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"It sometimes falleth out, that mariners, thinking these whales to be islands, and casting out ankers upon their backs, are often in danger of drowning. The Bishop of Breme, in old time, sent certaine legates with a convent of friers to preach and publish in the north the popish faith; and when they had spent a long journey in sailing towards the north, they came unto an iland, and there casting their anker, they went ashore, and kindled fires, and so provided victuals for the rest of their journy. But when their fires grew very hote, this iland sanke, and suddenly vanished away, and the mariners escaped drowning very narrowly with the boate that was present." Hakluyt's Voyages, I. 568.

-His pond'rous shield,

the broad circumference

Hung on his shoulders like the moon,—

Ver. 284.

"And on her shoulder hung her shield,-
As the fair moon in her most full aspect."
Spenser's F. 2. B. V. Cant. v. St. 3.

While over-head the moon,

they on their mirth and dance

Intent,

V. 784.

"Jam Cytherea choros ducit Venus, imminente Luna; Junctæque Nymphis Gratia decentes

Alterno terram quatiunt pede.”

Like a comet burn'd,

Hor. L. I. Od. iv. v. 5.

and from his horrid hair

Shakes pestilence and war.

B. II. v. 708.

So Spenser:

"All as a blazing star doth far out-cast
His hairy beams, and flaming locks dispred,
At sight whereof the people stand agast.”

And Sylvester:

F. 2. B. III. Cant. i. st. 16.

"There, with long bloudy hair, a blazing star
Threatens the world with famin, plague, and war."

Again:

"That hairy comet, that long streaming star,
Which threatens earth with famine, plague, and war."
Du Bartas, 2d. Day, 1st. Week.

Pope hath introduced this passage from Milton into the translation of the Iliad, where Homer only says, ', snps, like a star.

"Like the red star, that from his flaming hair
Shakes down diseases, pestilence, and war,'

As when a prowling wolf,

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B. xix, v. 412,

Whom hunger drives to seek new haunt for prey,
Watching where shepherds pen their flocks at eve
In hurdled cotes amid the field secure,

Leaps o'er the fence with ease into the fold

"Like as a wolfe about the closed fold Rangeth by night his hoped prey to get, Enrag'd with hunger, and with malice old,

B. IV. v. 183.

Which kinde* twixt him and harmlesse sheepe hath set." Fairfax's Tasso, xix. 35.

Bentley, in a note on verse 303 of this book, is surprised that Milton, in his description of the person of Adam, should omit his beard. Newton imagines it was because the painters never represent our first parent with one, But neither the critic nor the good bishop were aware of the ignominy which the beard of man lies under. Helmont gravely asserts, that Adam was created an handsome young man, without a beard; but that his face was afterward degraded with hair, like the beasts, for his disobedience; and that Eve, being less guilty, was permitted to retain her smooth face. The fantastic philosopher also adds this extraordinary remark, that, if an angel appears with a beard, you may depend on it that he is an evil one, for no good angel ever wore a beard. "Adam creabatur juvenis, imberbis, floridus; quamobrem ut primus verecundiæ infractor enotesceret, Deus mento, genis atque labris Adami pilos obnasci voluit, ut multorum quadrupedum compar, socius et similis esset: Evam vero, pudoris et pudicitiæ tenaciorem, vultu

* Nature,

polito decoram retinuit. Inter signa quibus angeli in apparationibus distinguuntur unum capitale est: si apparuit barbatus angelus, malus esto; Eudæmon enim nunquam barbatus apparuit,'

Thither came Uriel, gliding through the even
On a sun beam, swift as a shooting star
In autumn thwarts the night,-

The angel Michael thus descends;

IV. 555,

"Or in the stillnesse of a moone-shine eaven,
A falling star so glideth down from heaven.”

Fairfax's Tasso, B. ix. St. 62,

Neither various stile

Nor holy rapture wanted they to praise
Their Maker, in fit strains pronounc'd or sung
Unmeditated, such prompt eloquence

Flow'd from their lips, in prose or numerous verse,
More tuneable than needed lute or harp

To add more sweetness ;

B. V. v. 146.

On the contrary, a modern writer on the Origin and Progress of Language hath laboured much to prove what Lucretius had said in fewer words, that the first men were mute, and that it was several ages before they could speak distinctly. The feelings of Lord M. would have been much hurt, if he had known that he was flatly contradicting a person of so amiable a character as St. Hildegardis, as well as Milton; for she tells us, that the voice of the first man was so extensively harmonious, that it contained the whole art of music, and was so powerful, that it would have been too much for degenerate ears; nay, that it was so sonorous, that when Adam began to sing, it frightened even the devil himself. But take the very words of this virgin-saint and prophetess, in the sermon which she preached in Latin to the good people of Mentz in the twelfth century. "Adam-in cujus voce sonus omnis harmoniæ et totius musicæ artis, antequam delinqueret, suavitas erat; ita ut si in illo statu, quo formatus erat, permansisset, infirmitas mortalis hominis virtutem et sonoritatem vocis illius ferre non posset. Cum autem deceptor ejus audisset, quod homo,-tam sonore cantare cœpisset,-exterritus est."

Who shall decide when lords with saints contend?

Hear all ye Angels, progeny of light,

Thrones, dominations, princedoms, virtues, powers,-

The mighty regencies

V. 600.

Of Seraphim and Potentates and Thrones

In their triple degrees;—

V. 748.

"Those hierarchies that Jove's great will supply,
Whose orders formed in triplicitie,

Holding their places by the treble trine,

Make up that holy theologike nine :
Thrones, Cherubin, and Seraphin, that rise
As the first three; when Principalities,
With Dominations, Potestates, are plac'd
The second; and the Epiphonian last,
Which Vertues, Angels, and Archangels bee."

Drayton's Man in the Moone.

Every eye

Glar'd lightning and shot forth pernicious fire
Among th' accurs'd, that wither'd all their strength,-

B. VI. v. 848.

This animated description resembles a passage in Æschylus, Prometheus vinctus. v. 356.

The swan with arched neck

Between her white wings mantling proudly,

B. VII. v. 438.

"The jealous swan, there swimming in his pride, With his arch'd breast the waters did divide.” Drayton's Man in the Moone,

Again:

"Swanne,

Which like a trumpet comes from his long arched throat."

Mantling is a term in falconry,

Polyolbion, Song 25,

"Ne is there hawk which mantleth her on pearch."

Spenser's F. 2. B. VI. Cant. ii. St. 32.

That milky way,

Which nightly as a circling zone thou seest

Powder'd with stars,

V. 579.

"Poudred with stars streaming with glorious light." Sylvester's Du Bartas, 4th Day, 1st. Week.

Again:

"With glistering stars imbost, and poudred rich," Fourth Part of 2d. Day of 2d. Week.

Jortin, in his note on Book XI. v. 565, introduces the following remark:

"Quod superest, æs atque aurum, ferrumque repertum est, Et simul argenti pondus, plumbique potestas ; Ignis ubi ingentes silvas ardore cremârat

Montibus in magnis."

Lucret, lib. V. v. 1240.

"These verses want emendation. Plumbi potestas is nonsense. The stop should be placed thus:

"Et simul argenti pondus plumbique, potestas
Ignis ubi ingentes, &c.

Argenti pondus plumbique, as in Virgil, argenti pondus et auri. Potestas ignis expresses the consuming power of fire, We have potentia solis in Virgil, and potestates herbarum.”

JORTIN.

If Dr. Jortin had examined the whole passage in Lucretius relating to the discovery of metals and the uses men first applied them to, he would not have thought any alteration necessary in the pointing.

"Et terebrare etiam, ac pertundere, perque forare.
Nec minus argento facere hæc auroque parabant,
Quam validi primum violentis viribus æris:
Nequicquam: quoniam cedebat victa potestas,
Nec poterat pariter durum sufferre laborem,
Nam fuit in pretio magis æs, aurumque jacebat
Propter inutilitatem hebeti mucrone retusum.'
Ver. 1267.

No doubt the potestas plumbi in the former quotation hath the same meaning as the potestas auri et argenti in this. The plain import of this description of the poet is, that metals were first discovered by the burning of forests, and that men valued the different sorts, in early ages, according as they found them more or less hard, when they attempted to use them in such tools and instruments as their occasions required.

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