P. 52. Return, Alpheus. A river of Arcadia, whose streams were believed to mingle with the fountain of Arethusa, in Syracuse. The dread voice, i.e., that of St. Peter. Where the whispers use. Use: = are wont to linger. Compare above "As others use." Swart Star parching star; the dogstar. = P. 53. Rathe primrose, &c. Rathe = P. 54. sooner, early; so rather = Freaked. We have from the same root, and in the same sense, freckled. The laureat hearse = the laurel-covered bier. The monstrous world the world where monsters dwell. Bellerus. A giant, a name coined by Milton from Bellerium the Latin name for a promontory in Cornwall. The great vision St. Michael, who, according to tradition, gazes from the headland of St. Michael's Mount, upon Namancos and Bayona, on the coast of Gallicia. Your sorrow = he for whom you sorrow. The unexpressive nuptial song. cannot be expressed, ineffable. Unexpressive = that The uncouth swain: = the unknown swain. His Doric lay: like Theocritus, who was a native of the Had stretched out all the hills = had made their shadows long, WHEN THE ASSAULT WAS INTENDED TO THE CITY. P. 54. Written before the expected assault on the city, in 1642, when the Royalists had advanced as far as Brentford. Milton's house was in Aldersgate Street. P. 55. Emathian conqueror = Alexander the Great. Emathia, a district of Macedonia, here stands for the whole. We are told that in B.C. 335, when Thebes was destroyed, the house of Pindar, the Theban poet, was spared by Alexander, who, by the favour he showed to Greek literature, increased his political influence amongst the states of Greece. Sad Electra's poet = Euripides; the singing of a chorus out of whose tragedy, the Electra, heard by the Spartan conquerors in 404 B.C., is said by Plutarch to have averted the destruction of Athens. ON HIS BLINDNESS. P. 55. One talent. See Matthew xxv. Milton's one talent in his poetical faculty. TO CYRIAC SKINNER. P. 55. This three years day. For three years this day. Conscience consciousness. P. 56. My noble task. The "Defence on behalf of the English people," written in Latin, in answer to the book in which Salmasius, a professor at Leyden, had attacked the execution of Charles I. CLARENDON. P. 58. Without at all affecting the execution that was then principally to be attended : without having any love for such action as was then to be expected. = P. 59. Enamoured on peace. For on, modern usage would substitute of. DRYDEN. P. 65. Achitophel. Anthony Ashley Cooper, Earl of Shaftesbury, was prominent amongst those who, during the agitation produced by the rumours of a Popish plot, attempted to keep the Duke of York (afterwards James II.) from the Throne by means of the Exclusion Bill. He supported the claims of Monmouth (who is Absalom in the Satire); and when, on the turn of the tide, the Court felt itself strong enough to bring a charge of high treason against him, the Bill was thrown out by the grand jury of London (1681). P. 66. The triple bond. The alliance of England with Holland and Sweden, which was broken off during the "Cabal" ministry (to which Shaftesbury belonged) for an alliance with France (the foreign yoke). Zimri. George Villiers, 2nd Duke of Buckingham, the son of the first duke, who was minister to James I. and Charles I., and was assassinated in 1627. Buckingham was one of the cabal; and, when driven from office in 1674, went vehemently into opposition. He had ridiculed Dryden in the play called Rehearsal. The lines quoted, Dryden himself thought the best in the whole poem. ALEXANDER'S FEAST. P. 68. Timotheus. A musician of Boeotia, one of Alexander the Great's favourites. P. 68. Quire. We should now write "Choir." P. 73. Cecilia came, inventress of the vocal frame. St. Cecilia was held to have invented the organ. DEFOE. P. 77. A SKIRMISH OF DRAGOONS. This is from the Memoirs of a Cavalier, a book which, though it gives an acount of events which occurred twenty years before the author's birth, yet impresses us with an air of reality, by means of its graphic detail, and circumstantiality. SWIFT. P. 80. P. 81. THE SPIDER AND THE BEE. This is taken from the 'Battle of the Books,' an account of a fight between the books in the Royal Library at St. James's, which Swift contributed to the controversy, then fashionable, as to the merits of the ancient and modern authors. Was adventured out; an older form of what we would express by "had ventured out.” P. 84. TEMPLE OF FAME. Compare Popes' Temple of Fame, of which part is printed in Book V. of this series. P. 86. The artisans, i.e., those who attempt to attain fame by work of a mechanical kind. * P. 88. Quintus Curtius, Arrian, and Plutarch, three historians who have each contributed to the biography of Alexander. P. 89. Julius Cæsar ** * would have no conductor but himself. In allusion to his being the author of the Commentaries, as well as the chief actor in the events which they record. ADDISON. P. 96. PEDANTRY. With this piece, compare the Moral Essays of Pope (Epistle I.). "Yes, you despise the man to Books confin'd, Who from his study rails at human kind; Tho' what he learns he speaks, and may advance And yet the fate of all extremes is such. Men may be read as well as Books, too much;" &c. P. 97. Either of the kings of Spain or Poland. POPE. The disputed successions in both these countries were questions that about this time agitated every Court in Europe. ESSAY ON MAN. P. 99. My St. John. Henry St. John, Lord Bolingbroke, the friend of Pope: Statesman under Queen Anne, but afterwards banished for his treacherous dealings with the Jacobites. P. 100. Vindicate the ways of God to man. Compare "Justify the ways of God to man." Milton, Paradise Lost, Book i. line 26. Circle other suns. Compare Milton's "Thy saints circling Yonder argent fields. So again, Milton, "those argent fields." P. 101. Where all must full or not coherent be, i.e., "Where there can be no gap, unless there is to be a want of cohesion."-Ward. Egypt's god = Apis, the sacred bull kept at Memphis. P. 104. A Borgia or a Catiline. Cæsar Borgia, the son of Alexander VI., one of the most infamous of the Popes (died 1507). Catiline, the conspirator at Rome in the Consulship of Cicero (B.c. 62). Young Ammon. Alexander the Great was saluted by the priests of the Libyan god, Ammon, as his son. P. 106. Or touch if tremblingly alive *** aromatic pain. These lines are faulty in point of grammar, because elliptical. "O, what the use, if touch were tremblingly alive, &c., or, by a quick effluvia darting, &c., to die in aromatic pain." The music of the spheres. A notion beginning with the Pythagoreans, repeated throughout classical literature, and thence borrowed by our 17th and 18th century poets. On the tainted green. Compare in Scott, "tainted gale." Nice bee. Nice here keenly discriminating. Barrier. P. 107 (line 1). What thin partitions. A dissyllable. Compare Dryden, "and thin par titions do their bounds divide." P. 109. Abus'd or disabus'd. Abus'd deceived. From the Satires. The piece quoted is from the 'Epistle of Dr. P. 110. John, i.e., John Searl, his old servant, whom he remembered in his will. Mint. A sanctuary for insolvent debtors. P. 111. This prints my letters. Some of Pope's letters had been surreptitiously printed in 1726. Granville the Polite, i.e., George Granville, afterwards Lord Lansdowne, a wit and poet of the time of Queen Anne (lived till 1735). Walsh, who was the first to recognise in Pope the dawnings of genius. Garth. Dr. Samuel Garth. An author, and an early friend of Pope. Congreve. William Congreve (died 1729), one of the wittiest comedians in the language. P. 112. Talbot. Duke of Shrewsbury, died 1718. Somers. Lord Keeper, under William III. Sheffield. Duke of Buckingham, the friend and patron of Mitred Rochester. Francis Atterbury, Bishop of Rochester. purposely joined with authors of no importance whatever. The bard whom pilfer'd Pastorals, &c. Ambrose Philips, who wrote pastorals, (accused by Pope of plagiarism), and who translated Persian tales. P. 113. Tate. Nahum Tate "author of the worst alterations of Shakespeare, the worst version of the Psalms of David, and the worst continuation of a great poem (Absalom and Achitophel) extant.” (Prof. Craik.) Peace to all such. The next lines, the most famous of the poem, are directed against Addison, once Pope's friend, but now estranged. For a criticism of the Satire, see Macaulay's "Essay on Addison." P. 115. Gay. John Gay (1688-1732) was one of Pope's dearest and most lamented friends. His straits were owing more to carelessness than want of money. Queensbury. The Duke of Queensbury, in whose house Sir Will. = Sir William Yonge, Secretary for War. |