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And settlings of a melancholy blood:
But this will cure all strait, one sip of this
Will bathe the drooping spirits in delight
Beyond the bliss of dreams. Be wise, and taste.-

810

The Brothers rush in with swords drawn, wrest his glass out of his hand, and break it against the ground; his rout make sign of resistance, but are all driven in; The attendant Spirit comes in.

SPIRIT.

What, have you let the false inchanter scape? O ye mistook, ye should have snatch'd his wand

Beyond the bliss of dreams.]

815

811.

One sip of this Will bathe the drooping spirits in delight,

814. What, have you let the false inchanter scape?] Before this verse the stage direction is in the Manuscript as follows. The

down; the shapes make as though they would resist, but are all driven in. Dæmon enters with them. And the verse was thus at first,

What, have you let the false inchanter pass?

So Fletcher, Faithf. Sheph. act Brothers rush in, strike his glass

iv. s. 1. vol. iii. p. 164.

-It passeth dreams,

Or madmen's fancy, when the many

streams

Of new imaginations rise and fall. Compare the delicious but deadly fountain of Armida in Tasso, Gier. Lib. c. xiv. 74.

Ch'un picciol sorso di sue lucide onde Inebria l' alma tosto, e la fai lieta, &c.

But Milton seems to have remembered Fairfax's version.

One sup therefore the drinker's heart doth bring

To sudden joy, whence laughter vaine doth rise, &c.

See also Parad. L. b. ix. 1046. and 1008. Perhaps Bathe is in Spenser's sense, F. Q. i. vii. 4.

And bathe in plesaunce of the joyous

shade.

See Upton, Gl. F. Q. in V. Bathe. T. Warton.

815. O ye mistook, ye should have snatch'd his wand,

And bound him fast; without his rod revers'd,

And backward mutters of dissevering power,

We cannot free the Lady, &c.] They are directed before to seize Comus's wand, v. 653. And this was from the Faerie Qu. where Sir Guyon breaks the charming staffe of Pleasure's porter, as he likewise overthrows his bowl, ii. xii. 49. But from what particular process of disinchantment, ancient or modern, did Milton take the notion of reversing Comus's wand or rod? It was from a passage of Ovid, the great ritualist of classical sorcery, before cited,

And bound him fast; without his rod revers'd,
And backward mutters of dissevering power,
We cannot free the Lady that sits here
In stony fetters fix'd, and motionless :
Yet stay, be not disturb'd; now I bethink me,
Some other means I have which may be us'd,

where the companions of Ulys-
ses are restored to their human
shapes. Metam. xiv. 300.

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This Sandys translates, "Her " wand reverst, &c." Transl. p. 462. edit. 1632. And in his very learned Notes he says, "As "Circe's rod, waved over their "heads from the right side to the "left, presents those false and " sinister persuasions to pleasure, " which so much deformes them: so the reversion thereof, by dis"cipline and a view of their " owne deformitie, restores them "to their former beauties," p. 481. By backward mutters, the " verba dictis contraria verbis," we are to understand, that the charming words, or verses, at first used, were to be all repeated backwards, to destroy what had been done.

The most striking representation of the reversal of a charm that I remember, and Milton might here have partly had it in his eye, is in Spenser's description of the deliverance of Amoret, by Britomart, from the inchantment of Busyrane, Faery Q. iii.

xii. 36.

And rising up, gan streight to overlooke Those cursed leaves, his charmes back to reverse; &c.

820

The circumstance in the text, of the Brothers forgetting to seize and reverse the magician's rod, while by contrast it heightens the superior intelligence of the the attendant Spirit, affords the opportunity of introducing the fiction of raising Sabrina; which, exclusive of its poetical ornaments, is recommended by a local propriety, and was peculiarly interesting to the audience, as the Severn is the famous river of the neighbourhood. T. Warton. 816. -without his rod revers'd,] It was at first

- without his art revers'd.

$18. -the Lady that sits here] In the Manuscript it was at first that remains, and is that here sits.

821. Some other means I have which &c.] He had written at first There is another way that &c.

821. Doctor Johnson reprobates this long narration, as he styles it, about Sabrina; which, he says, " is of no use because it " is false, and therefore un"suitable to a good being." By the poetical reader, this fiction is considered as true. In common sense, the relator is not true: and why may not an imaginary being, even of a goo good character, deliver an imaginary tale? In poetry false narrations are often more useful than true. Something, and something preter-,

L

Which once of Melibœus old I learnt,
The soothest shepherd that e'er pip'd on plains.
There is a gentle nymph not far from hence,
That with moist curb sways the smooth Severn stream,
Sabrina is her name, a virgin pure;

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virgin pure;] In the Manuscript then a virgin chaste, and at last a virgin pure. Locrine, king of the Britons, married Guendolen the daughter of Corineus, Duke of Cornwall: but in secret, for fear of Corineus, he loved Estrildis, a fair captive whom he had taken in a battle with Humber king of the Huns, and had by her a daughter equally fair, whose name was Sabra. But when once his fear was off by the death of Corineus, not content with secret enjoyment, divorcing Guendolen, he makes Estrildis now his queen. Guendolen all in rage departs into Cornwalland gathering an army of her father's friends and subjects, gives battle to her husband by

it was at first a virgin goddess,

the river Sture; wherein Locrine shot with an arrow ends his life. But not so ends the fury of Guendolen, for Estrildis and her daughter Sabra she throws into a river; and to leave a monument of revenge, proclaims that the stream be thenceforth called after the damsel's. name, which by length of time is changed now to Sabrina or Severn. This is the account given by Milton himself in the first book of his History of England: but here he takes a liberty very allowable to poets, (as Mr. Thyer expresses it,) and varies the original story of this event, in order to heighten the character of Sabrina, whom he is about to

introduce as the patroness and protector of chastity. See Spen

ser's account of the same event, in the Faery Queen, b. ii. cant. 10. st. 17, 18, 19.

But the sad virgin innocent of all, Adown the rolling river she did pour, Which of her name now Severn men

do call:

Such was the end that to disloyal love

did fall.

826. Sabrina's fabulous history may be seen in the Mirrour of Magistrates under the legend of the Lady Sabrine, in the sixth Song of Drayton's Polyolbion, the tenth canto and second book of Spenser's Faerie Queene, the third book of Albion's England, the first book of our author's History of England, in Hardyng's Chronicle, and in an old

Whilome she was the daughter of Locrine,
That had the sceptre from his father Brute.

She guiltless damsel flying the mad pursuit
Of her enraged stepdame Guendolen,

Commended her fair innocence to the flood,
That stay'd her flight with his cross-flowing course.
The water nymphs that in the bottom play'd,
Held up their pearled wrists and took her in,

830

English Ballad on the subject. See note on Epitaph. Dam. v. 176. The part of the fable of Comus, which may be called the Disinchantment, is evidently founded on Fletcher's Faithful Shepherdess. The moral of both dramas is the triumph of chastity. This in both is finally brought about by the same sort of machinery. Sabrina, a virgin and a king's daughter, was converted into a river-nymph, that her honour might be preserved inviolate. Still she preserves her maiden-gentleness; and every evening visits the cattle among her twilight meadows, to heal the mischiefs inflicted by elfish magic. For this she was praised by the shepherds.

-She can unlock

The clasping charm, and thaw the
numbing spell,
If she be right invok'd in warbled
song.

She protects virgins in distress. She is now solemnly called, to deliver a virgin imprisoned in the spell of a detestable sorcerer. She rises at the invocation, and leaving her car on an osiered rushy bank, hastens to help insnared chastity. She sprinkles on the breast of the captive maid, precious drops selected from her pure fountain. She touches thrice

the tip of the lady's finger and thrice her ruby lip, with chaste palms moist and cold; as also the envenomed chair, smeared with tenacious gums. The charm is dissolved: and the nymph departs to the bower of Amphitrite. But I am anticipating, by a general exhibition, such particular passages of Fletcher's play as will hereafter be cited in their proper places; and which, like others already cited, will appear to have been enriched by our author with a variety of new allusions, original fictions, and the beauties of unborrowed poetry. T. Warton.

829. She guiltless damsel] We prefer the reading of the Manuscript and the editions of 1637 and 1645: that of 1673 has The guiltless damsel &c. which is followed by some others.

831. to the flood,] So he wrote at first, and then to the stream, and then to the flood again; and rightly, as stream is the last word of a verse a little before and a little after.

834. Held up their pearled wrists &c.] In the Manuscript these verses were thus at first,

Held up their white wrists to receive her in,

And bore her straight to aged Nereus' hall.

Bearing her strait to aged Nereus' hall,
Who piteous of her woes, rear'd her lank head,
And gave her to his daughters to imbathe
In nectar'd lavers strow'd with asphodil,
And through the porch and inlet of each sense

835

Dropt in ambrosial oils till she reviv'd,

840

And underwent a quick immortal change,
Made Goddess of the river; still she retains
Her maiden gentleness, and oft at eve

Visits the herds along the twilight meadows,

834. Drayton gives the Severn pearls. He says of Sabrina, Polyolb. s. v. vol. ii. p. 752.

Where she meant to go

The path was strew'd with pearl.

He speaks also of "The pearly "Conway's head," a neighbouring river. Ibid. s. ix. vol. iii. p. 827. And of the " precious ori"ent pearl that breedeth in her "sand." Ibid. s. x. vol. iii. p. 842. We shall see, that Milton afterwards gives gems to the Severn of a far brighter hue. T. Warton.

836. -piteous of her woes.] Under the same form, "Retch" lesse of their wrongs," that is, unpiteous, as in Drayton, Polyolb. s. vii. See supr. at v. 404. Τ. Warton.

837. And gave her to his daughters to imbathe

In nectar'd lavers] This at least reminds us of Alcæus's epigram or epitaph on Homer, who died in the island of Io. The Nereids of the circumambient sea bathed his dead

body with nectar. Antholog. lib. iii. p. 386. edit. Brod. Francof. 1600. fol.

ΝΕΚΤΑΡΙ δ' ειναλιαι Νηρηίδες εχρισαντο,
Και νεκυν Ακταιῃ θηκαν ὑπο σπιλαδι.

The process which follows, of dropping ambrosial oils " into "the porch and inlet of each "sense" of the drowned Sabrina, is originally from Homer, where Venus anoints the dead body of Patroclus with rosy ambrosial oil. Il. b. xxiii. 186.

-Ροδοεντι δε χριεν ΕΛΑΙΩΙ

ΑΜΒΡΟΣΙΩ..

See also Bion's Hyacinth. “Κριεν “ δ' αμβροσιῃ και νεκταρι, &c." Idyll. ix. 3.

The word imbathe occurs in our author's Reformation, "Me" thinkes a sovereign and reviv"ing joy must needs rush into "the bosom of him that reads " or hears; and the sweet odour " of the returning Gospel im"bathe his soul with the fra"grance of heaven." Proseworks, vol. i. 2. What was enthusiasm in most of the puritanical writers, was poetry in Milton. T. Warton,

839. And through the porch and inlet of each sense] The same metaphor in Shakespeare, Hamlet, act i. sc. 8.

And in the porches of mine ears did pour &c.

844. Visits the herds along the twilight meadows,

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