Spenser thus finely exclaims. "O what is now of it become, aread: But lives for aye in blissful paradise.” In Cleaveland's Poems, edit. 1665, there are some bad verses "on the memory of Mr. Edward King, drowned in the Irish seas;" the same probably whom Milton laments. The idea of Uriel's descending on a sun-beam, Par. Lost, book IV. which has been proved to be borrowed in Milton, seems to have given a hint to Dr. Young, when he said, "Perhaps a thousand demigods descend On ev'ry beam we see, to walk with men." See Par. Regained, b. II. 293. Night 9, And enter'd soon the shade High rooft, and walks beneath, and alleys brown, See Drayton's Polyolbion, 26 song. "And in a dimble near (even as a place divine, As Nature had therein ordained some Sylvan power.” Surging waves, Par. Lost, lib. VII. 214. Drayton has unsurging seas. See folio edit. p. 200, col. 2. This word, which seldom occurs in any of our later poets, is to be found likewise in the Mirror for Magistrates, edit. 1610. Sir Neptune's surging seas, p. 197. Amongst Milton's Latinisms we find facile gates, Par. Lost, b. IV. 967. This word occurs in Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy, see p. 85, facile means. In full harmonic number join'd, their songs "Make of your prayers one sweet sacrifice, SHAKSP. Hen. VII. Iris there, with humid bow, Waters th' odorous banks, that blow Comus, 992, Blow is here used neutrally for makes to blow, like assidua resonat cantu, see Virgil, lib. VII. 12. See Milton, Par. Lost, b. II. The character of Moloch seems to have given Addison many hints in his formation of the character of Sempronius. The same boisterousness and impetuosity is the prominent feature of both characters. Moloch exclaims, My sentence is for open war, In Cato, Sempronius says, "My voice is still for war." Line 51. See what Addison says, Spectator, Vol. IV. No. 309, "(Loose his beard and hoary hair Stream'd like a meteor to the troubled air.)” GRAY'S Bard. This simile seems to have been suggested by a passage in Milton, Par. Lost. b. I. where Azazel unfurls the standard, which, full high advanced, Shone like a meteor streaming to the wind. In the same Ode Gray goes on, "Girt with many a baron bold, &c." Though full of pain, this intellectual being, &c. &c. though the thought is much finer in Gray, and very different. The cast of this passage is not unlike Mr. Gray's well known "For who, to dumb forgetfulness a prey, See Milton, Par. Lost, b. II. 492. As when from mountain-tops the dusky clouds If chance the radiant sun with farewell sweet Extends his evening beam, the fields revive, &c. &c. This beautiful expression is to be found in a rather obscure passage of Shakspeare. See Henry VI. act II. sc. i. part 3. "See how the morning opes her golden gates, Mr. Gray has an expression of this sort in a most exquisite stanza, very justly commended by Mr. Mason, which is not inserted in his Elegy: "Him have we seen the greenwood side along, If my memory does not deceive me, I think I recollect a more immediate imitation of the passage in Milton in a beautiful little poem of Dr. J. Warton's, but for the want of the book am unable to quote it. Gray, who hardly ever borrows ideas from any author whatever of his own country, has occasionally honoured Milton by imitating him. He has taken a whole line from his L'Allegro, line 60. Right against the eastern gate, When the great sun begins his state. "Right against the eastern gate By the moss-grown pile he sate." Descent of Odin. He has adopted an attribute from Milton's Penseroşo: see his Description of Melancholy. There held in holy passion still, 41. See Gray's Ode to Adversity. "And melancholy, silent maid, With leaden eye that loves the ground." At best the expression is a very unpoetical one, and hardly worth borrowing. In Milton it is still worse, from its contrast with the foregoing image of forgetting herself to marble. Milton describes Sabrina with amber-dropping hair, Comus, 863. We find the same attribute given to the daughters of Sabrina in Withers' Epithalamia, edit. 1622. Locks of amber are given to the Sun in Sylvester's Du Bartas, p. 140. "Where's Sabrina with her daughters Milton a little further on talks of diamond rocks, 881. G. Fletcher, in his Christ's Victorie, part I. st. 61, edit. 1610, has "maine rocks of diamound." To Mr. Warton's note on Comus, 837, I beg leave to add the following similar passage from Bions Taxibor, p. 311. Υακινθον, "Ungebat etiam ambrosia et nectare, ungebat totum Vulnus: sed Parcis omnia remedia vana sunt." To the note, 5 Eleg. p. 462, in which Mr. Warton observes the circumstance of Milton's composing early in the morning, I beg leave to add the following passage from Horace, B. II. Ep. 1, 1. 112. "et prius orto Sole, vigil calamum et scrinia posco." These intimations, which we discover in great writers themselves relative to their lives or their works, are always acceptable to well-directed curiosity. Milton uses a pound epithet that might have been suggested to him by Spenser: The sun-clad power of Chastity. Comus 782. "Sun bright honour." Shep. Calen. October. To Mr. Warton's excellent note on "the great vision of the guarded mount," Lycid. '161, let me add, that Spenser had introduced this, probably for the first time, into our poetry. See Shep. Calend. July, where Morrel says, "In evil hour thou henst in hond St. Michel's Mount who does not know, That wards the Western coast? &c." Compare this with the old rhymes quoted by Mr. Warton from Carew. Milton calls the song of the nightingale love-labour'd, Par. Lost, book V. 42. Spenser has something like this when he talks of "the birds love-learned song," val. V. p. 95, Hughes's edit. Milton says of the birds, but feather'd soon and fledg'd They summ'd their pens, Drayton has this phrase: Par. Lost, b. VII. 420. "The Muse from Cambria comes, with pinions summ'd and sound." Poly-Olb. Song, 11, It is evident from what has been adduced by his several commentators, that Milton was not averse to borrowing hints from the popular poets of his day; and it is more than probable that many of his finest images were originally suggested by passages so much inferior from his improvement on them as to be now scarcely discernible. He must have been an attentive reader of "The Purple Island.” I mention it, therefore, in order to observe, that the earliest personification of contemplation, I know of in our poetry, is to be found there, where it is stiled, Pope has his "ever-musing Melancholy." Milton's "cherub Contemplation" is, I believe, the next that we find. Milton describes the lark as "startling the dull night," Alleg. 42. He might, previously to his writing the passage, have been struck with a very lively description of the same subject in the above-mentioned Canto of Fletcher; |