Tu quoque in his, nec me fallit fpes lubrica, Damon, Tu quoque in his certe es, nam quo tua dulcis abiret Sanctaque fimplicitas, num quo tua candida virtus? Nec te Lethæo fas quæfiviffe fub orco, 201 205 Nec tibi conveniunt lacrymæ, nec flebimus ultra, 210 201. Nec te Lethæo fas quæfiviffe fub orco, &c.] From this line to the last but one, the imagery is almost all from his own LYCI DAS. V. 181. WEEP NO MORE, woful fhepherds, WEEP NO MORE; For Lycidas your forrow is NOT DEAD. 豪 -Lycidas funk low, but MOUNTED HIGH, Where other groves and other ftreams along, In folemn troops, and sweet focieties, Who fing, and finging in their glory move. Henceforth thou art the GENIUS OF THE SHORE. Here is a ftrain of myftic devotion, yet with fome tincture of claffical fiction, exalted into poetry. VOL. I. 4 B En En Etiam tibi virginei fervantur honores; Jan. 23. 1646. 215 Ad JOANNEM ROUSIUM Oxonienfis Academie Bibliothecarium.† De libro Poematum amiffo, quem ille fibi denuo mitti poftulabat, ut cum aliis noftris in Bibliotheca publica reponet, Ode. Strophe 1. Emelle cultu fimplici gaudens libèr, G 214. En etiam tibi virginei fervantur honores.] Deodate and Lycidas were both unmarried. See REVELATIONS, for his allufion, xiv. 3. 4. "These are they which were not defiled with women, for they are virgins, &c." Doctor Johnfon obferves, that this poem is " written with the "common but childish imitation of paftoral life." Yet there are some new and natural country images, and the common topics are often recommended by a novelty of elegant expreffion. The paftoral form is a fault of the poet's times. It contains alfo fome paffages which wander far beyond the bounds of bucolic fong, and are in his own original ftyle of the more fublime poetry. Milton cannot be a fhepherd long. His own native powers often break forth, and cannot bear the affumed disguise. John Roufe, or Ruffe, Mafter of Arts, fellow of Oriel college Oxford, was elected chief librarian of the Bodleian, May 9, 1620. He died in April, 1652, and was buried in the chapel of his college. He fucceeded to Thomas James, the first that held this of Munditieque nitens non operofa; fice from the foundation. In painted glass, in a window of the Provoft's Lodgings at Oriel college, are the heads of fir Thomas Bodley, James, and Roufe, by Van Ling. Hearne fays, they were put up by Roufe: they were probably brought from Roufe's apartment to the Provoft's Lodgings, when the College was rebuilt about 1640." Hearne, MSS. Coll. xii. p. 13. Roufe's portrait, large as life, a three quarters length, and coeval, is in the Bodleian library. He published an Appendix to James's Bodleian Catalogue, Oxon. 1636. 4to. In 1631, the University printed, Epiftola ad Johannem Cirenbergium, ob acceptum Synodalium. Epiftolarum Concilii Bafileenfis Autóypapov, præfixa variorum carminibus honorariis in eundem Cirenbergium. Oxon. 1631." In quarto. Where among the names of the writers in Latin, are Richard Busby of Christ Church, afterwards the celebrated Mafter of Westminster: Jafper Maine, and Thomas Cartwright, both well known as English poets, and of the fame college: and Thomas Masters of New-college, author of the famous Greek Ode on the Crucifixion. The Dedication, to Cirenberg, is written by our librarian Roufe, who seems to have conducted the publication. In it he speaks of his Travels, and particularly of his return from Italy through Bafil. He has a copy of not inelegant Latin Elegiacs, in the Oxford verfes, called BRITANNIE NATALIS, Oxon. 1630. 4to. p. 62. Hearne fays, that Roufe was intimate with Burton, author of the celebrated book on MELANCHOLIE; and that he furnished Burton with choice books for that work. MSS. COLL. cxli. p. 114. He lived on terms of the most intimate friendship with G. J. Voffius; by whom he was highly valued and refpected for his learning, and activity in promoting literary undertakings. This appears from Voffius's Epiftles to Roufe, viz. EPP. 73. 130. 144. 256. 409. 427. See Colomefius's VosSII EPISTOLÆ, Lond. 1690. fol. There is also a long and wellwritten Epistle from Roufe to Voffius, EP. 352. ibid. ad calc. p. 241. Degory Wheare, the first Camden Profeffor, fends his Book De Ratione et Methodo legendi Hiftorias, in 1625, to Roufe, with a Letter infcribed," JOANNI ROUSE o literatiffimo Academico meo." See Wheare EPISTOLARUM EUCHARISTICARUM FASCICULUS, Oxon. 1628. 12mo. p. 113. Not only on account of his friendship with Milton, which appears to have fubfifted in 1637, but because he retained his librarianship and fellowship through Cromwell's Ufurpation, we may fuppofe Rouse to have been puritanically inclined. See Notes on Sir Henry Wootton's LETTER prefixed to COMUS, fupr. p. 119. However, in 1627, he was expelled from his fellowship; but foon afterwards, making his peace 4 B 2 with Juvenilis olim, Sedula tamen haud nimii poetæ; 66 5 with the Prefbyterian Vifitors, was restored, Walker's SUFF. CLER. P.ii. p. 132. We are told also by Walker, that when the prefbyterian officers proceeded to fearch and pillage fir Thomas Bodley's cheft in the library, they quitted their defign, on being told that there was to be found there, by Roufe the librarian, a confiding brother." Ibid P. i. p. 143. Wood fays, that when Lord Pembroke, Cromwell's Chancellour of the University of Oxford, took his chair in the Convocation-houfe, in 1648, fcarcely any of the loyal members attended, but that Roufe was prefent. HIST. ANT. Univ. Oxon. i. 401. col. 2. See a visionary letter of Dionyfia Fitzherbert, of Bristol, to Roufe, Bibl. Bodl. MSS. Which, I find, is printed in Afhmole's BERKSHIRE, iii. 377. Probably Milton might become acquainted with Rouse, when he was incorporated a Mafter of Arts at Oxford in 1635. Neale fays, the Affembly of Divines in 1645, recommended the new verfion of the Pfalms by Mr. Roufe, to be used inftead of Sternhold's, which was grown obfolete. HIST. PUR vol. iii. 315. edit. 1736. But this was Francis Roufe originally of Broadgate-Hall Oxford, one of the affembly of Divines, the prefbyterian provost of Eton college, and an active inftrument in the Calviniftic visitation of Oxford: whofe works were collected and published together at London, in 1657, under the title "Treatifes and meditations de"dicated to the Saints, and to the Excellent throughout the three "kingdoms." His Pfalms appeared in 1641. Butler fays of thefe pfalms, "When Roufe ftood forth for his trial, Robin Wif"dom [in Sternhold and Hopkins] was found the better poet." REMAINS, edit. 1754. p. 230. I know not if he' was related to the librarian. But Wood mentions our librarian Roufe, as conveying, in 1626, an old hoftel to Pembroke college Oxford, which was converted into Lodgings for the Mafter of that college, then recently founded in Broadgate Hall; and which Roufe had just purchafed of Dr. Clayton, preferred from the Principality of that Hall to the Maftership of the new college. HIST. Univ. Oxon. ii. 336. col. 2. I recite this anecdote, as it feems to fuggeft a conjecture, corroborated by other circumftances, that the librarian was related to Francis Roufe abovementioned, the prefbyterian provoft of Eton, who was bred in Broadgate Hall, and at his death in 1657, became a liberal benefactor to Pembroke college. Milton, at Roufe's request, had given his little volume of poems, printed in 1645, to the Bodleian library. But the book being loft, Roufe requested his friend Milton to fend another copy. In 1646, another was fent by the author, neatly but plainly bound, munditie nitens non operofa, in which this ode to Rouse, in Milton's own Dum vagus Aufonias nunc per umbras, - - AnimadApologia, own hand-writing, on one fheet of paper, is inferted between the Latin and English Poems. It is the fame now marked M. 168. Art. 8vo. In the fame library, is another small volume, uniformly bound with that laft mentioned, of a few of Milton's profe tracts, the first of which is of Reformation touching Church Difcipline, printed for T. Underhill, 1641. 4to. Marked F. 56. Th. In the first blank leaf, in Milton's own hand writing is this infcription, never before printed. "Doctiffimo viro proboque librorum "æftimatori Johanni Roufio, Oxonienfis Academiæ Bibliotheca"rio, gratum fibi hoc fore teftanti, Joannes Miltonus opufcula "hæc fua, in Bibliothecam antiquiffimam atque celeberrimam ad"fcifcenda, libens tradit: tanquam in memoriæ perpetuæ famam, "emeritamque, uti fperat, invidiæ calumniæque vacationem, fi "veritatem bonoque fimul eventui fatis fit litatum. Sunt autem "De Reformatione Angliæ, Lib. 2.- De Epifcopatu Prælatico, "Lib. I. - De ratione Politiæ Ecclefiafticæ, Lib. 1. "verfiones in Remonftrantis Defenfionem, Lib. 1. "Lib. I. Doctrina et difciplina Divortii, Lib. 2. -- Judicium "Buceri de Divortio, Lib. 1.— Colafterion, Lib. 1.-Scripturæ "loca de Divortio, inftar Lib. 4.- Areopagitica, five de liber"tate Typographic oratio.-De Educatione Ingenuorum epifto"la.* POEMATA LATINA, ET ANGLICANA SECRSIM." About the year 1720, these two volumes, with other small books, were haftily, perhaps contemptuously, thrown afide as duplicates, either real or pretended: and Mr. Nathaniel Crynes, an efquire beadle, and a diligent collector of fcarce English books, was permitted, on the promife of fome future valuable bequests to the library, to pick out of the heap what he pleafed. But he, having luckily many more grains of party prejudice than of tafte, could not think any thing worth having that bore the name of the republican Milton; and therefore these two curiofities, which would be invaluable in a modern auction, were fortunately fuffered to remain in the library, and were foon afterwards honourably reflored to their original places. 1. Gemelle cultu fimplici gaudens liber, Fronde licet gemina, &c.] By Fronde gemina, we are to underftand, metamophorically, the two-fold leaf, the Poems both English and Latin, of which the volume confifted. So the Bodleian manufcript and printed copies: but fronte is perhaps a better reading. This volume of Poems, 1645, has a double front or title-page; both feparate and detached from each other, the one, at the beginning, prefixed to the Latin, and the other, about the *Tractate of Education to Hartlib. middle, |