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XI.

Then thou, the Mother of so sweet a Child,
Her false imagined loss cease to lament,
And wisely learn to curb thy sorrows wild;
Think what a present thou to God hast sent,
And render Him with patience what He lent;
This if thou do, He will an offspring give

That till the world's last end shall make thy name to live.

1627.

ANNO ETATIS 19.

AT A VACATION EXERCISE IN THE COLLEGE.

PART LATIN, PART ENGLISH.

The Latin speeches ended, the English thus began :

HAIL, native Language, that by sinews weak
Didst move my first endeavouring tongue to speak,
And madest imperfect words with childish trips,
Half unpronounced, slide through my infant lips,
Driving dumb silence from the portal door,
Where he had mutely sat two years before:
Here I salute thee, and thy pardon ask,
That now I use thee in my latter task :
Small loss it is that thence can come unto thee,
I know my tongue but little grace can do thee:
Thou need'st not be ambitious to be first,
Believe me I have thither pack'd the worst;
And, if it happen as I did forecast,

The daintiest dishes shall be served up last.
I pray thee then deny me not thy aid
For this same small neglect that I have made:
But haste thee straight to do me once a pleasure,
And from thy wardrobe bring thy chiefest treasure,

Not those new-fangled toys, and trimming slight1
Which takes our late fantastics with delight,
But cull those richest robes, and gay'st attire
Which deepest spirits, and choicest wits desire:
I have some naked thoughts that rove about,
And loudly knock to have their passage out;
And weary of their place do only stay
Till thou hast deck'd them in thy best array;
That so they may without suspect or fears
Fly swiftly to this fair assembly's ears;
Yet I had rather, if I were to choose,
Thy service in some graver subject use,
Such as may make thee search thy coffers round,
Before thou clothe my fancy in fit sound:
Such where the deep transported mind may soar
Above the wheeling poles, and at Heaven's door
Look in, and see each blissful Deity

How he before the thunderous throne doth lie,
Listening to what unshorn Apollo sings

To the touch of golden wires, while Hebe brings
Immortal nectar to her kingly sire:

Then passing through the spheres of watchful fire,
And misty regions of wide air next under,
And hills of snow, and lofts of pilèd thunder,
May tell at length how green-eyed Neptune raves,
In Heaven's defiance mustering all his waves;
Then sing of secret things that came to pass
When beldam Nature in her cradle was;
And last of kings and queens and heroes old,
Such as the wise Demodocus2 once told,
In solemn songs at king Alcinous' feast,
While sad Ulysses' soul, and all the rest,
Are held with his melodious harmony,
In willing chains and sweet captivity.
But fie, my wandering Muse, how thou dost stray!
Expectance calls thee now another way,

1 Milton alludes to the affected phraseology of the period, called Euphuism, which originated in Lily's Euphues, and his England, a book intended to refine the English language. Scott has given

us a lively picture of this affected jargon in his Sir Piercie Shafton, in the Monastery; see p. 449.

2 A Greek bard. VIII.

See Odyssey, Book

Thou know'st it must be now thy only bent
To keep in compass of thy predicament:

Then quick about thy purposed business come,
That to the next I may resign my room.

Then Ens is represented as father of the Predicaments 2 his ten sons, whereof the
eldest stood for Substance with his canons, which Ens, thus speaking, explains :-
Good luck befriend thee, Son; for at thy birth
The fairy ladies danced upon the hearth;

Thy drowsy nurse hath sworn she did them spy
Come tripping to the room where thou didst lie,
And sweetly singing round about thy bed
Strow all their blessings on thy sleeping head.

She heard them give thee this, that thou shouldst still
From eyes of mortals walk invisible:

Yet there is something that doth force my fear,
For once it was my dismal hap to hear
A Sibyl old, bow-bent with crooked age,
That far events full wisely could presage,
And in time's long and dark prospective glass
Foresaw what future days should bring to pass;
Your son, said she (nor can you it prevent),
Shall subject be to many an Accident.3
O'er all his brethren he shall reign as king,
Yet every one shall make him underling,
And those that cannot live from him asunder
Ungratefully shall strive to keep him under,
In worth and excellence he shall out-go them,
Yet being above them, he shall be below them;
From others he shall stand in need of nothing,
Yet on his brothers shall depend for clothing.
To find a foe it shall not be his hap,

And shall lull him in her flowery lap;
peace
Yet shall he live in strife, and at his door
Devouring war shall never case to roar;

1 Ens, a term in metaphysics signifying entity, being, existence. In this mask it is personified, as are also Substance, Quantity, Quality, and Relation. "This affectation," says Warton, "will appear more excusable in Milton, if we recollect that everything in the Masks of this age appeared in a bodily shape."

2 A Predicament is a category in

logic; that is, a series of all the predicates or attributes contained under a genus. The logic of Aristotle comprised ten categories: Substance, Quantity, Quality, Relation, Action, Passion, Time, Place, Situation, and Habit. These were personified in the Mask.

3 A pun on the logical accidens.WARTON!!

Yea it shall be his natural property

To harbour those that are at enmity.

What power, what force, what mighty spell, if not
Your learned hands, can loose this Gordian knot?

The next Quantity and Quality spake in prose; then Relation was called
by his name.

RIVERS, arise; whether thou be the son

Of utmost Tweed, or Ouse, or gulphy Don,
Or Trent, who like some earth-born giant spreads
His thirty arms along the indented meads,
Or sullen Mole that runneth underneath,
Or Severn swift, guilty of maiden's death,3
Or rocky Avon, or of sedgy Lee,

Or coaly Tine, or ancient hallow'd Dee,

2

Or Humber loud that keeps the Scythian's name,1
Or Medway smooth, or royal tower'd Thame.

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Odes.

ON THE MORNING OF CHRIST'S NATIVITY.

1629.

I.

THIS is the month, and this the happy morn,
Wherein the Son of heaven's eternal king,
Of wedded Maid, and Virgin Mother born,
Our great redemption from above did bring;
For so the holy sages1 once did sing,

That He our deadly forfeit should release,
And with His Father work us a perpetual peace.

II.

That glorious form, that light unsufferable,
And that far-beaming blaze of majesty,
Wherewith He wont at heaven's high council-table
To sit the midst of Trinal Unity,

He laid aside; and here with us to be,

Forsook the courts of everlasting day,

And chose with us a darksome house of mortal clay.

III.

Say, heavenly Muse, shall not thy sacred vein

Afford a present to the Infant God?

Hast thou no verse, no hymn, or solemn strain,

To welcome Him to this His new abode,

Now while the heaven by the sun's team untrod,

Hath took no print of the approaching light,

And all the spangled host keep watch in squadrons bright?

1 The Prophets.

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