Ye Valleys low, where the mild whispers ufe 142. Bring the rathe primrose &c] The primrofe, being an early flower, is at firft very acceptable, and being a lafting flower, it continues till it is put out of countenance by those which are more beautiful, and fo dies forfaken and neglected. Fortin. The flowers here felected are either peculiar to mourning, or early flowers, fuited to the age of Lycidas. The rathe primrose is the early primrose, as the word is used in Spenfer, Faery Queen, B. 3. Cant. 3. St. 28. Too rathe cut off by practice cri minal: December Shepherd's Cal. Thus is my harvest haften'd all too rathe. The rather lambs in February are the earlier lambs. 139 And then follow'd thefe lines in The rather lambs been ftarved Milton's Manufcript, And we ftill ufe rather for fooner. And that fad flow'r that ftrove To write his own woes on the vermeil grain; Next The tufted crow-toe, and pale jeffamine, The musk-rose, and the well-attir'd woodbine, 145 To ftrow the laureat herfe where Lycid lies. Let our frail thoughts dally with false surmise. Ay me! Whilft thee the shores, and founding feas Where thou perhaps under the whelming tide Or whether thou to our moist vows deny'd, Where the great vifion of the guarded mount 16 Looks tow'ard Namancos and Bayona's hold; Look homeward Angel now, and melt with ruth: And, O ye Dolphins, waft the hapless youth. Weep So claffical is Milton in every part confequently toward Bayona's bold. of this poem. 160. Sleep'ft by the fable of Bellerus old, &c] Milton doubting which way the waves might carry the body of Lycidas, drowned in the Irish fea, imagins it was either driven northward beyond the Hebrides, or else fo far fouthward as to lie fleeping near the fable, or fabulous manfions of old Bellerus, where the great vifion of the guarded mount looks towards the coaft of Spain. But where can we find the place which is thus obfcurely defcribed in the language of poetry and fiction? The place here meant is probably a promontory in Cornwal, known at prefent by the name of the Land's End, and called by Diodorus Siculus Belerium promontorium, perhaps from Bellerus one of the Cornish giants, with which that country and the poems of old British bards were once filled. A watch-tower and light-house formerly ftood on this promontory, and looked, as Orofius fays, towards another high tower at Brigantia in Gallicia, and See Orofius and Camden, who concludes his account of this part of Cornwal with faying, that no other place in this iland looks directly to Spain. Meadowcourt. It may be farther obferved, that Milton in his Manufcript had written Corineus, and afterwards changed it for Bellerus. Corineus came into this iland with Brute, and had that part of the country affign'd for his fhare, which after him was named Cornwal. "To Corineus, "fays Milton in the first book of "his Hiftory of England, Corn"wal, as we now call it, fell by "lot; the rather by him lik'd, "for that the hugeft giants in "rocks and caves were faid to "lurk ftill there; which kind of "monsters to deal with was his old "exercise." Of this race of giants, we may fuppofe, was Bellerus: but whoever he was, the alteration in Milton's Manufcript was certainly for the better, to take a perfon from whom that particular promontory was denominated, rather than one who gave name to the county at large. The fable Weep no more, woful Shepherds, weep no more, For Lycidas your forrow is not dead, Sunk though he be beneath the watry floor; So finks the day-ftar in the ocean bed, And yet anon repairs his drooping head, 166 And tricks his beams, and with new spangled ore 1 168. So finks the day-ftar] The thought of a ftar's being wash'd in the ocean, and thence fhining brighter, is frequent among the ancient poets and at the first reading I conceiv'd that Milton meant the morning ftar alluding to Virgil, Fairfax, Cant. 2. St. 11. 164. And, O ye. Dolphins, waft the hapless youth.] Alluding to what Paufanias fays of Palemon toward the end of his Attics, "that Qualis ubi oceani perfufus Lucifer unda &c: but upon farther confideration I rather think that he means the fun, whom in the fame manner he calls the |