STAGE-DIRECTION. "He hallows: the guardian dæmon hallows again, and enters in the habit of a shepherd."

Ver. 491. Come not too neere; you fall on pointed ftakes elfe.

Ver. 492. Dæmon. What voice, &c.

Ver. 496. And fweetened every musk-rofe of the valley.

Ver. 497. How cam'ft thou heere good Shepherd?

Ver. 498. Leapt ore the penne.

Then, "his fold." Then "the fold."

Ver. 512. What feares, good Shepherd ?

Ver. 513. I'll tell you.

Ver. 523. Deep learnt in all his mother's witcheries.`

It had been firft written, Enur'd; and laftly Deep skill'd..
Ver. 531. Tending my flocks hard by i' th' paftur'd lawns.
Ver. 545. With Spreading honey-fuckle.

Sylvefter, Du Bart. ed. fol. ut fupr. p. 217. characterises effeminate perfons as having

« a maiden voice, and mincing pase,

"Quaint looks, curl'd locks, perfumes, and painted face.”

Again, ibid. p. 311, of carpet-knights:

"To starch muftachocs, and to prank in print,
"And curl the lock, with favours braided in't."

See alfo Othello, A. i. S. ii.

"The wealthy curled darlings of our nation."

This fashion had, not long before Comus was written, occafioned the publi cation of that strange and laughable pamphlet by Prynne, entitled "The Unlouelinefs of Loue-lockes, &c. London, 1628," in which he folemnly main tains, that utter ruin muft be the portion of his countrymen, if they do not inftantly leave off to nourish, decke, fet out, and crisp their Haire, and Louelockes, &c. &c. fee p. 62. The Elder Brother, v. 608, threatens "to drag Comus by the curls, &c. :" this expreffion must have been highly gratifying to Prynne. In the preceding century also this fashion had been condemned: See Harmer's tranflation of "Maifter Bezaes Sermons vpon the three first chapters of the Canticle of Canticles, Oxford, 1587, 40." p. 173. "And what fhal I fay of thefe vile and stinking androgynes, that is to faie, these menweomen with their curled locks, their crifped and frizeled haire? Fie, fie, and fie againe vpon these stinking and filthie fashions, &c." The variety of these curls is noticed in Lyllie's Midas, 1592, A. iii. S. ii. Motto fays to Dello: "Besides, I inftructed thee in the phrafes of our eloquent occupation, as, How, Sir, will you be trimmed? will you have your beard like a spade or a bodkin? a pent-house on your vpper lip, or an allie on your chin? a lowe curle on your head like a bull, or dangling lock like a spaniel? your mustachoes sharp at the endes, like fhoemakers aules, or hanging down to your mouth, like goates flakes? your loue-locks wreathed with a filken twift, or haggie to fal on your houlders." TODD.

Then blowing, then flaunting.

Ver. 548.

Ver. 553.

but, ere the close.

Drowly flighted fteeds.

Ver. 555. At laft a fofte and folemn breathing found

Rofe like the fofte fteame of diftill'd perfumes.

So he had at firft written thefe lines: in the former of which fofte is altered to ftill, then to fweet, and laftly re-admitted; but in the latter fofte is erafed, and the line is completed thus:

Rofe like the fteame of flow diftill'd perfumes.

But flow is altered to rich. Poffibly Gray had noticed this very curious paffage in Milton's manufcript; for, in his Progress of Poefy, he calls the Eoliau lyre

Parent of Sweet and folemn breathing airs:"

which is Milton's fecond alteration of ver. 555.

Ver. 563. Too well I might perceive.

Ver. 574. The helpleffe innocent lady.

Ver. 605, Harpyes and Hydras, or all the monftrous buggs. "Twixt African and Inde, I' le find him out,

And force him to release his new-got prey,

Or drag him by the curles, and cleave his fcalpe
Down to the hips.-

Ver. 603. Bugs, monfters, terrours. So in B. and Fletcher's Philofter,

A. v. S. i. vol. i. p. 165. edit. 1750.

My pretty prince of puppets, we do know,

"And give your Greatuefs warning, that you talk

"No more fuch bug-words."

And in Shakspeare's Cymbeline, A. v. S. iii.

"Thofe that would die or ere refift, are grown

"The mortal bugs o' th' field."

Where fee inftances collected by Mr. Steevens. And Henr. VI. P. i.

"For Warwick was a bug that fear'd us all."

"Which is,

That is, "a monfter that frighted us." Our author's Reformat. the bug we fear." See alfo Reed's Old Pl. iii. 234. And Spenfer, Faer. Qu. ii. iii. 20.---xii. 25. Phaer tranflates Virgil's "Furiis agitatus Oreftes," Oreftes bayted was with BUGGES. The word is in Chaucer, "Or ellis that blacke buggys wol hym take," N. Pr. T. 1051. T. WARTON.

So in the 5th verfe of the xci. Pfalm, "the terrour by night" is rendered in the old English verfion "the bugge by night." TODD.

Ver. 608. He has preferved the fame image in Par. Loft, B. vi. 361. speaking of Moloch, Down cloven to the waift." Jonfon has the fame image in

Ver. 611. But here thy Steele can do thee small availe.

Little ftead is here croffed, and marked for re-admiffion, as prais in v. 176.

Ver. 614. He with his bare wand can unquilt thy joynts,

And crumble every finew.

Ver. 627. And fhew me fimples of a thousand hues.

Ver. 636. And yet more med'cinal than that ancient Moly
Which Mercury to wife Ulyffes gave.

Ver. 640. 'Gainft all enchantments, mildew blaft, or damp.
So this line is pointed in the MS.

Ver. 648. As I will give you as we go, [or, on the way] you may,
Boldly affault the necromantik hall;

Ver. 657.

Where if he be, with suddaine violence

And brandifht blade rush on him, break his glaffe,
And powre the lufhious potion on the ground,
And feife his wand.-

And good heaven caft his best regard upon us. Ex. After v. 658, STAGE-DIRECTION. "The fcene changes to a ftately palace, fet out with all manner of deliciousness: tables fpread with all dainties. Comus is difcovered with his rabble: and the Lady fet in an inchanted chaire. She offers to rife." Ver. 661. And you a ftatue fixt, as Daphne was. Ver. 662. Fool, thou art over-proud, do not boaft.

This whole fpeech of the Lady, and the first verse of the next of

the Fox, A. iii. S. viii. And Shakspeare in Macbeth, A. i. S. ii. But, not. withstanding thofe inftances, I believe, every reader will agree that Milton altered the paffage much for the better in the edition of 1645. NEWTON.

Here fays Peck, "Curls upon a bald pate are a good joke." But he fhould at least have remembered a paffage in the Pfalms, "The hairy fealp of fuch an one as gorth on ftill in his wickednets." It is true that we have in Shak fpeare's Two Gent, of Veron. A. iv. S. i.

By the bare fcalp of Robin Hood's fat friar."

That is, frier Tuck's fhaven crown. And in K, Rich. II. A. iii. S. ii, «hairless fcalps." T. WARTON,

And fee Minfhew's Guide into Tongues. ed. 1627. col. 646. The hairis fcalpe. See alfo Spenser's Faer. Qu. i. xi. 35.

Upon his crefted fealp fo fore did finite." TonD.

Ver. 627. So, in Lycidas, v. 135.

"Their bells and flourets of a thousand hues." T. WARTON.

Comus, were added in the margin: for before, Comus's first fpeech was uninterruptedly continued thus,

"Root-bound, that fled Apollo. Why do you frown ?”

Ver. 669. That youth and fancie can beget,

When the briske blood growes lively.

In the former line it was also written "can invent;" and in the latter "blood returnes."

Ver. 678. To life fo friendly, and fo coole to thirst.

Poor ladie thou haft need of fome refreshing.

Why should you, &c.

After v. 697, the nine lines now standing were introduced instead

of" Poore ladie, &c." as above.

Ver. 687. That haft been tir'd all day.

Ver. 689.

Heere fair Virgin.

Ver. 695. Ougly-headed monsters.

Ver. 696. Hence with thy hel-brew'd opiate.

Then foule bru'd, then brew'd enchantments.

Ver. 698. With vifor'd falfhood and bafe forgeries.
Ver. 707. To thofe budge doctors of the Stoick gowne.
Ver. 712. Covering the earth with odours and with fruites,
Cramming the feas with spawne innumerable,

The fields with cattell, and the aire with fowle.

Ver. 717. To adorn her fons.

But deck is the first reading, then adorn, then deck again.
Ver. 721. Should in a pet of temperance feed on fetches.
But pulfe was the firft reading. At laft, refumed.
Ver. 727. Living as Nature's baftards, not her fons.
Ver. 732. The fea orefraught would heave her waters up

Above the stars, and th' unfought diamonds
Would fo beftudde the center with thire ftarre-light,

And fo imblaze the forehead of the deep,

Were they not taken thence, that they below

Would grow enur'd to day, and come at last.

Ver. 737. Lift, Ladie, be not coy, nor be not cozen'd.
Here nor had been erafed, and again written over the rasure; and

Ver. 695. Ougly or oughly is the old way of writing ugly; as appears from feveral places in Sir P. Sidney's Arcadia, and from Shakspeare's Sonnets, ed. 1609; and care must be taken that the word be not mistaken, as fome have mistaken it, for owly-headed, Comus's train being headed like fundry forts of wild beafts. NEWTON.

afterwards and. Mr. Warton omits both, and fays that "Milton feems to have founded coy as a diffyllable; as also coarse at v. 749.” But the manufcript filences the remark, as far as it relates to this line.

Ver. 744. It withers on the ftalke and fades away.

Ver. 749. They had thire name thence: coarfe beetle brows.

Ver. 751. The sample.

Ver. 755. Think what, and look upon this cordial julep.

Then follow verfes from v. 672–705. From v. 779, to 806, the lines are not in the manufcript, but were added afterwards. Ver. 763. As if fhe meant her children &c.

Ver. 807. This is mere moral stuff, the very lees,

And fettlings of a melancholy blood:

But this, &c.

After v. 813, STAGE-DIRECTION. "The Brothers rush in, strike his glaffe down the [monsters, then] Shapes make as though they would refift, but are all driven in. Damon enters with them,” Ver. 814. What, have you let the false inchanter pass?

Ver. 818. We cannot free the Lady that remains.

And, here fits.

Ver. 821. There is another way that may be us❜d.

Ver. 826. Sabrina is her name, a goddess chafte.

Then erafed; then virgin before goddess, and pure after chufte. Ver. 829. She, guiltleffe damfel, flying the mad persuite. Ver. 831. To the Streame.

But first, "the flood."

Ver. 834. Held up thire white wrists and receav'd her in,
And bore her ftraite to aged Nereus hall.

Ver. 845. Helping all urchin blafts, and ill luck fignes
That the fhrewd meddling elfe delights to leave;
And often takes our cattel with ftrange pinches.
Which the, &c.

Ver. 849. Carrol her goodneffe loud in lively layes,

And lovely, from lively.

Ver. 851. Of panfies, and of bonnie daffadils,

Ver. 847. Compare Midsum. N. Dream, A. iv. S. iv, Of Herne the hunter,

who "blasts the tree, and takes the cattle." TODD.