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And with remorseless cruelty

Spoil'd at once both fruit and tree:

The hapless babe before his birth
Had burial, yet not laid in earth,
And the languish'd mother's womb
Was not long a living tomb,

So have I seen some tender slip,
Sav'd with care from winter's nip,
The pride of her carnation train,
Pluck'd up by some unheedy swain,
Who only thought to crop the flow'r
New shot up from vernal show'r;
But the fair blossom hangs the head
Side-ways, as on a dying bed,
And those pearls of dew she wears,
Prove to be presaging tears,
Which the sad morn had let fall

On her hast'ning funeral.

Gentle Lady, may thy grave

Peace and quiet ever have;
After this thy travail sore
Sweet rest seize thee evermore,

41. But the fair blossom hangs the head, &c.] Mr. Bowle compares this and the five following verses with what Antonio Bruni says of the rose, Le Tre Gratie, p. 221.

Ma nata a pena, o filli,
Cade languisce e more:
Le tenere rugiade,

Ch' l' imperlano il seno,
Son ne suoi funerali

Le lagrime dolenti,

T. Warton.

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Whilst thou, bright Saint, high sitt'st in glory,

Next her much like to thee in story,

That fair Syrian shepherdess,

Who after years of barrenness,
The highly favour'd Joseph bore
To him that serv'd for her before,
And at her next birth much like thee,
Through pangs fled to felicity,
Far within the bosom bright
Of blazing Majesty and Light:

55. Here be tears of perfect
moan, &c.
Sent thee from the banks of
Came.]

I have been told that there was
a Cambridge collection of verses
on her death, among which Mil-
ton's Elegiac Ode first appeared.
But I rather think this was not
the case.
As our Marchioness
was the daughter of Lord Savage
of Rock-Savage in Cheshire, it
is natural to suppose that her
family was well acquainted with
that of Lord Bridgewater, of the
same county, for whom Milton

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wrote Comus. He might probably therefore write this elegy in consequence of his acquaintance with the Egerton family.

Mr. Bowle remarks, that her death was celebrated by Sir John Beaumont, and Sir William Davenant. See Beaumont's Poems, 1629. p. 159. T. Warton.

63. That fair Syrian shepherdess, &c.] Rachel, the daughter of Laban the Syrian, kept her father's sheep, Gen. xxix. 9. and after her first son, Joseph, died in child-bed of her second son, Benjamin, xxxv. 18.

There with thee, new welcome Saint,
Like fortunes may her soul acquaint,

With thee there clad in radiant sheen,

No Marchioness, but now a Queen*.

IX.

Song. On May Morning.

NOW the bright morning star, day's harbinger,
Comes dancing from the east, and leads with her
The flow'ry May, who from her green lap throws
The yellow cowslip, and the pale primrose.

*There is a pleasing vein of lyric sweetness and ease in Milton's use of this metre, which is that of L'Allegro and Il Penseroso. He has used it with equal success in Comus's festive song, and the last speech of the Spirit, in Comus, 93, 922. From these specimens we may justly wish he had used it more frequently. Perhaps in Comus's song it has a peculiar propriety: it has certainly a happy effect. T. Warton.

1. Now the bright morning-star, day's harbinger,] So Shakespeare, Mids. N. Dr. a. iii. s. ult.

And yonder shines Aurora's harbinger.
T Warton.

2. Comes dancing from the east,
and leads with her
The flow'ry May, &c.]
So Spenser, in Astrophel, st. iv.
As sommers lark that with her song
doth greet

The dancing day, forth coming from the east.

The same expressions occur in the Faerie Queene, i. v. 2. and in Peele's David and Bethsabe, 1599.

in Niccols's Cuckow, 1607. and in G. Fletcher's Christ's Victory, c. i. 82. T. Warton.

3. who from her green lap throws &c.] This image seems to be borrowed from Shakespeare, Richard II. act v. sc. 4.

-who are the violets now
That strow the green lap of the new-
come spring?

3. So Niccols, in the description just cited, of May,

And from her fruitful lap eche day she threw

The choicest flowres.

We have the same image in R. Greene's description of Aurora, as cited in England's Parnassus, 1609. p. 415. And in Spenser, of Nature, F. Q. ii. vi. 15. and of May, F. Q. vii. vii. 34. T. Warton.

4. the pale primrose.] In the Winter's Tale, a. iv. s. 5.

-Pale primroses

That die unmarried.

And again in Cymbeline, a. iv.
T. Warton.

s. 2.

Hail bounteous May that dost inspire

Mirth and youth and warm desire; Woods and groves are of thy dressing, Hill and dale doth boast thy blessing. Thus we salute thee with our early song, And welcome thee, and wish thee long.

X.

On Shakespeare. 1630*.

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10

WHAT needs my Shakespeare for his honour'd bones The labour of an age in piled stones,

Or that his hallow'd reliques should be hid

Under a star-ypointing pyramid?

Dear son of memory, great heir of fame,

What need'st thou such weak witness of thy name? Thou in our wonder and astonishment

Hast built thyself a live-long monument.

For whilst to th' shame of slow-endeavouring art
Thy easy numbers flow, and that each heart
Hath from the leaves of thy unvalued book
Those Delphic lines with deep impression took,
Then thou our fancy of itself bereaving,
Dost make us marble with too much conceiving;

* This copy of verses on Shake speare being made in 1630, our poet was then in the twentysecond year of his age: and it was printed with the poems of that author at London in 1640.

5. Dear son of memory,] He honours his favourite Shakespeare with the same relation as the Muses themselves. For the Muses are called by the old poets

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the daughters of memory. See Hesiod, Theog. ver. 53.

8. a live-long monument.] It is lasting in the folio Shakespeare, and the editions of these poems, 1645, 1695, 1765. And in Tickell and Fenton. Milton, I suppose, altered it to live-long, edit. 1673. T. Warton.

11. unvalued] Inestimable; above price. Johnson.

And so sepulchred in such pomp dost lie,
That kings for such a tomb would wish to die*.

XI.

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On the University Carrier, who sickened in the time of his vacancy, being forbid to go to London, by reason of the plague+.

HERE lies old Hobson; Death hath broke his girt, And here, alas, hath laid him in the dirt,

15. And so sepulchred] We have the word with the same accent in Fairfax, cant. i. st. 25.

As if his work should his sepulchre be.

Milton has pronounced it other wise, as in Samson, ver. 103.

Myself, my sépulchre, a moving grave. * This is but an ordinary poem to come from Milton on such a subject. But he did not know his own strength, or was content to dissemble it, out of deference to the false taste of his time. The conceit of Shakespeare's lying sepulchred in a tomb of his own making is in Waller's manner, not his own. But he made Shakespeare amends in his L'Allegro, v. 133. Hurd.

This poem first appeared among other recommendatory verses, prefixed to the folio edition of Shakespeare's plays in 1632, but without Milton's name or initials. This therefore is the first of Milton's pieces that was published. It was with great difficulty and reluctance, that Milton first appeared as an author. He could not be prevailed upon to put his name to Comus, his first perform

ance of any length that was printed; notwithstanding the singular approbation with which it had been previously received in private circulation. Lycidas in a long and extensive course of the Cambridge collection is only subscribed with his initial. Most of the other contributors have left their names at full length.

The title of this piece in the second folio of Shakespeare was, An Epitaph on the admirable dramaticke Poet W. Shakespeare. T. Warton.

+ We have the following account of this extraordinary man in the Spectator, No. 509. “Mr. "Tobias Hobson was a carrier, " and the first man in this island "who let out hackney horses. "He lived in Cambridge, and

observing that the scholars rid "hard, his manner was to keep a large stable of horses, with "boots, bridles, and whips, to "furnish the gentlemen at once, "without going from college to

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college to borrow, as they "have done since the death of

“ this worthy man: I say Mr. "Hobson kept a stable of forty

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