greater part, more then at other times, wholly tak'n up with the study of highest and most important matters to be reform'd, should be disputing, reasoning, reading, inventing, discoursing, ev'n to a rarity, and admiration, things not before discourst or writt❜n of, argues first a singular good will, contentednesse and confidence in your prudent fore "Trades, and Occupations, taking their turnes; and not onely "inferiour Tradesmen, but Gentlemen of the best quality, "Knights, and Ladies themselves, for the encouragement of "others, resorted daily to the Workes, not as Spectators but "assisters in it; carrying themselves, Spades, Mattoks, and "other instruments of digging, so that it became a pleasing sight at London, to see them going out in such order and "numbers, with Drums beating before them; and put life into "the drooping people (being taken for an happy Omen) that, "in so low a condition, they seemed not to despaire."-The History of the Parliament of England; p. 214. edit. 1812. What MILTON proceeds to observe of the reasoning, reading, inventing, discoursing, things not before discourst or writt'n of, I apprehend to have been a complimentary allusion to the regular conferences just set on foot of Persons attached to the pursuit of experimental, or, as it was then called, the new Philosophy. "We did (says Dr. Wallis) by agreement, divers of us, meet. 66 weekly in London, on a certain day, to treat and discourse of "such affairs.........Our business was, precluding matters of "Theology and State-affairs, to discourse and consider of Phi losophical inquiries, and such as related thereunto; as Phy"sick, Anatomy, Geometry, Astronomy, Navigation, Staticks, "Magneticks, Chymicks, Mechanicks, and natural Experi"ments." See Dr. Wallis's account of some Passages of his own Life, in the Publisher's Appendix to his Preface to Peter Langtoft's Chronicle; CLXI. &c. Works of T. Hearne: III. 1810. This association for the promotion of physiological and scien tific enquiries was the germ whence the Royal Society sprang. Μ sight, and safe government, Lords and Commons! and from thence derives it self to a gallant bravery and well grounded contempt of their enemies, as if there were no small number of as great spirits among us, as his was, who when Rome was nigh besieg'd by Hanibal, being in the City, bought that peece of ground at no cheap rate, whereon Hanibal himself encampt his own regiment". Next, it is a lively and cherfull presage of our happy successe and victory. For as in a Body, when the blood is fresh, the spirits pure and vigorous, not only to vital, but to rationall faculties, and those in the acutest, and the pertest operations of wit and suttlety', it argues in what good plight and constitution the Body is; so when the cherfulnesse of the People is so sprightly up, as that it has, not only wherewith to guard well its own freedom and 9 Who when Rome was nigh besieg'd by Hanibal, being in the City, bought that peece of ground at no cheap rate, whereon Hanibal himself encampt his own regiment.] "Minuere etiam spem " ejus et aliæ, parva magnaque, res: magna illa, quod, quum "ipse ad mœnia urbis Romæ armatus sederet, milites sub vexil"lis in supplementum Hispaniæ profectos audivit: parva autem, "quod per eos dies eum forte agrum, in quo ipse castra haberet, "venisse, nihil ob id deminuto pretio, cognitum ex quodam cap"tivo est. Id vero adeo superbum atque indignum visum, ejus "soli, quod ipse bello captum possideret, haberetque, inventum "Romæ emptorem; ut, extemplo vocato præcone, tabernas ar "gentarias, quæ circa forum Romanum tunc essent, jusserit "venire."-Liv. Hist. XXVI. 11. 1 Pertest operations of wit and suttlety.] i. e. "liveliest ope"rations, &c.:" "Trip the pert Fairies and the dapper Elves."-Comus. safety, but to spare, and to bestow upon the solidest and sublimest points of controversie, and new invention, it betok'ns us not degenerated, nor drooping to a fatall decay, but casting off the old and wrincl❜d skin of Corruption to outlive these pangs, and wax young again', entring the glorious 2 Casting off the old and wrincl'd skin of Corruption to outlive these pangs, and wax young again.] A classical metaphor: Anguibus exuitur tenui cum pelle vetustas," is a line I have read in some Roman Poet. MILTON probably drew the thought from some Writer who has explained, why among the Antients a Serpent was symbolical of the medical Science; which had, we may conjecture, its origin from the vulgar error, that the annual process of changing their slough endued these animals with renovated vigour. He might remember Macrobius: "Ideo ergo simulacris eorum junguntur "figuræ draconum; quia præstant ut humana corpora velut in"firmitatis pelle deposita, ad pristinum revirescunt vigorem, ut " virescunt dracones per annos singulos pelle senectutis exuta, "propterea et ad ipsum solem species draconis refertur." Saturn. I. 20. Though he was hardly unmindful of Virgil's comparison of Pyrrhus and his newly burnished armour to a Snake fresh in his vernal rejuvenescence. (En. II. 471. &c.) It must be left to opinion, since I am not prepared with an example of the word, in the sense I suggest, to confirm my persuasion, that where Hamlet in his Soliloquy says, "When we "have shuffled off this mortal coil," i. e. envelope, wrapper, the dramatic Bard bad in his mind a metaphor nearly allied to MILTON's; a turn of thought of the same tenour as another in the Merchant of Venice "while this muddy vesture of decay "Doth grossly close it in." A. 5. S. 1. What is the meaning of coil, if my suggestion be not allowed? Let those who dislike this interpretation supply one more appo waies of Truth and prosperous Vertue destin'd to become great and honourable in these latter ages. Methinks I see in my mind a noble and puissant Nation rousing herself like a strong man after sleep, and shaking her invincible locks: Methinks I see her as an Eagle muing her mighty youth, and kindling her undazl'd eyes at the full midday beam; purging and unscaling her long abused site before they dissent from it. None but a perfunctory Reader will subscribe to Warburton's gloss-" turmoil, bustle.” Since writing this the succeeding passage has fallen in my way: "the body of Prince Arthur is said to have been well "coiled and well cered, and conveniently dressed with spices." -See Miscellaneous Pieces at the end of Leland's Collectanea, v. 5. p. 374. 2d edit. as quoted in Archaeologia; III. 401. This is all but decisive that my conjecture is well-grounded. 3 Methinks I see her as an Eagle muing her mighty youth, and kindling her undazl'd eyes, &c.] Warburton did not refuse sometimes to weave into his own pieces a splendid patch, which he had silently taken from the looms of others. A conspicuous instance occurs in his "Inquiry into the "Causes of Prodigies, &c." when passing, in the concluding paragraph of that Tract, an eulogium on the University of Oxford. "Methinks (says he) I see her, like the mighty Eagle, renew ing her immortal youth, and purging her opening sight, at "the unobstructed beams of our benign meridian sun; which "some pretend to say had been dazzled and abused by an in"glorious pestilential meteor; while the ill-affected birds of "night would, with their envious hootings, prognosticate a "length of darkness and decay."-Tracts by Warburton, &c. p. 140. 8vo. 1789. The first glance convinces us that this passage was fashioned upon the text above. In the fierce dispute between Bishop Lowth, and the Authour of the Divine Legation of Moses demonstrated, which, to confess the plain truth, must have been carried on more to the sight at the fountain it self of heav'nly radiance; amusement than to the edification of the by-standers, Lowth fastened on this flourish of his Antagonist's pen, and treats it as nothing short of bombast. He thus roughly addresses him :"You no sooner touched upon the subject, than you took fire "at the bright idea: rapt in the spirit of prophetic enthusiasm, "your Musa pedestris immediately got on horseback, and "mounted on her Pegasus away she went in this high prancing " style: Majorque videri "Nec mortale sonans." Letter to the R. R. Author of the Divine Legation of Lowth then proceeds to cite the quotation I have made from Warburton, and in order to exhibit it with a burlesque air he has disingenuously printed it, so as to give the appearance of his opponent affecting the inflation of blank verse: "Tant de fiel entre-t-il dans l'ame des Devots?" The Bishop of Gloucester might have indulged in one of hi biting sarcasms by informing the Writer of the celebrated Prelections on Hebrew Poesy that the Authour of Paradise Lost was his pattern, who was himself indebted to Pindar for the original of this impressive imagery. Akenside has likewise imitated the self-same passage in his fine Ode on Lyric Poetry. On this trickery in the letter-press, Warburton must have preserved a discreet silence, since he had himself employed the same typographical perversion to excite a smile at the elevated and measured diction in which the Characteristics were composed. See Note on v. 488. B. IV. of the Dunciad. Pope's Editor however could not have laid claim to originality in this detractive device. That merit or demerit belongs to Bishop Berkeley, who had made use of this identical disguise with the same design of depreciating Shaftesbury's high and rhetorical strain of expression: see Alciphron; I. 315. 8vo. 1732. The artifice was unworthy o these eminent men; but alas! how few embroiled in Controversy can preserve temper or fairdealing! |