Edward King was of gentle blood by his mother, who was a Drury, niece of Sir William Drury, the Lord Deputy.

Warton and Todd have given a list of poems, of which Edward King was the author, to which some additions are made in the Miscellany Poems collected by the late Mr. John Nichols, vol. vii. p. 76, &c.

The wreck in which he perished occurred on August 10, 1637.

Cursory criticism.-Observe the beautiful manner in which the poet unfolds the circumstances of the fate of his friend: He is "dead"-" dead ere his prime.”—But more remains to be told. See how he postpones the melancholy fact, interposing the amiable character of his friend, who was young"-unequalled-and, above all, himself a poet. Then comes the sad truth, he was drowned-and the body had not been recovered. "Sable shroud," in line 22. This has always been a tempting epithet to the poets, and yet the propriety may be doubted when we know it to be so opposed to the practice. I submit whether it is proper to disjoin the next line—

For we were nursed upon the self-same hill, &c.

so far from the line preceding as to begin a new paragraph with it. It expresses the reason why he, the poet, should be so earnest with the Muse, so indecently earnest, as he would seem, had he not such a plea as this, that they had studied together, formed a firm friendship, and had a common love of poesy, which he represents under pastoral imagery. The new paragraph should begin at "Together," in the 25th line. In the 27th line there should be a longer pause at " a-field," than is indicated by a comma, for there ends

their morning labours, and then passing over mid day he goes to their evening work. Line 53, he presents us with the scene of the calamity, near the mouth of the Dee, "where Deva spreads her wizard stream," widens, opens, as it approaches the sea. The precise scene of the calamity is no where more distinctly pointed out than in this poem. Line 65,"shepherds' trade," poetry. The affectation of calling poets shepherds, ran through much of the poetry of the Elizabethan period, but it is here less offensive than in some other cases, the whole turn of the Elegy being pastoral. Line 67, to live in Epicurean ease. Line 76, "slits" seems a word of questionable propriety. Line 76. Here begins bold daring of the poet, to put words in the mouth of Apollo, and the word "trembling," "and touched my trembling ears," seems to be intended to indicate that the poet felt that something of apology was required of him. He again virtually apologizes for this daring:

That strain I heard was of a higher mood;

But now my oat proceeds.

The simplest and humblest of all musical instruments : there is an emphasis on the word "my." Line 105, "Inwrought with figures dim." It is a personification of Cambridge, not as a town, but as a University, a seat of science, so that the figures on the robe or bonnet of Camus may be geometric diagrams, just as we see in old German prints of Grammar and Arithmetic, the dress of the figures embroidered with letters of the alphabet or the Arabic numerals. Line 106, "Like to that sanguine flower inscribed with woe." The Hyacinth. Line 108, to this assembly over the dead body of Lycidas, Triton, Æolus, Camus, is now added St.

Peter; and "Last came," &c. should be the beginning of a new paragraph. The whole of this passage grates harshly on the ear, and is not in keeping with the preceding portions of the Elegy; even if it be thought that there is a mistake in imagining that the poet contemplated at the moment the particular fate which was to fall on the then Archbishop. Yet Milton was fully aware of the severity of these lines, and perhaps of their incongruous character; and at line 132 he recalls the softer, the "Sicilian Muse." Line 135, place the comma after " flowrets," not after " bells," bell-shaped flowers as well as others being of various hues. Line 136, "where the mild whispers use." "Use" is em

ployed by prose writers as well as poets, for inhabit, as by Leland, "He used Calais," dwelt there. Line 153, “ Let our frail thoughts dally with false surmise." Let us for a moment deceive ourselves with the thought that we may have it in our power to pay this honour to the dead body of our friend; and he then goes on in a strain of noble poetry to speak of the drifting of the body they knew not whither northward beyond the Hebrides, or southward to the coast of Cornwall. Warton's note on the "Great vision of the guarded mount," has long been admired as an instance of very elegant annotation, and yet it leaves the criticism incomplete. Line 177," blest kingdoms," query "kingdom ?" Line 184,"in thy large recompense." It shall be a part only of that vast recompense which will be thine, that thou shalt be the Genius of the Flood, acting perpetually under the promptings of thy own benevolent spirit. In the last paragraph Milton designates himself modestly as "the uncouth swain." Line 188, "the tender stops of various quills," shews that he was sensible of what might be supposed a

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want of harmony in the several portions of his poem, and a want of unity among the characters introduced by him. He intimates also, perhaps, that it was the production of a single day. The close is graceful. He has fulfilled his duties to his lost friend.

other duties.

To-morrow he must attend to

I have ventured to say of the celebrated note of Thomas Warton, that it still leaves the criticism on the passage incomplete. It is not in the part in which he shews us what is meant by "the great vision of the guarded mount,” but in the succeeding clause, "looks towards Namancos and Bayona's hold." Namancos is a place as little known to most readers of Milton as was before his time the "guarded mount" on the coast of Cornwall; and though "Bayona's hold" suggested to most readers Bayonne, which does not satisfy the condition, inasmuch as it is not a place which might be discovered over the ocean, with no land intervening, if an eye on the top of Mount St. Michael could reach so far, and to better informed readers, the Spanish Bayona in Galicia, against which however the same objection lies, though with less force. Yet Warton had not told us what places the poet really intended; so that there was room for the supplementary note of Mr. Todd, who tells us that, a literary friend had directed him to Mercator's Atlas, edit. fol. Amst. 1623, and again in 1636, where in the map of Galicia, near the point Cape Finisterre, the desired place occurs, thus written, "Namancos T." This is very good for Namancos. Mr Todd proceeds-" In this map the Castle of Bayona makes a very conspicuous figure;" but this leaves room for a note supplementary to his supplement, for it is not quite clear what Mr. Todd means by the Castle of

Bayona. If it is some castle near to the Spanish Bayona, which is a probable interpretation, then would the poet lie • open to the charge of having sacrificed geographical correctness to some poetical necessity; for the Bayona in Galicia, no more than the Bayonne of France, would be discovered by an eye looking from Mount St. Michael across the waves- or in other words, a line drawn from the Cornish mountain to that Bayona, would have to traverse a considerable tract of land, and not pass over sea only, which was what Milton obviously intended. So that the geographical illustration of this celebrated passage requires for its completeness something more.

That something I flatter myself that I am able to add. I believe that Milton did not by "Bayona's hold" intend either Bayonne in France, or Bayona in Spain, though they both lie in the direction in which the Angel must be understood to look, but another place called by the Dutch sailors "Cork Bayonne," which lay near the extreme point of Cape Finisterre, and therefore near to Namancos, and within ken (if he could see so far) of a person looking over sea without intervening land from the neighbourhood of our own Land's End, the Cape Finisterre of England. This place is not in the ordinary maps: but it is found in the map of the coast of Galicia in the rare book of Pilotage, printed at Amsterdam in 1662, and again in 1676, with the title "The Lightening Column or Sea-Mirrour." In one of the maps near the extreme point of Cape Finisterre is "Corco Bayona," which is thus spoken of in the text of the work“About a league to the eastward of Cape de Finisterre on the south side, lyeth the haven of Seche or Corcovia, and is called by the Dutch shipmasters Corck Bayone."