NOTES. VOLUME I. Page 2. Wring her white hands, &c. Vanity of Hum. Wish. See likewife page 67, where Rosamond has the fame reflection. Page 4. These lines of Fletcher are a paraphrafe, or rather tranflation from Boethius. The whole description is forcible: some of the circumstances perhaps are heightened too much; but it is the fault of this writer to indulge himself in every aggravation that Poetry allows, and to stretch his prerogative of " quidlibet audendi" to the utmost. This fubject, versified in a very inferior style, occurs in his Poetical Miscellanies, p. 79, fubjoined to the P. Island.-For the effects of music on the Infernal Regions it may be almost impertinent to refer the reader to the story of Orpheus, 4 Georg. Virgil; and the very masterly introduction of it by Pope in his Ode on St. Cecilia's Day. The fame effect is represented by Horace as produced by the harps of Sappho and Alcæus, 2 Lib. 13 Od. 33. See also his Ode to Mercury, 3 Lib. 11 Od. 15. &c. See likewife Milton's P. Loft, 2 B. 546. 555 Page 6. This description was immediately taken from Spenser's Bower of Blifs, F. Queen. 11 B. 12 Canto; upon ideal Paradises of the kind, the best Poets in almost all ages and nations have lavished their descriptive powers. Homer has his Gardens of Alcinous, and Virgil his Elysium, Ariosto his Island of Alcina, and Tasso his Garden of Armida, Camoens his Garden of Venus, Marino his Gardens of Adonis, and lastly, Du Bartas and Milten 1 K 3 Milton their Gardens of Eden. Those who wish for minute and deferiminative information on this fubject, are referred to Mickle's Differtation. See Lufiad, page 424. Yet stately portance, &c. Thus Milton of Eve, She Delia's felf In gait surpass'd, and Goddess-like deport. B 9. P. L. 389. There port was more than human, as they stood. Comus, 297. Page 7. The inner portch seem'd entrance to intice. See Spenfer, St. LIII. LIV. 11 B. 12 Cant. Page 8. Which stellified the roofe with painted colour. A word in use amongst the Poets of that day. Drayton has it in his Legend of Matilda: By him who strives to stellify her name. Again in Drummond : With roses here she stellifyed the ground. Son. 41. Fetting Jacks. The word jetting seldom occurs applied to a perfon; it seems here to imply that restless and unsettled state peculiar to idleness. It is used by Quarles, defcribing the Haggard: he says, that she Jets oft from perch to perch 1 Emb. 3 B. Sylvefter in his tranflation of Du. Bartas, has borrowed many of Niccol's lines from this description, which he has printed with very flight alterations, and amongst other expreffions he applies this to Vice. It will be sufficient to refer to the passage, see Fol. Edit. 1641. Lond. p. 101. Jacks is a common expreffion denoting contempt with our older writers. Thus in the Mirror for Magistrates we meet with No golden churle, no elbow-vanting Jacke. We still fay contemptuously, " a Jack in Office." Page 9. - flickering eye. P. 565. A very expreffive epithet'; it is used by Dyer in his truly classical Poem, the Fleece, to denote the tremulous and fluctuating motion of the waves: Till, rifing o'er the flickering wave, the Cape 4 B. The concluding circumstances of this Piece are literally taken from Speufer, whose exquifite lines will not it is hoped, be confidered as unneceifary here. Eftfoons Eftfoons they heard a most melodious found Birds, voices, instruments, winds, waters, all agree. The joyous birds, shrouded in chearful shade, The gentle-warbling wind low answered to all. LXX. LXXI. P. 10. In the edition of Christ's Victory, together with the Purple Ifland, in 1783, many unwarrantable liberties are taken with the text, nor is the least apology for the proceeding offered, or even the circumstance itself mentioned. In almost every page injuries are done to the sense, where improvements were intended. The republication feems to have originated from a Letter of Harvey's (see Let. LI. 2 vol.), and to have been executed upon the ridiculous plan he there proposes. Now it is the indispensable duty of every Editor of an ancient poet, to exhibit the spelling of his author in the exact state in which he found it, (unless indeed in such words as are evidently mistakes of the press,) in order that the reader may trace the progress of orthography, together with that of Poetry. Where this practice is not observed, a republication is not merely imperfect but dangerous, as it leads to an infinity of mistakes, and can anfwer no poffible end but that of multiplying the number of our books without adding to the sources of our information. Whoever therefore takes up the edition alluded to for the purposes of enjoying the poetry, making an extract, or a reference, can never be safe as to the authenticity of a fingle stanza. A neat republication of all Giles and Phineas Fletcher's Poetry from the old editions faithfully reprinted, is much wanted. Elonging joyfull day. G. Fletcher has a similar term in the fame Poem. C 1.41 Stan. It is in vain to search for either of these expressions in the Modern Edition, as they are there thus altered : As when the cheerfull fun, light spreading wide. K 4 37 St. C. 1. Mod. Ed. Keeping Keeping back joyful day. Drummond in his prose works uses evanishing. See p. 222. Edin. Edit. 17г. "Riches being momentary and evanishing." The most material features of this description are taken from Spenser. F. Queen. B. 1. C. 9. Stan. 33, 36. This is a curious instance of Plagiarifm, and ferves to shew us what little ceremony the Poets of that day laboured under in pilfering from each other. The reader will be amply repaid for his trouble in turning to the passage in Spenser, who seems to have put forth all his strength to render the picture complete, and it is in delineations of fuch a hue that he peculiarly excells. The limits of my book will not permit me to quote the passage at length. See also Britannia's Paftorals by Browne, vol. I. p. 162, Thomp. Edit. Page 13. And on their masts where oft the ship-boy stood, Some wearyed crow is set. This Image reminds us of a very spirited passage in Churchill': GOTHAM a striking circumstance, perfectly similar to a well-known paffage of Young: Some for hard masters, broken under arms, Page 5. Wishing for death, and yet he could not die. Night I. See Purple Island, C. 6. St. 37. No Poet has exceeded Milton on this subject, whose lines are far too well known to be here quoted: His cap borne up with staring of his haire. A very original incident. Mr. Hogarth, in his figure of Richard the Third, in the Tent Scene, has represented the ring of the Tyrant as having started beyond the joint of his finger with the violent agitation of his frame. The incident is such as a man of genius only could have conceived, though many look at the picture without attending to the fublimity of it. Page 17. --the still night's feere was he. i. e. companion. Shakspeare's eulogium on Sleep deserves a place here as well for its beauty as its resemblance in fome degree to Sackville's: --the the innocent Sleep, Sleep, that knits up the ravel'd fleave of Care, МАСВЕТИ Page 18. The infirmities of Age are no where more emphatically enumerated than in Juvenal, ro Sat. 190, &c. Churchill, who has an exclufive right to the title of the British Juvenal, has fome good lines on this fubject. See his Gotham, B. 1. p. 11, 12. 3 vol. Page 22. And Priam eke in vaine, &c. The death of Polites, 2 Æn. 526, 557. Virgil. Which affords an excellent fubject for a picture; but the Poet in his general account of the facking of Troy, preceding this particular description, has a circumstance relative to the death of Old Priam not fufficiently attended to as a beauty, yet eminently fine, and which is one of those few strokes that at once evince the fuperiority of Poetry over Painting: Vidi Hecubam, centumque nurus Priamumque per aras 501. A skilful Painter might have judiciously selected a few of the most interesting, and most melancholy spectacles of the night; he might, by a proper difpofition of them, have successfully conveighed to our minds the distress of Hecuba and her female attendants, at the fight of Pyrrhus and the two fons of Atreus; all our finer feelings might have been fully excited by the dead body of Priam himself, at the foot of the altar: but to have told us, that this very altar to which he had vainly fled for protection, and near which he now lay dead, had formerly, in the hour of peace and profperity, been confecrated by his own hand, would have baffled the powers of his pencil, and have forced from him a confeffion to this effect; "Nobis non licet else tam difertis!" Dr. Blair in his Lectures on Rhetoric, in his remarks on Virgil's talents for poetical description, expressly selects this pafiage, and obferves, that "The death of Priam, especially, may be singled out as a mafter-piece of defcription." Vol. III. 169. but this the most material circumftance seems to have escaped him: His crest was three ostrich feathers; and his motto, these German words, Ich dien, I ferve, which the Prince of Wales and his fucceffors adopted in memorial of this great victory. HuME. Page 26. Antonio Dorta. SPEED. Page 27. In the time of May a variety of words were unfettled as to their accent, and were used either short or long, according to the will or neceflity of the Poet. For instance: By this strict meanes were more afcertain'd there. Page 26. |