And when the fun begins to fling
His flaring beams, me, Goddefs, bring
To arched walks of twilight groves,
And fhadows brown that Sylvan loves,
Of pine, or monumental oak,

Where the rude ax with heaved ftroke

135

Spreading, as we have feen, over the walls of the house, Now, their leaves are dropping wet with a morning-shower.

131. And when the fun begins to fling

P. 1449.

His flaring beams.-] So Drayton, NYMPHID. vol. i.

When Phebus with a face of mirth

Had FLONG abroad his BEAMES.

Our author, in his book OF REFORMATION, of gospel truth. "In a FLARING tire befpeckled her with all the gawdy allure"ments of a whore." PR. W. vol. i. 9.

133. To arched walks of twilight groves,

And fhadows brown that Sylvan loves.] Thus in Browne's BRITANNIA'S PASTORALS, now in high reputation, B. ii. S. iv. p. 104.

Now wanders Pan the ARCHED groves and hills,

Where fayeries often danc'd.

Again, ibid, S. ii. p. 44.

Downe through the ARCHED Wood the fhepherds wend.

In Coмus, in the manufcript, v. 181.

In the blind alleys of this ARCHED Wood.

IN PARADISE REGAINED, B. ii. 293.

Enter'd foon the shade

HIGH-ROOFT, and walks beneath, and alleys BROWN,

Here, by the way, is accidentally bishop Warburton's ingenious bat falfe idea of the Saracen architecture. Compare alfo B. iv. 705.

More facred and fequefter'd, though but feign'd,

Pan or SYLVANUS never flept.

Was

Was never heard the Nymphs to daunt,
Or fright them from their hallow'd haunt.
There in close covert by fome brook,
Where no profaner eye may look,
Hide me from day's garish eye,

While the bee with honied thie,

140

141. Hide me from day's garish eye.] So in PARAD. L. B. v. 171. Thou fun, of this great world both EYE and foul.

And Spenfer, F. Q, i. iii. 4.

As the great EYE of heaven fhyned bright.

But to come more closely to the text. In SON N. i. 5.
Thy liquid notes that close the EYE OF DAY.

Again, Coмus, v. 978.

Where DAY never fhuts his EYE.

Mr. Bowle adds thefe inftances. Sylvefter, p. 84. edit. ut fupr. DAYE's glorious EYE.

The old play of LINGUA, A. v. S. vi.

-Heaven's bright fun, the DAYS moft glorious EYE.

Browne, BRIT. PAST. B. i. S. i. p. 3.

Whilst that the DAYES fole EYE doth guild the feas. And, in the Poems of fir J. Beaumont, p. 129. edit. 1629. The funn was onely framd to please the eye,

And onely therefore nam'd the EYE of heaven.

Ph. Fletcher, PURPL. ISL. C. vi. 18.

Heavens bright-burning EYE lofes his blinded fight. Drayton, Mus. ELYS. N. vi. vol. iv. p. 1490.

Vayl'd heaven's most glorious EYE.

Shakespeare, K. JOHN, A. iv. S. ii.

With taper light

To feek the beauteous EYE of heaven to garnish,
Is wafteful and ridiculous excefs.

And in Rich. ii. A. iii. S. ii.

When the fearching EYE of HEAVEN is hid.

To these, and others at hand from Sylvefter, I will only add one from Gray,

Waves in the EYE of heaven her many-colour'd wings. Compare LYCIDAS, V. 26. And fee Malone's SUPPL. Sh.i. 595.

That

That at her flowery work doth fing,
And the waters murmuring

With fuch confort as they keep,

Entice the dewy-feather'd sleep;

And let some strange mysterious dream
Wave at his wings in aery ftream

145

142. While the bee with bonied thie, &c.] See Note on SAMS. AGON. V. 1066. So Virgil, EcL. i. 56.

Hyblais apibus florem depafta falicti,

Sæpe levi SOM NU M fuadebit inire SUSURRO.

On the hill Hymettus, the haunt of learning, the bee is made to invite to meditation, with great elegance and propriety, PARAD. REG. iv. 247.

There flowery hill Hymettus, with the found

Of bees induftrious murmur, oft invites

TO STUDIOUS MUSING.

142. 144. Compare Drayton's OwLE, vol. iv. p. 1292. ut fupr. See the small brookes as through the groves they travel, With the fmooth cadence of their murmuring;

Each bee with honie on her laden thye.

147. And let fome ftrange myfterious dream Wave at his wings in airy ftream

Of lively portraiture difplay'd,

Softly on my eye-lids laid.] I do not exactly understand the whole of the context. Is the Dream to wave at Sleep's wings? Doctor Newton will have wave to be a verb neuter and very justly, as the paffage now ftands. But let us ftrike out at, and make wave active.

Let fome ftrange myflerious dream
Wave his wings, in airy ftream, &c.

"Let fome fantastic DREAM put the wings of SLEEP in motion, "which fhall be displayed, or expanded, in an airy or foft ftream "of vifionary imagery, gently falling or fettling on my eye-lids." Or, his may refer to DREAM, and not to SLEEP, with much the fame fenfe. In the mean time, fuppofing lively adverbial, as was now common, difplayed will connect with pourtaiture, that is, "pourtraiture lively displayed," with this fenfe, "Wave his wings, "in an airy ftream of rich pictures fo strongly displayed in vifion as "to resemble real Life." Or, if lively remain as an adjective, much in the fame fenfe, difplayed will fignify displaying itself. On the whole, we muft not here feek for precife meanings of parts, but acquiefce in a general idea refulting from the whole, which I think

Of lively portraiture display'd,

Softly on my eye-lids laid.

150

And as I wake, fweet mufic breathe

Above, about, or underneath,

is fufficiently feen. The expreffion on my eye-lids laid, is from Shakespeare, MIDS. N. DR. A. ii. S. i.

The juice of it" on fleeping eye-lids laid."

In the fame ftrain, Fletcher in the FAITHFUL SHEPHERDESS A. ii. S. i. vol. iii. p. 126.

Sweeteft flumbers

And foft filence, fall in numbers

On your eye-lids.

And in the TRAGEDY OF VALENTINIAN, in an address to fleep. A. v. S. ii. vol. iv. p. 353.

On this afflicted prince fall like a cloud

In gentle showers.

Nor muft I forget an exquifite paffage in PARAD. L. B. iv.614. The timely dew of fleep

Now falling with soft slumbrous weight inclines

Our eye-lids.

Where the language would infenfibly lull us afleep, did not the imagery keep us awake. But for wildness, and perhaps force, of imagery, in expreffing the approach of fleep, Shakespeare exceeds all. MIDS. N. DR. A. iii. S. ii.

Till o'er their brows death-counterfeiting sleep

With leaden legs and batty wings doth creep.

151. And as I wake, fweet mufic breathe

Above, about, and underneath.] This wonderful mufic, particularly the fubterraneous, proceeding from an invifible caufe, and whispered to the pious ear alone, by fome guardian spirit, or the genius of the wood, was probably fuggefted to Milton's imagination by fome of the machineries of the Maks under the contrivance of Inigo Jones. Hollinfhead, describing a very curious device or spectacle prefented before queen Elizabeth, infifts particularly on the fecret or myfterious mufic of fome fictitious Nymphs, which, he adds, furely had been a noble hearing, and the more "melodious for the varietie [novelty] thereof, because it should "come fecretlie and ftrangelie out of the earth." HIST. iii. f. 1297. Perhaps the poet's whole idea was from one of these reprefentations, in which the chief aim of the inventor was to surprise. Jonfon, in a Masque called a Particular Entertaynment of the Queene and Prince at Altrope, 1603, has this ftage-direction. "To the

66

" found

Sent by fome Spirit to mortals good,

Or th' unfeen Genius of the wood.

"found of excellent foft mufique, that was there concealed in the thicket, there came tripping up the lawne a beauy of faeries," &c. p. 871. edit. 1616. And the Satyre hearing it fays, Here, and there, and every where?

Some folemnities are nere,

That these CHANGES ftrike mine eare.

And Shakespeare drew from the fame foarce, although the general idea is from Plutarch, ANTON. CLEOPATR. A. iv. S. iii. The foldiers are watching before the palace. "Mufick of hautboys under "the ftage.-2 Sold. Peace, what noife? 1 Sold. Lift, Lift! Mu"fick i'th'AIR. 3. Sold. Under the EARTH, &c." Sandys, in the Notes to his English Ovid, fays, that " In the garden of the Tuil"leries at Paris, by an artificial device UNDERGROUND invented "for muficke, I have known an echo repeat a Verfe." Edit. Oxon. 1632. p. 103. Pfyche in Apuleius, fleeping on a green and flowery bank near a romantic grove, is awakened by invifible fingers and unfeen harps. AUR. ASIN. L. v. p. 87. b. edit. Beroald. By the way, the whole of this fiction in Apuleius, where Pfyche wafted by the zephyrs into a delicious valley, fees a foreft of huge trees, containing a fuperb palace richly conftructed of ivory, gold and precious ftones, in which a fumptuous banquet accompanied with mu fic is most luxuriously displayed, no perfon in the mean time appearing, has been adopted by the Gothic romance writers. Rinaldo, in Taffo's Inchanted Foreft, hears unfeen harps and fingers. C. xvi. 67.

152. Above, about, or underneath.] This romantic paffage has been imitated by an author of a strong imagination, an admirer and follower of our poet, Thomfon, in SUMMER, firft Edit. p. 39. The context is altered rather for the worfe in the later editions. And, frequent, in the middle watch of night, Or, all day long, in defarts ftill, are heard, Now here, now there, now wheeling in mid sky, Around, or underneath, aerial founds,

Sent from angelic harps, and voices join'd;
A happiness beftow'd by us alone,

On Contemplation, or the hallow'd ear
Of poet, fwelling to feraphic ftrain.

Dr. J. WARTON.

Adam fpeaks, with tranfport, of the "aereal mufic of cherubic fongs, heard by night from the neighboring hills." PARAD. L. See TEMPEST, A. i. S. ii.

B. v. 547.

Where fhould this music be, i' th' air, or TH’EARTH?

It founds no more!

I hear it now above me.

But