used in a general sense for precious stones? 'They below," i. e. the creatures of the deep, has been unaccountably misunderstood as on earth ” (δι κάτω).

750. Sorry grain; dull color.

men

760. Bolt her arguments; the metaphor is from the bolting of flour, i. e. the sifting out of the bran so as to leave the flour fine and white.

768-775. A rather striking statement of socialistic doctrine, considering the time and place.

803-805. In allusion to the war between Jove and the Titans.

808. Canon laws of our foundation; Comus sarcastically represents his palace as a religious institution, ruled by the Canon law, i. e. the series of laws and statutes promulgated by the Pope and the Councils for the government of the church.

817. Backward mutters of dissevering power; incantations muttered backward dissolved the enchantments which they had produced.

823. Soothest; truest; cf. forsooth, in good sooth.

826-842. The story of Sabrina was a favorite one with poets, having been told by Drayton in his Polyolbion, by Warner in Albion's England, and by Spenser in the Faerie Queene; all of these poets drew upon the account in Geoffry of Monmouth's History of the Britons. Milton tells the story in his History of England, a book which he completed during the last years of his life. Locrine, son of Brut, defeated in battle Humber, king of the Huns, who had invaded Britain. Locrine was engaged to marry the daughter of Corineus, a follower of Brut who had been made king over Cornwall; but among the spoils of war taken from Humber were certain beautiful maidens, "Estrildis, above the rest, passing fair, the daughter of a king in Germany; whom Locrine, though before contracted to the daughter of Corineus, resolves to marry. But being forced and threatened by Corineus, whose authority and power he feared, Guendolen the daughter he yields to marry, but in secret loves the other: and . . . had by her a daughter equally fair, whose name was Sabra. But when once his fear was off by the death of Corineus, divorcing Guendolen, he makes Estrildis now his queen. Guendolen, all in rage, departs into Cornwall, where Madan, the son she had by Locrine, was hitherto brought up by Corineus his grandfather. And gathering an army of her father's friends and subjects, gives battle to her husband by the river Sture; wherein Locrine, shot with an arrow, ends his life. But not so ends the fury of Guendolen: for Estrildis, and her daughter Sabra, she throws into a river: and, to leave a monument of revenge, proclaims that the stream be thenceforth called after the damsel's name; which, by length of time, is changed now to Sabrina, or Severn." It will be noticed that Milton uses "step-dame" loosely.

838. Nectared lavers; baths sweetened with nectar.

846. Shrewd; the meaning "bad or malicious" is usual in Elizabethan literature, and survives in some modern uses of the word.

868-882. Oceanus; god of the great Oceanstream which Homer represents as encircling the earth. Tethys, wife of Oceanus. The

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Carpathian wizard" is Proteus, whose home was the island of Carpathus, between Crete and Rhodes. Glaucus, a Baotian fisherman, eating of a magic herb, was transformed into a seagod and gifted with the power of prophecy. Leucothea, a daughter of Cadmus, who, to es cape her husband's fury, plunged with her son into the sea, and was changed to a sea-goddess; "lovely hands" is the Miltonic variant on the "fair ankles" traditionally ascribed to her. Her son, Melicertes, was identified by the Romans with Portumnus, god of harbors. Thetis is called by Homer "the silver-footed," hence "tinsel-slippered." Parthenope, a sea-nymph, whose body was washed ashore at Naples, and to whom a shrine was erected there; see Milton's third Epigram on Leonora Baroni. Ligea was one of the Sirens.

897. Printless feet; feet that leave no print.

934, 935. Interpreted literally this would mean the head, i. e. source, of the river. Some confusion arises because Milton is thinking of the head of the nymph also. The purely ideal nature of the image is shown by the mention of groves of myrrh and cinnamon " which follows.

964. Mincing; delicately tripping. The word had none of its modern derogatory connotation. Cf. French mince, from which 'mincing"

comes.

999-1008. The passage is saturated with Milton's peculiar conception of Paradisaic love. Assyrian queen = Aphrodite, connected with

the Phoenician Ashtaroth.

1015. Welkin; sky. Cf. German Wolke. 1021. Spheary chime; music of the spheres. Page 60. LYCIDAS.

1-7. These verses are autobiographical; see Introduction to Lycidas.

10. 11. He knew himself to sing; a few pieces of indifferent Latin verse have been traced to Edward King.

13. Welter to the parching wind; the verb "welter" renders very descriptively the helpless heaving and rolling motion of an object tossed by the swell of the sea.

15, 16. The "Sisters of the sacred well" are the nine Muses of classical mythology, to whom the fountain of Aganippe, on Mt. Helicon. was sacred. On this mountain was an altar dedicated to Jove; Milton alone is responsible for

33. Tempered to the oaten flute; probably modifies satyrs," not means, therefore, “swayed by the rhythm of," or something of the sort.

40. Gadding vine; the epithet is a happy one to describe the luxuriant wandering of the vine. It had not in Milton's day its present derogatory sense.

50-55. Milton here addresses the Muses, whose haunts he places, for the purpose in hand, near the scene of King's shipwreck.

The

steep" is either Penmænmawr or the Druid sepulchres at Kerig Druidion in Denbighshire; Mona is the island of Anglesey, now bare of trees, but mentioned as covered with groves by poets previous to Milton, especially William Browne in his Britannia's Pastorals, and Michael Drayton in his Polyolbion. Deva, or the Dee, is called a "wizard stream" because of a tradition that the shifting of the channel toward the Welsh or the English side portended good fortune to one or the other nation.

56. Fondly; vainly, foolishly.

59-63. The Muse herself. for her enchanting son, etc.; the Muse is Calliope, mother of Orpheus, the semi-mythical Thracian poet. Saddened by the loss of his wife Eurydice, Orpheus refused to join in the Bacchic orgies, and was torn in pieces by infuriated mænads.

67-69. As others use; Milton is looking at the Cavaliers, the gay hedonists of his generation. 70. Clear spirit; "clear" probably means "free from worldly taint."

75. Blind Fury; Atropos, not one of the Furies, but one of the Fates; her sisters were Clotho and Lachesis. She is not usually represented as blind.

77. Touched my trembling ears; a gesture of deep significance, intended here to rebuke the poet and remind him of something he has forgotten. Milton probably had in mind Virgil's

Cum canerem reges et proelia, Cynthius aurem
Vellit et admonuit.

Notice how finely the broken construction above suggests the quickness of Apollo's interruption.

79. Glistering foil; "foil" was the term applied to a kind of gold or silver leaf placed be

hind a gem to throw it into relief. Some such figure is here intended.

83. Lastly; the adverb is used emphatically, meaning at the last Judgment."

85, 86. Arethuse was a fountain in Sicily, connected traditionally with the Sicilian pastoral poetry, as the River Mincius was with Virgil's Eclogues.

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89, 90. The "herald of the sea " is Triton, whose business it was to summon together the marine deities. He is said to come in Neptune's plea," i. e. to present Neptune's plea of innocence in the case of King's death.

96. Hippotades; Eolus, son of Hippotes. 99. Panope; one of the daughters of Nereus ; her sisters were forty-nine in number.

100-102. This might seem to imply that King's vessel foundered merely because it was unseaworthy. It appears from other sources that the vessel struck a rock during a gale.

103. Camus; it had long been the custom of the Cambridge poets to personify the river Cam; "footing slow suggests the sluggish motion of that stream; "inwrought with figures dim" may be meant to suggest the dim traditions connected with the ancient university.

106. Sanguine flower; the hyacinth, which sprang from the blood of Hyacinthus, and was inscribed with the Greek exclamation of lament, ai, ai.

109-111. The Pilot (i. e. fisherman) of the Galilean Lake is St. Peter, to whom was given the keys of the kingdom of Heaven. Dante gives him two keys, one gold and one silver, both of which admit to Heaven, Purg. X.

119. Blind mouths; the immense compression of the phrase contributes to its power of suggesting passionate indignation. The spiritual blindness and the gluttony of the hired ministry are the two thoughts thus powerfully welded together.

123. Lean and flashy songs; unedifying and insipid sermons. Flashy is not the modern word meaning "showy," but is from O. E. flasshe, a pool. It means literally "watery." 126. Rank mist; false doctrine.

128. Grim Wolf with privy paw; an allusion to the Catholic conversions, which about this time spread much consternation among the Puritans.

130. Two-handed engine; this famous crur has been explained in numberless ways; the two-handed engine has been interpreted (1) as the axe that is laid unto the root of the tree," St. Matthew iii. 10; (2) as the two-handed sword of Revelation i. 16; (3) as the two Houses of Parliament; (4) as the sword of St. Michael; (5) as the secular and the spiritual power, etc., etc. The obscurity of the figure only adds to its terror.

136. Use; dwell, frequent.

142. Rathe; early, whence "rather." originally a comparative form of the adjective.

160. Fable of Bellerus, i. e. fabled Bellerus; Bellerus is a name invented by Milton from Bellerium, the Latin name for Land's End in Cornwall. He first wrote Corineus, the name

of a mythical king of Cornwall in the time of Brut, and substituted Bellerus afterwards as more musical. He probably meant it to stand for some mythical king or giant of the region.

161. Vision of the guarded mount; St. Michael's Mount, opposite Penzance, on which there were the ruins of an old Norman stronghold and an ancient abbey. A craggy seat, looking out upon the sea, was called St. Michael's Chair; there the apparition of the Archangel was fabled to appear. It is to this ghostly guardian that Milton refers.

162. Namancos and Bayona's hold; both these places were in Spain, Namancos in Galicia, east of Cape Finisterre, Bayona a little farther south, on the sea. Verity notes that Namancos is given only in two editions of Mercator's Atlas, and that the later of these, published in England in 1636, the year before Lycidas was written, was doubtless the one Milton used. In that edition the site of Namancos is marked on the map by a drawing of a tower, and that of Bayona by a castle. St. Michael is made, in his character of guardian angel and warrior, to look toward Spain, England's ancient enemy; looking on the map for some definite localities to mention, Milton's eye fell on these two, and he selected them, not because of their importance, but because of the musical value of the names.

176. Unexpressive, inexpressible. Compare this whole passage with the close of the Epitaphium Damonis. The idea of the nuptial song is a working over of the passage in Revelation concerning the "marriage of the Lamb." Rev. xix. 6-7.

186. Uncouth; from Anglo-Saxon uncúð, unknown. It will be remembered that in 1637 Milton was still an 66 unknown" poet. Perhaps there is also a tinge of the modern meaning. 189. Doric lay; cf. Sir Henry Wotton's letter to Milton, where he praises a "certain Doric delicacy in the songs."

192. Twitched; caught up from the ground, or perhaps pulled closer round his shoulders because of the coolness of evening.

LATER SONNETS.

Page 74. WHEN THE ASSAULT WAS INTENDED TO THE CITY.

10-12. The story is told by Pliny, in his Natural History, vii. 19, that Alexander the Great, after conquering Thebes (the city in which Pindar spent most of his life), commanded that the house of the poet should be spared from destruction. One reason for this action was that Pindar had praised in his odes Alexander of Macedonia, an ancestor of Alexander the Great. Emathian is from Emathia, a province of Macedonia, where the monarchy originally had its seat.

12-14. "Plutarch relates, that when the Lacedæmonian general Lysander took Athens [B. C. 404], it was proposed in a council of war entirely to raze the city, and convert its site into a desert." But while the matter was still undecided, "at a banquet of the chief officers, a certain Phocian sang some fine [verses] from

a chorus of the Electra of Euripides; which so affected the hearers, that they declared it an unworthy act to reduce a place, so celebrated for the production of illustrious men, to total ruin and desolation. It appears, however, that Lysander ordered the walls and fortifications to be demolished.". WARTON. The verses in question were part of the first chorus of the Electra, 167 et seq.

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Speaking of Milton's learning, Johnson says: The books in which his daughter, who used to read to him, represented him as most delighting, after Homer, which he could almost repeat, were Ovid's Metamorphoses and Euripides" (Life of Milton). A copy of Euripides with MS. notes by Milton is extant, and one of his textual emendations —ndéws for newv in the Bacchæ, 188-is universally adopted. See Dr. Sandys s edition (1892) of the Bacchæ (Cambridge Press), where in the notes on 188, 234236 and 314-318 several interesting parallels between Comus and parts of Euripides are pointed out. VERITY.

Page 74. To A VIRTUOUS YOUNG LADY.

2. The broad way and the green; Matthew vii. 13, 14: Broad is the way that leadeth to destruction... and narrow is the way which leadeth unto life.

4. Hili of Heavenly Truth; cf. Par. Reg. II. 217, "Seated as on the top of Virtue's Hill." 5. See Luke x. 42; Ruth i. 14-17.

8. Notice the repetition of the same rhymeword as above; purists object to this license. 11. Hope that reaps not shame; "Hope mak

eth not ashamed," Romans v. 5.

Page 74. To THE LADY MARGARET LEY. 6. Dishonest; disgraceful, Lat. inhonestus.

8. Isocrates, the Athenian orator, on hearing of the battle of Charonea, B. C. 338, put an end to his life. The title of Milton's Areopagitica is taken from the Logos Areopagiticus of Iso

crates.

9-10. Milton was sixteen when James Ley was made Lord High Treasurer.

Page 74. ON THE DETRACTION WHICH FOLLOWED UPON MY WRITING CERTAIN TREA

TISES.

1. Tetrachordon: This pamphlet was published in March, 1645. The title signifies 'four-stringed," and is explained on the titlepage: Expositions upon the four chief places in Scripture which treat of marriage, or nullities in marriage."

4. Numbering good intellects; since, because of the close-weaving of its matter, form, and style, only intelligent persons would read it.

7, 8. Mile-End Green; so called because it lay about a mile from the centre of old London. Masson says, it was a common in Milton's time and the favorite terminus of a citizen's walk." It lay in the region now called Whitechapel.

8, 9. The Scotch names are selected because the Scotch Presbyterians were most scandalized by the divorce pamphlets. When the sonnet was written the chief topic of talk was Montrose's campaign. Professor Masson says

"Among Montrose's most influential adherents in his enterprise there were several Gordons, of whom the most prominent were George, Lord Gordon, the eldest son of the Marquis of Huntly, and his next brother Charles Gordon, Viscount Aboyne." He also says that the three names in line 9 all belonged to the same person, the younger Alexander Macdonald, called Colkitto, i. e. the Left-handed, an officer of Montrose. See Scott's Legend of Montrose, chap. xv.

11. Quintilian; the Roman rhetorician, author of the famous treatise De Institutione Oratoria. He flourished in the second half of the first Christian century.

12-14. Sir John Cheek held the first professorship of Greek at Cambridge, established by Henry VIII. He was afterward tutor to Edward VI. and the young Princess Elizabeth. There is a special reason for the reference to him here; he had been a member of a commission appointed by Edward VI. to formulate an ecclesiastical code, which, among other reforms, advocated relaxation of the church laws of divorce.

Page 75. ON THE SAME.

1. Clogs; a peculiarly contemptuons tone is given by this word, which literally means weights or encumbrances put upon beasts to prevent them from straying.

4-7. Latona, after the birth of her children Apollo and Artemis, wandering through Lycia, stopped to drink from a pool. Some peasants tried to prevent her, whereupon she changed them into frogs. The haughtiness of Milton is emphasized by the parallel.

14. Waste of wealth and loss of blood, i. e. in the Civil War.

Page 75. ON THE NEW FORCERS OF CONSCIENCE UNDER THE LONG PARLIAMENT.

For the peculiar form of this sonnet (sonnetto codato) and the uses to which it was commonly put, see introduction, Milton's Later Sonnets. The following from Pattison will explain further: "It is of the form called 'colla coda,' a form which seems to have been introduced as early as the fifteenth century, and was much used by a Rabelaisian Florentine satirist who went by the name of Burchiello, From him was derived the denomination Burchielleschi, applied to a species of homely and familiar verse. This form went out of fashion during the sixteenth century, but was revived at the beginning of the seventeenth, and Milton may have met with sonnets of this burlesque form in circulation at Florence. At any rate, in this sonnet alone we have sufficient evidence that Milton went to Italian models for his sonnets.” 1, 2. In October, 1646, Parliament formally abolished episcopacy (“prelate lord "), having previously forbidden the public or private use of the Book of Common Prayer ("renounced his Liturgy").

3. Widowed whore plurality: Pluralism, i. e. the holding by the same minister of more than one living, without rendering service therefor, was as flagrant under the Presbyterian system as it had been under the Episcopal.

5. Adjure the civil sword; the Presbyterians were quite willing to call in the power of the state to enforce submission to their rule.

7. Classic hierarchy; "Under the Presbyterian organization the classis is the synod or council composed of all the ministers and layelders of a town or district. It has certain powers over the ministry and religious affairs of the district which it represents. When Presbyterianism was established in England, the country was divided into provinces instead of dioceses, and each province was subdivided according to classes. The province, i. e. diocese, of London had twelve of these classes or synods."- VERITY.

8. Mere A. S.; Adam Steward, a pamphleteer champion of strict Presbyterianism against Independency. He always signed his pamphlets, A.S. Samuel Rutherford was one of the four Scotch ministers who, in the Westminster Assembly of Divines, drew up a Presbyterian scheme for England.

12. Shallow Edwards and Scotch What'd ye call; Thomas Edwards, in a pamphlet entitled Gangræna; or a Catalogue of many of the Er rors, Heresies, Blasphemies, and pernicious Practices of the Sectaries of this Time (1645-46), had taken occasion to attack Milton for his views on divorce. By Scotch what 'd 'ye call" is intended George Gillespie (see p. 71), or Rev. Robert Baillie, another Scottish member of the Westminster Assembly, and author of a pamphlet entitled Dissuasive from the Errors of the Time, in which Milton's theory of divorce was also animadverted against.

14. The meaning is that the Westminster Assembly was packed" with Presbyterians as badly as the Council of Trent (1545-63) had been with Roman Catholics.

15. More than once the Parliament had rebuked the over-officiousness of the Westminster Assembly, and reminded it that it was not an authority in the realm. . . . Especially in April, 1646, there had been a case of this kind, when the Commons voted certain proceedings of the Assembly to be a breach of privilege, and intimated to the Divines that a repetition of such proceedings might subject them individually to heavy punishment." - MASSON.

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17. Clip your phylacteries; i. e. rebuke your hypocritical pretension. Phylactery, meaning in the Greek," amulet " or safeguard," was a piece of parchment inscribed with passages from the Mosaic law, and worn by priests on the forehead or wrist. The size of these phylacteries came to stand as a gauge of the wear er's hypocrisy. Professor Masson comments on this line: In its original form the line ran, Crop ye as close as marginal P -'s eares

64

an allusion to the celebrated William Prynne, the Lincoln's Inn Lawyer, who had been twice pilloried and had his nose slit and his ears cut off for anti-Prelatic pamphlets by sentence of the Star-Chamber. . . . Since his release from prison at the opening of the Long Parliament in 1640, Prynne had been a conspicuous Presbyterian, enforcing his views in tract after tract

of a dry and learned kind, always with references to his authorities running down the margins of the pages. Prynne's want of ears and the labored margins of his pamphlets were subjects of popular jest; but Milton had a special grudge against him on account of a reference to himself in one of the marginal' oddities. It was clearly in good taste, however, to erase the allusion in the Sonnet, referring as it did to a cruelty unjustly endured, under a tyrannical Government, by a brave, though thickheaded, man.'

17. Baulk; pass over, spare; an allusion to the punishment inflicted upon Prynne.

19. In your charge; in the charge which will be brought against you.

20. New Presbyter is but old Priest writ large; it is so etymologically, since "priest" is a contraction of the Greek presbyteros.

Page 75. To MR. H. LAWES ON HIS AIRS. Title. For an account of Lawes, see opening note to Comus.

1-4. A very precise and musicianly description of Lawes's songs. He was content to make his music subordinate to the words, preserving their rhythm and accent with fidelity; so that the poetry, not the music (very often a kind of recitative), was the chief element. This quality explains his great popularity with the poets of the period, many of whom, e. g. Herrick, Cartwright, and Waller, had songs set to music by him.

4. Midas' ears; Midas, king of Phrygia, serving as judge between Apollo and Pan as to which were the better musician, gave the verdict to Pan, whereupon his ears were changed by Apollo into asses' ears.

4. Committing; matching.

11. Story; there is a specific reference here to a poem of Cartwright's, entitled The Complainte of Ariadne, which Lawes set to music. 12-14. Dante, on his arrival in Purgatory, sees a vessel approaching the shore, freighted with souls under the conduct of an angel, to be cleansed from their sins and made fit for Paradise. When they are disembarked the poet recognizes in the crowd his old friend Casella, the musician. In the course of an affectionate dialogue, the poet requests a soothing air; and Casella sings Dante's second canzone [in the] Convito. The Italian commentators say that Casella, Dante's friend. was a musician of distinguished excellence. He must have died atle before the year 1300." — WARTON,

is a new law takes not away from thee memory or use in the amorous chant which was wont to quiet all my wishes, let it please thee therewith to confort somewhat my soul, which coming here with its body is so wearied.' Love, which discourses in my mind to me, then began he so sweetly, that he sweetness yet sounds My Master [Virgil], and I, and that folk who were with him appeared so content, as though naught else touched the minds of any. We were all fixed and intent on his notes."- Purgatorio, Butler's version.

within me.

14. Milder shades; i. e. milder than those of

the Inferno, through which Dante and Virgil had just passed.

Page 76. ON THE RELIGIOUS MEMORY OF MRS. CATHERINE THOMSON.

Title. About 1650 Milton lived for a time at the house of a Mr. Thomson, near Charing Cross; it has been conjectured that the subject of the present sonnet was a member of this family.

10. Purple; a word of wide application when Milton wrote; any rich or lustrous color.

Page 76. ON THE LORD GENERAL FAIR

FAX.

The sonnet was written in 1648, between June 13, when Fairfax laid siege to Colchester, and August 17, when Cromwell defeated the Scottish army; see note on line 8. In 1648 the Royalists made a fresh and final effort. There were new rebellions" (line 6) in the king's behalf in Kent, the west of England and Wales, and Scotland sent an army to his aid. Defeated by Fairfax at Maidstone, the surviving leaders of the Royalists in the east retreated to Colchester, which was besieged from June 13 to August 27. This poem therefore was prompted by, and surely breathes the spirit of, a national crisis.

It is addressed to the commander-in-chief of the Parliamentary forces-Thomas, the third Lord Fairfax; born 1612, died 1671. Milton and he were contemporaries at Cambridge, Fairfax being of St. John's College.

Fairfax was distinguished by extreme personal courage; several of his contemporaries make mention of it; Cromwell (Letter xxix.) specially commended his bravery at the battle of Naseby. Compare, too, Milton's words in the Second Defence, where, enumerating the great leaders on the side of the Commonwealth, he says: Nor would it be right to pass over

the name of Fairfax, who united the utmost fortitude with the utmost courage; and the spotless innocence of whose life seemed to point him out as the peculiar favourite of Heaven." Prose Works, í. 286, 287. — VERITY,

7. Hydra heads; to slay the Lernean Hydra was one of the labors of Hercules. As soon as he cut off one head another grew in its place.

7, 8. False North displays her broken League; the Scottish army under Hamilton was at this moment entering England to support the king, in contravention of the Solemn League and Covenant.

9. Imp; a hawking term, i. e. to put new feathers in.

Page 76. TO THE LORD GENERAL CROM

WELL.

This sonnet and the preceding one were for obvious political reasons not printed in the edition of Milton's poems issued in 1673. They first appeared, inaccurately printed, in Edward Phillips's Life of Milton, 1694.

Title. The committee for the propagation of the gospel was a committee of the Rump Parlia ment. It consisted of fourteen members, and had general administrative duties in church affairs, specially that of supplying spiritual desti