Blue meagre hag, or stubborn unlaid ghost I have heard (my mother told it me, And now I do believe it) if I keep My virgin flower uncropt, pure, chaste, and fair, Satyr, or other power that haunts the groves, Shall hurt my body, or by vain illusion Draw me to wander after idle fires; Or voices calling me, &c.-NEWTON. 1 Stubborn unlaid ghost That breaks his magick chains at curfeu time. 435 An unlaid ghost was among the most vexatious plagues of the world of spirits. It is one of the evils deprecated at Fidele's grave, in "Cymbeline," a. iv. s. 2. No exorciser harm thee, Nor no witchcraft charm thee, Ghost unlaid forbear thee !-T. WARTON. That Milton looked with learned eyes on the superstitious beliefs which he wrought into his verse, these lines bear proof, but his learning adorned rather than oppressed popular fiction: the horned and hoofed fiend of Gothic belief became in his hands a sort of infernal Apollo: the witch who drained cows dry, shook ripe corn, and sunk venturous boats, grew with him "a blue meagre hag," a description which inspired the pencil of Fuseli. The "midnight hags" of British belief suffered a sore change in their persons during the course of time. When we first hear of them, instead of all being "beldames auld and droll," they counted in their ranks much youth and beauty; music and dancing made a part of their entertainments; nor did they hesitate to mount their ragweed nags: and, picking up some handsome and wandering youth by the way, carry him with them; and initiating him into the mysteries of love and wine, set him down on Mount Caucasus, and let him find his way back to Plinlimmon or Shehallion as he best could. The witches of latter days were all old, withered, unlovely, and repulsive; their pranks, too, were of a low order, and their spells easily averted. A wand of mountain-ash protected a whole herd of cows; a neck-band of the red berries of the same tree was a full security to the wearer : nay, devout and skilful people retaliated upon them, and made them suffer greater miseries than they were able to inflict.-C. ni Swart faery of the mine. In the Gothic system of pneumatology, mines were supposed to be inhabited by various sorts of spirits. See Olaus Magnus's chapter "De Metallicis Dæmonibus, Hist. Gent. Septentrional." In an old translation of Lavaterus "De Spectris et Lemuribus," is the following passage:- -"Pioners or diggers for metall do affirme, that in many mines there appeare straunge shapes and spirites, who are apparelled like vnto the laborers in the pit. These wander vp and downe in caues and underminings, and seeme to besturre themselves in all kinde of labor; as, to digge after the veine, to carrie together the oare, to put into basketts, and to turn the winding wheele to draw it vp, when in very deed they do nothinge lesse," &c.-"Of Ghostes and Spirites walking by night," &c. Lond. 1572. ch. xvi. p. 73. And hence we see why Milton gives this species of fairy a swarthy or dark complexion.-T. WARTON. The true British goblin, called elsewhere by Milton the "lubbar fiend," and by the Scotch poets the "billie-blin" or "brownie," is a sort of drudging domestic fiend, slightly inclined to work mischief on sluttish housemaids and lazy hinds, but not at all disposed to injure virgins, or harm the good and the industrious. Indeed the main business of the brownie seems to have been to watch over the flocks, the crops, and the fortunes of the house to which he was attached. He has been known to reap a twenty-acre field of corn between twilight and dawn, as much for the purpose of astonishing the reapers, as to prevent it from being shaken by the wind. Milton himself ascribes to him the power of threshing as much grain at a time as ten day-labourers could do; and tradition says, that on one occasion, when a drowsy domestic was unwilling to ride and bring the midwife for the mistress of the mansion, brownie mounted the saddled horse, brought the dame with supernatural haste, and finished his excursion by flogging the lazy menial with the iron-bitted bridle till he cried for mercy. The elfin page of Scott is a more elegant sort of Hath hurtful power o'er true Virginity. ye believe me yet, or shall I call Hence had the huntress Dian her dread bow, 440 And spotted mountain-pard, but set at naught The frivolous bolt of Cupid °; gods and men 445 Fear'd her stern frown, and she was queen of the woods. brownie; but tradition always represents the latter as a solitary creature, that shuns the sight of man, and of whom only one glimpse in twenty years could be obtained by the most watchful and wary. He accepted only the choicest food, such as cream and honey; his stature was about half the human height; his complexion was brown; his arms long, and his strength immense. He seems to have been utterly naked, and it is known that he had no partiality to clothes; for when the brownie of Lethan-hall was presented with a new mantle and hood, he was heard wailing like a child for three nights; after which he departed, and returned no more.-C. n Hence, &c. Milton, I fancy, took the hint of this beautiful mythological interpretation from a dialogue of Lucian, betwixt Venus and Cupid; where the mother asking her son how, after having attacked all the other deities, he came to spare Minerva and Diana, Cupid replies, that the former looked so fiercely at him, and frightened him so with the Gorgon head which she wore upon her breast, that he durst not meddle with her; and that as to Diana, she was always so employed in hunting, that he could not catch her. THYER. • The frivolous bolt of Cupid. This reminds one of "the dribbling dart of love," in "Measure for Measure." "Bolt," I believe, is properly the arrow of a crossbow.-T. WARTON. See Shakspeare, "Mids. Night's Dream," a. ii. s. 2: Yet mark'd I where the bolt of Cupid fell.--TODD. P But rigid looks, &c. 'Rigid looks" refer to the snaky locks, and "noble grace" to the beautiful face as Gorgon is represented on ancient gems. WARBURTON. Brute violence. See "Par. Reg." b. i. 218.-THYER. A thousand liveried angels lacky her. The idea, without the lowness of allusion and expression, is repeated in "Par. Lost," b. viii. 559 About her as a guard angelick placed.-T. WARTON. • Tell her of things that no gross ear can hear. See "Arcades," v. 72. This dialogue between the two Brothers is an amicable contest between fact and philosophy: the younger draws his arguments from common apprehension, Till oft converse with heavenly habitants And turns it by degrees to the soul's essence ", By unchaste looks, loose gestures, and foul talk, The soul grows clotted by contagion ", 460 465 and the obvious appearance of things: the elder proceeds on a profounder knowledge, and argues from abstracted principles. Here the difference of their ages is properly made subservient to a contrast of character: but this slight variety must have been insufficient to keep so prolix and learned a disputation alive upon the stage: it must have languished, however adorned with the fairest flowers of eloquence. The whole dialogue, which indeed is little more than a solitary declamation in blank verse, much resembles the manner of our author's Latin Prolusions, where philosophy is enforced by pagan fable and poetical allusion.-T. WARTON. The unpolluted temple of the mind. For this beautiful metaphor he was probably indebted to St. John, ii. 21. "He spake of the temple of his body:" and Shakspeare has the same, "Tempest," a. i. s. 6:— There's nothing ill can dwell in such a temple.-NEWTON. " And turns it by degrees to the soul's essence. This is agreeable to the system of the materialists, of which Milton was one.— WARBURTON. The same notion of body's working up to spirit Milton afterwards introduced into his "Par. Lost," b. v. 469, &c. which is there, I think, liable to some objection, as he was entirely at liberty to have chosen a more rational system, and as it is also put into the mouth of an archangel: but in this place it falls in so well with the poet's design, gives such a force and strength to this encomium on chastity, and carries in it such a dignity of sentiment; that, however repugnant it may be to our philosophical ideas, it cannot miss striking and delighting every virtuous and intelligent reader. THYER. By unchaste looks, &c. "He [Christ] censures an unchaste look to be an adultery already committed: another time he passes over actual adultery with less reproof than for an unchaste look,” "Divorce," b. ii. c. 1. Matth. v. 28.-T. WARTON. w The soul grows clotted by contagion, &c. I cannot resist the pleasure of translating a passage in Plato's "Phædon," which Milton here evidently copies:-"A soul with such affections, does it not fly away to something divine and resembling itself? To something divine, immortal, and wise? Whither when it arrives, it becomes happy; being freed from error, ignorance, fear, love, and other human evils. But if it departs from the body polluted and impure, with which it has been long linked in a state of familiarity and friendship, and by whose pleasures and appetites it has been bewitched, so as to think nothing else true but what is corporeal, and which may be touched, seen, drunk, and used for the gratifications of lust; at the same time, if it has been accustomed to hate, fear, or shun whatever is dark and invisible to the human eye, yet discerned and approved by philosophy;—I ask, if a soul so disposed will go sincere and disencumbered from the body? By no means. And will it not be, as I have supposed, infected and involved with corporeal contagion, which an acquaintance and converse with the body, from a perpetual association, has made congenial? So I think. But my friend, we must pronounce that substance to be ponderous, depressive, and earthy, which such a soul draws with it; and therefore it is burdened by such a clog, and again is dragged off to some visible place, for fear of that which is hidden and unseen; and, as they report, retires to tombs and sepulchres, among which the shadowy phantasms of these brutal souls, being loaded with somewhat visible, have often actually appeared. Probably, O Socrates: and it is equally probable, O Cebes, that these are the souls of wicked, not virtuous men, which are forced to wander amidst burial places, suffering the punishment of an impious life: and they so long are seen hovering about the monuments of the dead Imbodies, and imbrutes, till she quite lose Such are those thick and gloomy shadows damp, To a degenerate and degraded state. Sec. Br. How charming is divine philosophy ! And a perpetual feast of nectar'd sweets, Where no crude surfeit reigns. El. Br. List, list; I hear Some far-off halloo break the silent air. Sec. Br. Methought so too; what should it be? Either some one like us night-founder'd here, For certain Sec. Br. Heaven keep my sister. Again, again, and near! El. Br. I'll halloo : If he be friendly, he comes well; if not, Enter the Attendant Spirit, habited like a shepherd. 470 475 480 455 490 till, from the accompaniment of the sensualities of corporeal nature, they are again clothed with a body," &c. Phæd. Opp. Platon. p. 386, edit. Lugdun. 1590, fol. An admirable writer, the late Bishop of Worcester, has justly remarked, that "this poetical philosophy nourished the fine spirits of Milton's time, though it corrupted some." It is highly probable, that Henry More the great Platonist, who was Milton's contemporary at Christ's-college, might have given his mind an early bias to the study of Plato.-T. WARTON. Imbodies and imbrutes. Thus also Satan speaks of the debasement and corruption of its original divine essence, "Par. Lost." b. ix. 165: mix'd with bestial slime, This essence to incarnate and imbrute, That to the highth of Deity aspired.-T. WARTON. y How charming is divine philosophy. This is an immediate reference to the foregoing speech, in which the divine philosophy of Plato concerning the nature and condition of the human soul after death is so largely and so nobly displayed. Much the same sentiments appear in the "Tractate on Education:"- "I shall not detain you longer in the demonstration of what we should not do; but straight conduct you to a hill-side, where I will point ye out the right path of a vertuous and noble education, laborious indeed at the first ascent, but also so smooth, so green, so full of goodly prospect and melodious sounds, that the harp of Orpheus was not more charming," p. 101, ed. 1675. And see "Par. Reg." b. i. 478, &c.-T. WARTON. 2 But musical as is Apollo's lute. Perhaps from "Love's Labour's Lost," as Mr. Bowle suggests, a. iv. s. 3. As sweet and musical As bright Apollo's lute.-T. WARTON. Spir. What voice is that? my young lord? speak again. As a stray'd ewe, or to pursue the stealth That doth enrich these downs, is worth a thought El. Br. To tell thee sadly d, shepherd, without blame, a Pr'ythee briefly shew. Thyrsis? whose artful strains, &c. 495 500 505 510 A compliment to Lawes, who personated the Spirit. We have just such another above, v. 86, but this being spoken by another, comes with better grace and propriety; or, to use Dr. Newton's pertinent expression, is more genteel. Milton's eagerness to praise his friend Lawes, makes him here forget the circumstances of the fable: he is more intent on the musician than the shepherd, who comes at a critical season, and whose assistance in the present difficulty should have hastily been asked: but time is lost in a needless encomium, and in idle enquiries how the shepherd could possibly find out this solitary part of the forest; the youth, however, seems to be ashamed or unwilling to tell the unlucky accident that had befallen his sister. Perhaps the real boyism of the brother, which yet should have been forgotten by the poet, is to be taken into the account.-T. WArton. Let it be remembered that "Comus" is a drama of poetic description rather than theatric interest: besides, I conceive it exactly in nature for such young adventurers to delight in having their solitude and distress relieved by the acquisition of the aid and company of a faithful domestic of the family and I farther believe that it is a fine touch of real nature to represent them at the immediate moment forgetting, in a certain degree, their own immediate distress, and recurring to the well-known amusements and employments of their old shepherd, his skill in pastoral music, his zealous care of his flock, &c. all these domestic circumstances recurring to their minds. Surely this is perfectly in nature; and if we criticise such passages, it should certainly be to commend, and not to censure.-Dunster. b Madrigal. The madrigal was a species of musical composition, now actually in practice, and in high vogue. Lawes, here intended, had composed madrigals: so had Milton's father. The word is not here thrown out at random.-T. WARTON. • How couldst thou find this dark sequester'd nook? Thus the shepherdess Clorin to Thenot, Fletcher's "Faith. Shep." a. ii. s. 1.T. WARTON. d Sadly. Sadly, soberly, seriously, as the word is frequently used by our old authors, and in "Par. Lost," b. vi. 541.-NEWTON. |