Nec sentit solitas, immania pondera, silvas; Diis dilecte senex, te Jupiter æquus oportet Nascentem, et miti lustrârit lumine Phœbus, Atlantísque nepos; neque enim, nisi charus ab ortu Diis superis, poterit magno favisse poetæ. Hinc longæva tibi lento sub flore senectus Vernat, et Æsonios lucratur vivida fusos; Nondum deciduos servans tibi frontis honores, Ingeniúmque vigens, et adultum mentis acumen. 70 75 Quantum Peliacas And in B. ii. 6. T. WARTON. tioned by V. Flaccus, Argon. B. i. 406. in vertice vicerat ornos." Ver. 69. Mulcentúrque novo &c.] Boethius, Metr. iii. 12. "Stupet tergeminus novo "Captus carmine janitor." RICHARDSON. Ver. 72. Ver. 73. neque enim, nisi charus ab'ortu Diis superis, &c] Pindar, Pyth. Od. i. 25. Όσσα δὲ μὴ πεφίληκε Ζεὺς, ατύζονται βοὰν Πιερίδων ἀΐοντα. TODD. magno favisse poeta.] The great poet Tasso. Or a great poet like your friend Tasso. Either sense shows Milton's high idea of the author of the Gerusalemme. T. WARTON. The great poet is the usual phrase applied to Tasso. So, in the Sonnet before cited. "Del tuo gran Tasso." Again, in Rime del Sig. G. C. Colombini, Sonetti di diversi Accademici Sanesi, &c. Sienna, 1608, p. 184. "Quì giace estinto il gran Torquato Tasso, Ver. 74. "Gloria d' Apollo, onor del secol nostro." ToDd. lento sub flore senectus Vernat, &c.] There is much elegance in lento sub flore. I venture to object to vernat senectus. T. WARTON. O mihi si mea sors talem concedat amicum, Ver. 79. Phœbæos] Phœbaos is entirely an Ovidian epithet. As, "Phœbæa lyra," Epist. Heroid. xvi. 180. And in numerous other places. See El. vii. 46. T. WARTON. Phœbæus, it may be added, is also a very frequent epithet in Buchanan's poetry. TODD. Ver. 80. Siquandò indigenas revocabo in carmina reges, Arturúmque etiam sub terris bella moventem! &c.] The indigena reges are the ancient kings of Britain. This was the subject for an epick poem that first occupied the mind of Milton. See the same idea repeated in Epitaph. Damon. v. 162. King Arthur, after his death, was supposed to be carried into the subterraneous land of Faerie or of Spirits, where he still reigned as a king, and whence he was to return into Britain, to renew the Round Table, conquer all his old enemies, and re-establish his throne. He was, therefore, ETIAM movens bella sub terris, STILL meditating wars under the earth. The impulse of Milton's attachment to this subject was not entirely suppressed: It produced his History of Britain. By the expression, revocabo in carmina, the poet means, that these ancient kings, which were once the themes of the British bards, should now again be celebrated in verse. Milton, in his Church-Government, written 1641, says, that after the example of Tasso, "it haply would be no rashness, from an equal diligence and inclination, to present the like offer in one of our own ancient stories," Prose-Works, i. 60. It is possible that the advice of Manso, the friend of Tasso, might determine our poet to a design of this kind. T. WARTON. We may here compare the Illustrations of Drayton's Polyolbion, S. iii. p. 54, edit. 1622, where Lydgate, according to the fiction of the Welch bards, says of Arthur; "He is a king crouned in Fairie, "With scepter and sword; and with his royally "Shall resort as lord and soveraigne "Out of Fairie, and reigne in Britaine." TODD. Aut dicam invictæ sociali foedere mensæ Magnanimos heroas; et, O modo spiritus adsit, Ver. 82 90 sociali fœdere mensæ &c.] The knights, or associated champions, of king Arthur's Round Table, as Mr. Warton observes: but there may be an allusion also to Statius, Theb. viii. 240. “Tum primùm ad cœtus, sociéque ad fœdera mensæ, Ver. 85. Annorúmque satur, &c.] Mr. Steevens thinks, that the context is amplified from a beautiful passage in the Medea of Euripides, v. 1032. Medea speaks to her sons. "Ille caput flavum lauro Parnasside vinctus." Virgil's epithet is Parnassius. T. WARTON. Milton also follows Buchanan. See Silva, Buchanan. Opp. ed. supr. p. 52. 66 mutæque diu Parnassidos umbræ." TODD. Tum quoque, si qua fides, si præmia certa bonorum, Ipse ego cœlicolûm semotus in æthera divûm, 95 Quò labor et mens pura vehunt, atque ignea virtus, Et simul æthereo plaudam mihi lætus Olympo. 100 Ver. 99. En. vi. 640. 66 purpureo suffundar lumine vultus,] Virgil, Largior hic campos æther et lumine vestit "Purpureo." TODD. EPITAPHIUM DAMONIS. ARGUMENTUM. Thyrsis et Damon, ejusdem vicinia pastores, eadem studia sequuti, à pueritia amici erant, ut qui plurimùm. Thyrsis animi causâ profectus peregrè de obitu Damonis nuncium accepit. Demùm posted reversus, et rem ità esse comperto, se, suámque solitudinem, hoc carmine deplorat. Damonis autem sub personâ hic intelligitur Carolus Deodatus ex urbe Hetruriæ Lucâ paterno genere oriundus, cætera Anglus; ingenio, doctrinâ, clarissimisque cœteris virtutibus, dum viveret, juvenis egregius*. HIMERIDES nymphæ (nam vos et Daphnin, et Hylan, Et plorata diu meministis fata Bionis,) * See Notes on El. i. Charles Deodate's father, Theodore, was born at Geneva, of an Italian family, in 1574. He came young into England, where he married an English Lady of good birth and fortune. He was a doctor in physick; and, in 1609, appears to have been physician to Prince Henry, and the Princess Elizabeth, afterwards queen of Bohemia. Fuller's Worthies, Middlesex, p. 186. He lived then at Brentford, where he performed a wonderful cure by phlebotomy; as appears by his own narrative of the case, in a Letter dated 1629, printed by Hakewill at the end of his Apologie, Lond. 1630. Signat. Y y 4. Hakewill calls him," Dr. Deodate, a French physician living in London," &c. See Apol. L. iii. §. v. p. 218. One of his descendants, Mons. Anton. Josuè Diodati, who has honoured me with some of these notices, is now the learned Librarian of the Republick of Geneva. Theodore's Brother, Giovanni Deodati, was an |