SPIRIT. Alas! good vent'rous Youth, I love thy courage yet, and bold emprise; He with his bare wand can unthread thy joints, And crumble all thy sinews. 610 the same image in the Fox, act the same, Paradise Lost, xi. 642. iii. s. 8. -O that his well driv'n sword Spenser uses the word, Faery Had been so covetous to have cleft me -whose warlike name doron Unto the navel. Is far renown'd through many a bold emprise. 611. But here thy sword can do And Shakespeare in Macbeth, And Fairfax, cant. ii. st. 77. act i. s. 2. Till he unseam'd him from the nave to th' chops. I know Mr. Warburton reads thee little stead; &c.] Virgil, Æn. here -from the nape to th' chops, and supports it very ingeniously; but if any alteration were necessary, I should rather read Till he unseam'd him from the chops to th' nave. Nay Shakespeare carries it so -his sword, (death's stamp) But notwithstanding these in- ii. 521. Or drag him by the curls to a foul death, ✓614. He with his bare wand Curs'd as his life. can unthread thy joints, And crumble all thy sinews.] 610. -and bold emprise ;) See He had written at first, ELDER BROTHER. Why prythee, Shepherd, 615 How durst thou then thyself approach so near, SPIRIT. Care and utmost shifts How to secure the Lady from surprisal, He with his bare wand can unquilt And crumble every sinew. 614. So in Prospero's commands to Ariel, Temp. act iv. s. ult. Go, charge my goblins, that they With aged cramps. T. Warton. 622. to th' morning ray:] See note on Lycidas, 142. Τ. Warton. 623. He lov'd me well, &c.] I cannot help thinking that Milton designed here a compliment to his schoolfellow and friend Charles Deodati, who was bred to the study of physic, and had an exceeding love for our author, Pectus amans nostri, tamque fidele 620 Tu mihi, cui recitem, judicis instar Eleg. sext. ad Deodatum. and sometimes explained to him Tu mihi percurres medicos, tua gra- Epitaph. Damonis. 623. and oft would beg me He sitting me beside in that same And when he heard the musick which He found himself full greatly pleas'd and used to hear him repeat his Such parallels are of little more importance, than to shew what N Which when I did, he on the tender grass 625 Telling their strange and vigorous faculties: 630 The leaf was darkish, and had prickles on it, But in another country, as he said, Bore a bright golden flow'r, but not in this soil: 627. of a thousand names,] It was at first but, to avoid its recurring in two lines together, of a thousand hues. 632. But in another country, as he said, Bore a bright golden flow'r, but not in this soil: Unknown, and like esteem'd, &c.] So these verses are read in Milton's own Manuscript, and in all his editions. For like esteemed we have in Mr. Fenton's edition little esteemed, and Mr. Warburton proposes to read light esteemed : and Mr. Seward, in note 25 upon the Faithful Shepherdess, has very ingeniously reformed the whole passage thus. But in another country, as he said, Bore a bright golden flow'r, but in this soil Unknown and light esteem'd. The middle verse indeed hath a redundant syllable; and before I had seen Mr. Seward's emendation, I had proposed either to leave out the monosyllable not, Bore a bright golden flow'r, but in or to leave out the monosyllable But then on the other hand it must be said, that such redundant or hypercatalectic verses sometimes occur in Milton. We had one a little before, ver. 605. Harpies, and hydras, or all the monstrous forms. And for like esteemed I think it may be defended without any alteration. Unknown and like esteemed, that is, Unknown and unesteemed, Unknown and esteemed accordingly. 632. It is true that "such re"dundant verses sometimes oc"cur in Milton," but the redundant syllable is never, I think, found in the second, third, or fourth, foot. The passage before us is certainly corrupt, or at least inaccurate, and had better been given thus, But in another country, as he said, Bore a bright golden flow'r; not in this soil Unknown, though light esteem'd. Hurd. Mr. Seward's emendation is : Unknown, and like esteem'd, and the dull swain very plausible and ingenious. 634.-dull] Unobservant. T. Warton. 635.-clouted shoon;) So Shakespeare, 2 Henry VI. act iv. s. 3. Cade speaks, We will not leave one lord, one gentleman; Spare none but such as go in clouted shoon. 635. Add the following passage from Cymbeline, act iv. s. 2. which not only exhibits but contains a comment on the phrase in question. -I thought he slept, and put My clouted brogues from off my feet, whose rudeness Answer'd my steps too loud. 635 of this poem very much upon the episode of Circe in the Odyssey; and here he himself plainly points out the parallel between them. The characters of Circe and her son Comus very much resemble each other. They have both of them a potent wand and inchanting cup, and the effects of both are much the same: and they are both to be opposed in the same manner with force and violence. Mercury bids Ulysses to rush upon Circe with his drawn sword, as if he would kill her. Odyss. x. 294. Δη τοτε συ ξίφος οξυ ερυσσαμενος παρα μηρου Κιρκη επαΐξαι, ώστε κταμεναι μενεαιων. and the attendant Spirit exhorts the two Brothers to assault Comus in the same manner, -with dauntless hardihood, And they are both overcome in Clouts are thin and narrow plates Mercury gave to Ulysses, and Comus by the virtues of hæmony, which the attendant Spirit gives to the two Brothers. But the of iron affixed with hob nails to the soles of the shoes of rustics. These made too much noise. The word trogues is still used for shoes among the peasantry of Ireland. T. Warton. 636. And yet more med cinal is it &c.] At first he had thus writ ten these two lines, And yet more med'cinal than that That Hermes once to wise Ulysses gave; He call'd it hæmony, and gave it me, Here is my moly of much fame It is not agreed, whether Milton's hæmony, more virtuous than moly, and " of sovereign " use 'gainst all inchantments," is a real or poetical plant. Drayton, in the lines following the passage just quoted, recites with many more of the kind, Here holy vervain, and here dill, But Milton, through the whole of the context, had his eye on Fletcher, who perhaps availed himself of Drayton, Faith. Shep. act ii. s. 1. vol. iii. p. 127. The shepherdess Clorin is skilled in the medicinal and superstitious uses of plants. You, that these hands did crop long before prime, Give me your names, and next your hidden power. This is the clote, bearing a yellow flower, &c. In Browne's Inner Temple Masque, written on Milton's subject, Circe attended by the Sirens uses moly for a charm, p. 135. Our author again alludes to the powers of moly for " quelling the might of hellish "charms." El. i. 87. Et vitare procul malefidæ infamia Compare Sandys's Ovid, p. 256. In Tasso, Ubaldo, a virtuous magician, performs his operations, by the hidden powers of herbs and springs. Gier. lib. xiv. 42. Qual in se virtù celi dl herba d 1' fonte. In the Faerie Queene, the Palmer has a vertuous staffe, which, like Milton's moly and hæmony, defeats all monstrous apparitions and diabolical illusions. And Tasso's Ubaldo carries a staff of the same sort, when he enters the palace of Armida, xiv. 73. xv. 49. T. Warton. 637. That Hermes once &c.] Ovid, Metam. xiv. 289. -Nec tantæ cladis ab illo Certior, ad Circen ultor venisset Ulysses: Pacifer huic dederat florem Cyllenius album, Moly vocant superi, &c. From Homer, Odyss. K. v. 305. T. Warton. 638. He call'd it hæmony, &c.] I conceive this to be neither the anemone nor the hemionion described by Pliny, though their names are something alike: and it is in vain to enquire what it is; I take it to be (like the moly to which it is compared) a plant that grows only in poetical ground. It cannot be the hemionion particularly, because Pliny says that this bears no flower. Hemionion vocant, spargentem juncos tenues, folia parva, asperis locis nascentem, austero sapore, nunquam florentem. Lib. xxv. sect. 20. nec caulem, nec florem, nec semen habet. Id. lib. xxvii. s. 17. And yet Mr. Thyer imagines it to be the same, and what in English we call spleenwort: and if his conjecture |