"Rot inwardly, and foul contagion spread : The white pink, and the pansy freak'd with jet, The musk-rose, and the well attir'd woodbine, And daffodillies fill their cups with tears, Let our frail thoughts dally with false surmise.— Where the great Vision of the guarded Mount 26 Looks towards Namancos and Bayona's hold; Look homeward, Angel, now, and melt with ruth: Weep no more, woful Shepherds, weep no more, Sunk though he be beneath the watery floor; So sinks the day-star in the ocean bed, And yet anon repairs his drooping head, And tricks his beams, and with new-spangled ore So Lycidas sunk low, but mounted high, Through the dear might of Him that walk'd the waves ; With nectar pure his oozy locks he laves, Thus sang the uncouth swain to the oaks and rills, At last he rose, and twitch'd his mantle blue : 16" Without the meed of some melodious tear."-Catullus uses the word in a like sense, when alluding to the elegies of Simonides in his touching expostulation with his friend Cornificius, whom he requests to come and see him during a time of depression : Paulum quid lubet allocutionis Prythee a little talk for ease, for ease, 17" Begin, and somewhat loudly," &c. The first of these lines has a poor prosaic effect, like one of the inane mixtures of familiarity and assumed importance in the "Pindaric" writers of the age. And hence with denial vain" is a very unnecessary piece of harshness towards the poor Muses, who surely were not disposed to ill-treat the young poet. 18" Clos'd o'er the head," &c.—The very best image of drowning he could have chosen, especially during calm weather, both as regards sufferer and spectator. The combined sensations of darkness, of liquid enclosure, and of the final interposition of a heap of waters between life and the light of day, are those which most absorb the faculties of a drowning person. Haud insubmersus loquor. 19" Nor yet where Deva spreads her wizard stream.”—The river Dee, in Spenser's and Drayton's poetry, and old British history, is celebrated for its ominous character and its magicians. 20" Sanguine flow'r inscribed with woe."-The ancient poetical hyacinth, proved, I think, by Professor Martyn, in his Virgil's Georgics, to be the turk's-cap lily, the only flower on which characters like the Greek exclamation of woe, AI, AI, are to be found. The idea in Milton is from Moschus's Elegy on the Death of Bion : · Νυν, ύακινθε, λαλει τα σα γραμματα, και πλεον αι αι Now more than ever say, O, hyacinth! Ai, ai; and babble of your written sorrows. 21 "Last came and last did go.". "This passage," says Hazlitt, "which alludes to the clerical character of Lycidas, has been found fault with, as combining the truths of the Christian religion with the fiction of the Heathen mythology. I conceive there is very little foundation for this objection, either in reason or good taste. I will not go so far as to defend Camoens, who, in his Lusiad, makes Jupiter send Mercury with a dream to propagate the Catholic religion; nor do I know that it is generally proper to introduce the two things in the same poem, though I see no objection to it here; but of this I am quite sure, that there is no inconsistency or natural repugnance between this poetical and religious faith in the same mind. To the understanding, the belief of the one is incompatible with that of the other, but, in the imagination, they not only may, but do constantly, co-exist. I will venture to go farther, and maintain that every classical scholar, however orthodox a Christian he may be, is an honest Heathen at heart. This requires explanation. Whoever, then, attaches a reality to any idea beyond the mere name, has, to a certain extent (though not an abstract), an habitual and practical belief in it. Now, to any one familiar with the names of the personages of the heathen mythology, they convey a positive identity beyond the mere name. We refer them to something out of ourselves. It is only by an effort of abstraction that we divest ourselves of the idea of their reality; all our involuntary prejudices are on their side. This is enough for the poet. They impose on the imagination by the attractions of beauty and grandeur. They come down to us in sculpture and in song. We have the same associations with them as if they had really been: for the belief of the fiction in ancient times has produced all the same effects as the reality could have done. It was a reality to the minds of the ancient Greeks and Romans, and through them it is reflected to us."-Lectures on the English Poets (Templeman's edition), p. 328. 22 “How well could I have spar'd,” &c.—“ He here animadverts," says Warton, "to the endowments of the church, at the same time insinuating that they were shared by those only who sought the emoluments of the sacred office, to the exclusion of a learned and conscientious clergy." An old complaint! Meantime the church has continued mild and peaceful. An incalculable blessing! |