Of Teeny Heav'n, and thou some Goddess Aed Amongst us here below to hide thy nectar'd head?

VIII. Or wert thou that just Maid who once before 50 Forsook the hated earth, O tell me sooth, And cam’st again to visit us once more? Or wert thou that sweet smiling Youth? Or that crown'd matron sage white-robed Truth? 54 Or any other of that heav'nly brood

[good? Let down in cloudy throne to do the world some

IX.
Or wert thou of the golden-winged host,
Who having clad thyself in human weed,
To earth from thy prefixed seat didst post,

And

65

a

meant Hebe, in Latin Juventa, or Or wert thou Mercy that sweet Youth. And Mr. Jortin communi- smiling youth? cated the following note. "A word For Mercy is often join?d with " of two syllables is wanting to fill up the measure of the verse. It Juffice and Truth, as in the Hymn

on the Nativity. St. 15. " is easy to find such a word, but

impossible to determin what word Yea Truth and Justice then " Mikon would have inserted. He Will down return to men, “ uses Youth in the feminine gen- Orb’d in a rainbow; and like

der, as the Latins sometimes use glories wearing juvenis, and by this fair youth Mercy will fit between &c. " he probably means the Goddess “ Hebe, who was also called Ju- ed as a sweet smiling youth, this age

And Merry is not unfitly representventas or Juventa.”. But others have propoled to fill up the verse being the most susceptible of the thus,

tender paffions.

B 4

And after short abode fly back with speed,

60 As if to show what creatures Heav'n doth breed,

Thereby to set the hearts of men on fire To scorn' the fordid world, and unto Heav'n aspire ?

X. But oh why didst thou not stay here below To bless us with thy heav'n-lov'd innocence, 65 To fake his wrath whom sin hath made our foe, To turn swift-rushing black perdition hence, Or drive away the daughtering pestilence,

To stand 'twixt us and our deserved smart? 69 But thou canst best perform that office where thou art.

XI. Then thou the Mother of so sweet a Child Her false imagin’d 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; . 75 This if thou do, he will an ofspring give, [live.

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

Anno

68. Or drive away the Naughter. great plague in London, which

ing peftilence, ] It Tould be gives a peculiar propriety to this noted that at this time there was a whole stanza.

These

HALL

II. Anno Ætatis 19. At a Vacation Exercise in the col

lege, part Latin, part English. The Latin speeches ended, the English thus began.

AIL native Language, that by sinews weak

Didst move my first endevoring tongue to speak, And mad’ft imperfect words with childish trips, Half unpronounc'd, lide through my

infant-lips, Driving dumb filence from the portal door,

5 Where he had mutely fat two years before : Here I salate 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 I know my tongue but little grace can do thee:
Thou need'st not be ambitious to be first,
Believe me I have thither packt the worst:
And, if it happen as I did forecast,
The daintiest dishes shall be fery'd

up

last. I pray thee then deny mę not thy aid For this fame small neglect that I have made;

But

IO

15.

These verses were made in 1627, in the edition of 1645, but were that being the 19th year of the first added in the edition of 1673.. author's age; and they were not

But haste thee strait to do me once a pleasure,
And from thy wardrobe bring thy chiefest treasure,
Not those new fangled toys, and trimming flight
Which takes our late fantastics with delight, vi 20
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

25
Till thou haft 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 chuse,
Thy service in some graver subject use,

< 30 Such as may make thee search thy coffers round, Before thou clothe my fancy in fit sound:

Such

29. Yet I had rather, if I were 36. the thunderous throne ] to chufe,

Should it not be the thunderer's ? Tby service in some graver subject

Jortin. ufe, &c] It appears by this ad- I think I have seen the word thundress of Milton's to his native derous in other old authors, though language, that even in these green I cannot recollect the particular years he had the ambition to think passages. of writing an epic poem; and it is 37. — unshorn Apollo] An epithet worth the curious reader's atten- by which he is distinguish'd in the tion to observe how much the Pa- Greek and Latin poets. Pindar radise Loft corresponds in its cir. Pyth. III. 26. axeprexoua. 0016.

cumstances to the prophetic wish he Hor. Od. I. XXI. 2. - now formid. Thyer.

Intonsum

Such where the deep transported mind may foar
Above the wheeling poles, and at Heav'n's door i
Look in, and see each blissful Deity

35
How he before the thunderous throne doth lie,
List’ning to what unshorn Apollo sings
To th’touch of golden wires, while Hebe brings
Immortal nectar to her kingly fire:
Then passing through the spheres of watchful fire,
And misty regions of wide air next under, 4.3
And hills of snow and lofts of piled thunder,
May tell at length how green-ey'd Neptune raves,
In Heav'n's defiance mustering all his waves ;
Then fing of secret things that came to pass

45 When beldam Nature in her cradle was ; And last of kings and queens and heroes old, Such as the wise Demodocus once told

In

Intonfum pueri dicite Cynthium. The fields he passed then, whence

hail and know, 41. And misty regions of wide air

Thunder and rain fall down from next under,

clouds above. Fairfax. And hills of snow and lofts of piled

thunder,]' So Tasso describes the descent of Michael. Cant. 9. &c Alluding to the eighth book

48. Such as the wife Demodocus St. 61.

of the Odyssey, where Alcinous Vien poi da campi lieti, e fiam- entertains Úlysses, and the celemeggianti

brated musician and poet DemoD'eterno di là, donde tuona, e docus fings the loves of Mars and pioue : Venus, and the destruction of Troy;

and