green,' v. 42; 'flower-inwoven tresses torn.'—Hymn on the Nativity, 187; 'beckoning shadows dire.'—Comus, 207.

14. melodious tear: 'tear' is used, by metonymy, for an elegiac poem.

15. sacred well: the Pierian spring.

16. the seat of Jove: Mount Olympus.

17. loudly: i.e. as Hunter explains, in lamentation; or, perhaps, in praises.

18. Hence with denial vain and coy excuse: away with, etc., i.e. on my part; denial: refusal; coy: shrinking, hesitating, reluctant, by reason of what is expressed in the opening verses.

19-22. So may . . . sable shroud: these verses are parenthetical, and v. 23 must be connected with v. 18, 'Hence with denial vain,' etc. I have followed Keightley's pointing; gentle Muse: high-born (nobly endowed) poet; lucky words: words that will favorably perpetuate my memory; bid fair peace: pray that fair peace be, etc.

23-36. For we were nursed: these verses express in pastoral language the devotion to their joint studies, early and late, of Milton and King, at Christ's College, Cambridge.

25. ere the high lawns appeared: i.e. before daybreak.

28. What time the grey-fly: i.e. the sultry noontide.

30. Oft till the star . . . had sloped his westering wheel: i.e. they continued their studies till after midnight, while in the meantime many of their fellow-students were giving themselves to music and dancing.

33. Tempered: attuned, modulated.

36. old Damœtas: 'may be,' says Masson, 'some fellow or tutor of Christ's College, if not Dr. Bainbrigge, the master.'

37. Now thou art gone: emotionally repeated; heavy: sad.

40. With wild thyme . . . o'ergrown: to be connected only with 'desert caves,' not 'woods.'

44. to: responsively to.

45. canker: cankerworm.

49. Such: used in its etymological sense, so-like; so-like killing is thy loss; thy: of thee; the personal pronoun here, used objectively, and not the possessive adjective pronoun.

52. the steep: some one of the Welsh mountains.

53. lie: lie buried.

54. Mona: the isle of Anglesey; Mona is represented by Tacitus as the chief seat of the Druids; shaggy: densely wooded; 'shaggy hill.'—P. L., iv. 224.

—P. L., vi. 645.

55. Deva: the river Dee; called a 'wizard stream' from its associations with Druidical divinations and traditions, or Milton, in his use of the epithet, may have had more particularly in his mind the belief in regard to the river as the boundary between England and Wales, that it was itself prophetic. Drayton, in his 'Polyolbion,' 10th Song, says of the Dee:

Aubrey, in his 'Miscellanies,' 1696, Chap. XVII., says, as quoted by Todd, 'F. Q.,' IV. xi. 39, 'when any Christian is drowned in the river Dee, there will appear over the water, where the corpse is, a light, by which means they do find the body; and it is therefore called the holy Dee.'

58. The Muse herself: Calliope.

59. enchanting: refers to the power he exercised, with the lyre given him by Apollo, over wild beasts, trees, rocks, etc.

64-69. Alas! what boots it: in these verses Milton, with his high ideal of the function of poetry, laments its low state, and momentarily gives way to the thought that it would be better to conform to the prevailing flimsy taste than to 'strictly meditate the thankless Muse,' i.e. seriously devote one's self to song such as meets with no favor in these days. Amaryllis and Neæra are names of shepherdesses in Virgil's first and third Eclogues, and in other pastorals; 'meditate the thankless Muse' is after Virgil's 'Silvestrem tenui Musam meditaris avenâ.'—Ecl., i. 2.

75. Fury: used in a general, and not in its special, mythological sense; the allusion is, of course, to Atropos, one of the Fates; called a blind fury by reason of the rashness with which she sometimes slits the thin-spun thread of life, as in the case of his friend King; 'slit' now always means to cut lengthwise; here, to cut across, sever.

76. But not the praise: 'slits' is understood, but it doesn't yoke well with 'praise'; the nearest substitute would be 'cuts off': but cuts not off the praise.

79. Nor in: i.e. nor (lies) in, not set off in; 'set off' refers, not to 'Fame,' but to 'glistering foil,' i.e. the bright outside exhibited to the world.

81. by: as Keightley explains, by means of, under the influence of; he quotes Habakkuk i. 13: 'Thou art of purer eyes than to behold evil.'

85. fountain Arethuse: in the island Ortygia, near Syracuse; by metonymy for the 'Sicilian Muse' (v. 133), or the fountain-nymph, Arethusa, presiding over pastoral poetry, which originated in Sicily, and was consummated by Theocritus, a native of Syracuse. Virgil, in the opening of his fourth Eclogue, Pollio, invokes the Sicilian Muses (Sicelides Musæ, paullo majora canamus), and in his tenth Eclogue, Gallus, he invokes the fountain nymph, Arethusa, to aid him in his last pastoral song (Extremum hunc, Arethusa, mihi concede laborem); and thou honoured flood, smooth-sliding Mincius: Mantua, Virgil's birth town, or what he regarded as such (he was born in the neighboring village of Andes), is on an island in the river Mincius, a tributary of the Po; honoured flood . . . crowned with vocal reeds: i.e. by reason of its association with Virgil, and his fame as a pastoral poet. Lord Tennyson, in his ode 'To Virgil, written at the request of the Mantuans for the nineteenth centenary of Virgil's death,' speaks of him as a pastoral poet, in the fourth and fifth stanzas:

88. my oat proceeds: the suspended pastoral strain is resumed.

89. Herald of the Sea: Triton, with 'wreathed horn.'

90. in Neptune's plea: Neptune's is an objective genitive: in defence, or exculpation of Neptune. This explanation of 'plea' is supported by its use in all other places in Milton's poetry:

—P. L., iv. 394.

—S. A., 834.

Keightley explains that Triton 'came, deputed by Neptune, to hold a judicial inquiry into the affair. We have the Pleas of the Crown and the Court of Common Pleas.'

96. Hippotades: a patronymic of Æolus, god of the winds.

98. the level brine: in v. 167, 'the watery floor.'

99. Sleek Panope: one of the sea-nymphs, daughter of Nereus; the name (in Gk. Πανόπη) seems to indicate that the nymph is a personification of a smooth sea ('level brine') which affords a full view all around to the horizon. The voyager on such a sea is 'ringed with the azure world.' The epithet 'sleek' is in accord with the personification.

100-102. It was that fatal: these verses are not part of the answer which Hippotades brings; the poet speaks in his own person.

101. Built in the eclipse: eclipses were believed to shed malign influences (see 'P. L.,' i. 594-599); one of the ingredients of the witches' hell-broth, in 'Macbeth,' is 'slips of yew, slivered in the moon's eclipse'; rigged with curses dark: 'with,' of course, though this has been questioned, expresses accompaniment; to understand it as instrumental, makes a crazy hyperbole of the phrase.

102. sacred head: King was dedicated to the holy office of the ministry. He is made to represent, in the poem, a pure priesthood.

103-107. Next Camus: Dr. Masson's note, and the included quoted one, are the most acceptable of the numerous notes on this passage: 'Camus, the tutelary genius of the Cam, and of Cambridge University, appeared as one of the mourning figures; for had not King been one of the young hopes of the University? The garb given to Camus must doubtless be characteristic, and is perhaps most succinctly explained by a Latin note which appeared in a Greek translation of "Lycidas" by Mr. John Plumptre in 1797. "The mantle," said Mr. Plumptre in this note, "is as if made of the plant 'river-sponge,' which floats copiously in the Cam; the bonnet of the river-sedge, distinguished by vague marks traced somehow over the middle of the leaves, and serrated at the edge of the leaves after the fashion of the ἀὶ, ἀὶ of the hyacinth." It is said that the flags of the Cam still exhibit, when dried, these dusky streaks in the middle, and apparent scrawlings on the edge; and Milton (in whose Ms. "scrawled o'er" was first written for "inwrought") is supposed to have carried away from the "arundifer Camus" ('Eleg.,' i. 11) this exact recollection. He identifies the edge-markings with the ἀὶ, ἀὶ (Alas! Alas!) which the Greeks fancied they saw on the leaves of the hyacinth, commemorating the sad fate of the Spartan youth from whose blood that flower had sprung.'

107. pledge: child; Lat. pignus amoris.

109. The Pilot: St. Peter, whom, it must be understood, Milton presents as 'the type and head of true episcopal power,' to which he was in no wise opposed. He wished the bishop to be a truly spiritual overseer, as the word signifies.

114. Enow: an archaic plural form of 'enough'; 'hellish foes enow.'—P. L., ii. 504; 'evils enow to darken all his goodness.'—Antony and Cleopatra, I. iv. 11.

117. to scramble at the shearer's feast: to scramble for and gobble up fat benefices.

118. the worthy bidden guest: one who has been truly called to serve the Church.

119. Blind mouths: 'mouths' is used, by synecdoche, for gluttons, as the five preceding verses show. Ruskin's explanation of the phrase, in his 'Sesame and Lilies,' is very ingenious, but it is not likely that Milton meant it to have such significance. 'Those two monosyllables,' he says, 'express the precisely accurate contraries of right character in the two great offices of the Church,—those of Bishop and Pastor. A Bishop means a person who sees. A Pastor means one who feeds. The most unbishoply character a man can have is, therefore, to be Blind. The most unpastoral is, instead of feeding, to want to be fed,—to be a Mouth. Take the two reverses together, and you have "blind mouths."'

Milton makes here his first onset upon the ecclesiastical abuses of the time. He was destined to make, not long after, fiercer onsets in his polemic prose writings.

120. the least: connect with 'aught else' rather than 'belongs.'

122. What recks it them: what does it concern them; They are sped: they've been successful in obtaining rich livings.

123. list: please; in earlier English generally used impersonally with a dative; when they list: i.e. when it suits them, not otherwise. They don't act from any sense of duty.

123, 124. their lean and flashy songs grate: their wretched sermons are wretchedly delivered with the emphasis of insincerity. Masson explains 'scrannel,' 'screeching, ear-torturing.'

126. wind and the rank mist they draw: i.e. the mere wind of some sermons and the poisonous doctrines of others, which their flocks inhale and drink in, and then impart the resulting spiritual disease to others.

128, 129. the grim wolf: generally understood to mean the Church of Rome. Bishop Newton, who first understood the passage to have reference to Archbishop Laud's 'privily introducing popery' afterward gave the alternative explanation, 'besides what the popish priests privately pervert to their religion,' which Masson conclusively supports in his 'Life of Milton,' and adopts in his note on the passage in his edition of the 'Poetical Works'; the 'privy paw' doesn't suit Archbishop Laud, who did everything above-board.

130, 131. But that two-handed engine: see my explanation of these verses in the Introductory Remarks.

132. Return, Alpheus: he invokes the return of the pastoral Muse when the dread denouncing voice of St. Peter has ceased. Alpheus, the chief river of Peloponnesus, flowing through Arcadia and Elis. The river-god loved the nymph Arethusa, of Elis, whom, in her flight from him, Diana changed into a fountain which was directed by the goddess under the sea to the island of Ortygia, near Syracuse. The river followed under sea and united with the fountain. See note on v. 85.

136. use: frequent.

138. whose: refers to 'valleys'; the swart star: understood by editors to mean the dog-star Sirius. But it may mean, and I think it does, the day-star, the sun. See v. 168; 'diurnal star.'—P. L., x. 1069; swart: used causatively; sparely looks: i.e. by reason of the shades.

139. quaint enamelled eyes: flowers of curious structure and of variegated glossy colors (?); the words are more enjoyable than distinctly intelligible; in the 'P. L.,' ix. 529, it is said of the serpent:

Here 'enamelled' appears to mean variegated and glossy; so in Arcades:

141. purple: an imperative, to be construed with 'throw.'

142. rathe: early, soon; the old positive form of 'rather,' sooner. Tennyson uses the word in his 'In Memoriam,' c. ix. 2, 'The men of rathe and riper years'; and in 'Lancelot and Elaine,' 339, 'Till rathe she rose,' etc.; that forsaken dies: forsaken by the sun.