Not fo th' Arabian Myrrhe did fet her mind; Hei mihi, ne furor ille tuos invaferit artus, Biblis, or as others fpell it Byblis, fell in love with her own brother. See Ovid. Met. ix. ver. 453. Presently after Sweete love fuch lewdnes bands from his faire companee. perhaps bands, i. e. difbands. There is an obvious reading occurs, banns, curfes. But without any alteration Spenfer might follow the Italian, dar il bando, bandire to banish : Amor dà all' avarizia, all' ozio BANDO. BANDS from his faire compance, banishes, &c. XLII. Her alablafter breft.] The 2d edition in quarto has it alablafted, which must be wrong. This fpelling, which is agreeable to all the old editions, is vindicated by Skinner in his Introduction to his Etymological Dictionary. Inverfo bibulum reftinguens lumen olivo, Old Glauce well apayd, well fatisfied to fee her With great devotion and with little zele.] i. e. their prayers to appele to appele to the deity by prayers (appellare. Gall. appeler.) with great feeming outward devotion, but with little inward zeal for the thoughts of Britomartis were otherwise employed : For the faire damzell from the holy herfe Her love-ficke hart to other thoughts did steele. from the holy herfe, i. e. from the holy herfals, rehearfals, or offices. So he ufes it in his xith Ecl. Dido my deare alas! is dead O heavie HERSE! Spenfer's friend, who wrote notes to his Eclogues, with Spenfer's confent and advice, interprets Herfe, the folemn obfequie in funerals, XLIX. is more frequent among the poets, than allufions All which he in a earthern pot did poure.] Nothing incantations. There were two forts of incanto the various powers of charms, philters, and tations used by lovers, the one to procure love, the other to remove it. This is plain, as from other paffages that may be eafily cited, fo from the following in Virg. Æn. iv. 487. Inveni, germana, viam, gratare forori, Quae mihi reddat eum, vel eo me folvat amantem-Haec fe carminibus promittit folvere mentes, Quas velit; aft aliis duras immittere curas. The incantation here is to undoe her daughters love the plants and fhrubs, which Glauce ufes on this occafion, are rue, favine, camphire, calamint and dill; whofe efficacious powers in medicine are faid to abate defires of venery, and to procure barrennefs: to thefe is added coltwood or colt's-foot; which is reckoned a good cooler, and proper to abate the fervour of the virgins love. You fee the propriety of the choice of thefe plants and fhrubs: but why is the whole fprinkled with milk and blood, which were ufed in the evocation of the infernal fhades, and were offered as libations to the dead? These offerings likewife of milk and YYY blood blood were grateful to the inchantrefs Hecate; and this goddess was to be affiftant in this magical operation, diomowa jounegyds, as Medea in Euripides invokes her. Hence the reader may fee the propriety of Spenfer's adding milk and blood, as well as mentioning the other ingredients. Compare Theocritus and Virgil in their Eclogues named The Inchantreffe. The old nurfe (Glauce) is here the Pharmaceutria: the has got ready the earthern pot to hold her magical ingredients: At nutrix patulâ componens fulfura testâ, Dryden, in his notes on Virgil's viiith paftoral, fays that Spenfer has followed both Virgil and Theocritus, in the charms which he employs for curing Britomartis of her love. But he had alfo our poet's Ceiris in his eye: for there not only the inchantments are to be found, but also the very name of Britomartis.' I cannot perfuade myself that Virgil wrote this poem: Spenfer thought it, however, worth his reading and imitation. The patula tefta, earthen pot, or cauldron (as Shakespeare expreffes it in Macbeth) is, I think, the fame, which Theocritus names xλébŋ, i. e. a pot or cauldron, refembling a large cup, which is there got ready for the love-ingredients; and this pot the Inchantreffe bids her maid to bind round with a purple fillet of wool. This I mention, because it seems to me that the word is not underflood by the commentators of Theocritus. If we turn to Virgil's Paftoral, which Dryden thinks that Spenser had in his eye, as well as the Ceiris; there is no earthern pot or cauldron; but an altar is erected: on which frankinfence, vervain, bay-leaves, brimftone, and flower fprinkled with falt, was burnt; and this altar likewise is bound round with a fillet of wool, -Molli cinge haec altaria vittâ. Στέψον [τὰν κιλέβαν] φοινικέῳ οιὸς ἀώτω. Terna tibi haec primum triplici diverfa colore Licia circumdo, terque haec altaria circum Effigiem duco. Numero deus impare gaudet. [Th' uneven nomber for this business is moft fitt.] I cannot help citing a paffage from Petronius, which illuftrates thefe foolish and fuperftitious ceremonies. Illa de finu licium protulit varii coloris filis intortum, cervicemque vinxit meam : mox turbatum fputo pulverem medio fuftulit digito, from temque repugnantis fignavit: hoc peracto carmine, ter me juffit exfpuere, terque lapillos conjicere in finum, quos ipfa praecantatos purpura involverat, &c. This filly cuftom of fpitting they ufed in order to avert what was odious or ill ominous: See the fcholiaft on Theoc. Idyll. vi. 39. TRis is nlvoa xómov, ter in gremium meum infpui. Spenfer happily expreffes come, thrice and spit upon me; thrice. About, about, and about, 'Till the mift arife, &c. who in his notes cites Remigius, Gyrum femper in laevam progredi. You fee Johnfon repeats thrice, About, &c. and hence give me leave to propofe a correction in Shakespeare's Macbeth, Act 1. The weird fifters hand in hand, Where 'tis plain from the very speaking and acting of the part, about is to be repeated thrice, though the verfe might hence appear somewhat hypermetrical. Ibid. I. NTO MOST facred fyre. To speak according to the Platonic doctrine, there is but one only fource of beauty, original, and all-perfect, μονοειδης : all the inferior or refected kinds of beauty, whether they ftrike the eye, as in buildings, painting, profpects, &c. or touch the ear, as in musical founds.-All these fubordinate or fecondary degrees, are like the ladder in Jacob's vifion, whofe bottom touches the earth, but the top reaches to heaven: so that all earthly love and admiration is only the scale or ladder to conduct us to heavenly love, where the facred fire burns pureft; and from thence was transfufed into the human mind: this love is not luft, But that fweete fit that doth TRUE BEAUTIE love, not the baftard kind, but original, mental, the true beauty: Compare B. iii. C. 5. St. 1, 2. where he tells us that love a&ts fecundum modum recipientis. Compare likewife Introduct. B. iv. St. 2. III. 'loves imitate the excellent: for as the love of 'heaven makes one heavenly; the love of ver'tue, vertuous: fo doth the love of the world 'make men worldly.' Again, pag. 123, (O Lord 1) to fee the admirable power and noble effects of Love, whereby the feeming infenfible loadftone, with a fecret beauty, holding the fpirit of beauty in it, can draw ' that hard-heated thing unto it and like a vertuous mistress, not only make it bow itfelf, but with it make it afpire to fo high a love as of the heavenly poles; and thereby 'to bring forth the nobleft deeds, that the 'children of the earth can boast of.' And pag. 476, That sweet and heavenly uniting of the minds, which properly is called Love, ⚫ hath no other knot, but vertue; and therefore if it be a right love, it can never flide into any action that is not vertuous.' The reader may at his leisure see our poets Hymn of heavenly Love. What a deal of Greek citations might be here made from Plato, and the Platonic writers? But Plato's readers know very well where to find all this kind of lore. ofto, xxvi. 39. Il Savio incantator Britanno. Ibid. -The Africk Ifmael.] The Ifraelites or Agarens, called afterwards Saracens, conquered a great part of Africa: hence he says the Africk Ifmael. VII. To Maridunum, that is now by chaunge Of name Cayr-Merdin cald, they took their way. There the wife Merlin.-] According to Jeffry of Monmouth, B. vi. C. 17. (compare likewife Cambden's Britan. p. 745) the famous magician Merlin was born in Kaermerdin, i. e. Caermarthen; named in Ptolemy, Maridunum-Prefently after, St. 10. our poet fays that Merlin intended to build a wall of brass round Maridunum: and fo fays Drayton in his Polyolbion, fong iv. How Merlin by bis skill and magiques wondrous might, From Ireland hither brought the Stonendge in a night: And for Carmardens fake would faine have brought to passe About it to have built a wall of folid braffe: Lake] her to the rocke bee brought, In which he oft before his negromancies wrought, She captive bim convayd into the Fairy land. A fearfull horrid dinne fill in the earth do keepe, where confult the note; and likewife on B. iii. As at their work how fill the grieved fpirits repine, C. 2. St. 18. Tormented in the fire, and tyred in the mine. If the reader will turn to Ariofto, iii. St. 10. he will find that Bradamante, a famous wo→ man-knight, arrives at the grot of Merlin: which grot Ariofto, with the liberty of a Romance-writer, places in France. Merlin isthere faid to have been deluded by the lady of the lake, La donna del lago. The reader at his leifure may fee this ftory told in Morte Arthur, or, as the romance is commonly called, The life and death of Prince Arthur, Lib. i. C. 60, and in C. 64. VIII. Emongst the woody bills of Dynevoure.] The principal feat of the princes of South-Wales was Dynefar, or Dynevor caftle, near Carmarthen, who from thence were called the kings of Dy nevor. Neere Deneuoir the feat of the Demetian kings. Drayt. Polyol. Song v. IX. And oftentimes great grones and grievous ftowndes, When too huge toile and labour them conftraines, And oftentimes loud ftrokes and ringing fowndes From under that deep rock moft horribly rebowndes.] Reboundes the rhime requires; Rebounde, the conftruction. 'Tis hard that conftruction and fenfe must give place to rhime. See note on B. v. C. 6. St. 32. -Our poet defcribes very particular the habitation of Merlin; a hollow cave: Wizards dwelt in caves, fo the Sibyl; and Merlin's cave is mentioned in Ariofto, Canto iii. but Romance writers remove the fcene of ac tion to what regions they please. - a hollow cave under a rock that lies a little space from the fwift Barry tombling down among the hilles of Dynevoure.-See how formidable our poet in the 8th and 9th Cantos defcribes this cave! not from his own fiction; for he has fufficient vouchers. to produce for the truth of the ftory. In a rock of the Ifland of Barry, in Glamorganfhire (as Giraldus fays) there is a narrow chink or cleft, to which if you put your ear, you fhall perceive all fuch fort of noifes, as you may fancy fmiths at work under ground. -ftrokes of hammers, blowings of bellowes, grinding of tools, &c.' See Cambden's Britan. pag. 734. and Hollingf. vol. i. pag. 129. Drayton in Polyolb. pag. 63. alludes to this ftory of the Lady of the Lake, and to this marvellous cave, where -the laboring fpirits to rocks by fetters bound With bellowes rumbling grones, and hammers thundering found, A fearful borrid dinne ftill in the earth doe keepe, Their mafter to awake, fupposd by them to fleepe. ..XII. And hoftes of men of meanest things could frame.] Like Aftolfo (in Orl. Fur. xxxviii. 33, and xxxix. 26.) who turned ftones into horfes, and trees into ships. XIII. And footh men fay that he was not the fonne By falfe illufion of a guilefull spright On a faire lady nonne, that whilome hight Matilda, daughter to Pubidius Who was the lord of Mathtraval by right, And coofen unto king Ambrofius; Whence be indued was with fkill fo merveilous. The princes and lords of Powis, the chief feat of which was Matraval in Montgomeryfhire, were called kings of Matraval, fee Cambden's Britan. pag. 781. Spenfer fays, that Merlin's mother was a nun, and named Matilda, daughter to Pubidius. This Matilda and Pubidius are our poet's invention, as far as I can find:no fuch names being mentioned in Morte Arthur, or in Jeffry of Monmouth, who in B. vi. C. 18. introduces Merlin's mother, who was a neice and daughter of the king of Demetia, i. e. South Wales, giving Vortegrin an account of her wonderful conception of her fon. A philofopher explains it (there introduced) that it was fome Daemon or Incubus, fome guileful fpright,' partaking partly of the nature of man, partly of angels, and affuming a human fhape, which begot Merlin; and this explains what Ariofto fays, that Merlin was the fon of a Daemon, |