She was pinch'd, and pull'd she said, And he by friars' lanthorn led to be of "sprites and goblins." A. ii. s. 1. T. Warton. 103. She was pinch'd and pull'd she said, &c.] He and she are persons of the company assembled to spend the evening, after a country wake, at a rural junket. All this is a part of the pastoral imagery which now prevailed in our poetry. Compare Drayton's Nymphidia, vol. ii. p. 453. These make our girles their sluttery rue, By pinching them both black and blue, &c. Traynes forth midwives in their slumbers, And then leades them from their burrowes, Home through ponds and water-fur rowes. As Milton here copied Jonson, so Jonson copied Shakespeare, Mids. N. Dr. a. ii. s. i. Are you not he That frights the maidens of the villagery, &c. It is remarkable, that the Demon who was said to haunt women in child-bed, and steal their infants, is mentioned so And Shakespeare, Com. Err. a. ii. early as by Michael Psellus, a s. ii. Of the fairies. They'll suck our breath, and pinch us black and blue. And the Merry Wives, where Falstaffe is pinched by fairies. A. v. s. 5. And Browne, Brit. Past. b. i. s. ii. p. 31. And Heywood's Hierarchie of Angels, b. ix. p. 574. edit. 1635. fol. Who also, among the domestic demons, gives what he calls "a strange story of the Spirit of the But68 tery." Ibid. p. 577. But almost all that Milton here mentions of these house-fairies appears to be taken from Jonson's Entertaynment at Altrope, 1603. Works, fol. p. 872. edit. 1616. When about the cream-bowles sweete, Byzantine philosopher of the eleventh century, on the Operations of Demons. Edit. Gaulmin. Paris. 1615. 12mo. p. 78. T. Warton. 104. And he by friars' lantern led, &c.] Thus the edition of 1645. But in the edition 1673, the context stands thus, She was pinch'd and pull'd, she said, I know not if under the poet's immediate direction. And in Tonson's, 1705. This reading at least removes a slight confusion arising from his, v. 106. Nor is the general sense much altered. Friars' lantern, is the Jack and lantern, which led people in the night into marshes and waters. Milton gives the philosophy of this superstition, Parad. Lost, ix. 634. -A wandering fire Compact of unctuous vapour, which the night, &c. Which oft, they say, some evil spirit attends, &c. Tells how the drudging goblin sweat, To earn his cream-bowl duly set, In the midst of a solemn and learned enarration, his strong imagination could not resist a romantic tradition, consecrated by popular credulity. Shakespeare has finely transferred the general idea of this superstition to his Ghost in Hamlet, a. i. s. 3. Hor. What if it empt you to the flood, my Lord? But then, from the ground-work of a vulgar belief, so beautifully accommodated and improved, how does he rise in the progression of his imagination to the supposition of a more alarming and horrible danger! Or to the dreadful summit of the cliff T. Warton. 106. To earn his cream-bowl duly set, &c.] Reginald Scot gives a brief account of this imaginary spirit much in the same manner with this of our author. "Your grand-dames, maids, were "wont to set a bowl of milk for "him, for his pains in grinding "of malt or mustard, and sweep"ing the house at midnight "his white bread and milk was his standing fee." Discovery of Witchcraft, Lond. [1588 and] 1651. 4to. p. 66. Peck. See note on v. 103. And the commentators on Shakespeare's Mids. N. Dream, vol. iii. p. 27. edit. 1778. Robin Goodfellow, who is here made a gigantic spirit, fond of lying before the fire, 105 and called the lubber-fiend, seems to be confounded with the sleepy giant mentioned in Beaumont and Fletcher's Knight of the Burning Pestle, act iii. s. 1. vol. vi. p. 411. edit. 1751. "There " is a pretty tale of a witch that "had the devil's mark about her, "God bless us, that had a gy"aunt to her son that was called Lob-lye-by-the-fire." Jonson introduces Robin Goodfellow as a person of the drama, in Love Restored, a masque at Court, where more of his services, and a great variety of his gambols, are recited. Works, edit. 1616. P. 990. Burton, speaking of these fairies, says, that "a bigger "kind there is of them, called "with us Hob-goblins and Robin "Goodfellowes, that would in "those superstitious times grinde corne for a messe of milke, cut "wood, or do any manner of "drudgery worke." Melanch. p. i. s. 2. p. 42. edit. 1632. Afterwards, of the demons that mislead men in the night, he says, Ibid. p. 43. "we commonly call them pucks." In Grim the Collier of Croydon, perhaps printed before 1600, Robin Goodfellow says, I love a messe of cream as well as they, Ho, ho, my masters, no good fellowship? Is Robin Goodfellow a bugbear grown? Act v. s. 1. See Reed's Old Pl. xi. 254. Again, ibid. p. 238. For I shall fleet their cream-bowls night by night. When in one night, ere glimpse of morn, His shadowy flail hath thresh'd the corn, In the old Moralities, it was cus- 108. His shadowy flail, &c.] We have the flail, an implement here given to Robin Goodfellow, in the exhibition of that favourite character in Grim the Collier of Croydon, see act iv. s. 1. Reed's Old Pl. xi. 238. "Enter Robin "Goodfellow in a suit of leather "close to his body, his face and "hands coloured russet colour, "with a flail." In which scene he says, p. 241. What, miller, are you up agin? Nay, then my flail shall never lin. Robin Goodfellow, clothed in green, was a common figure in the old city pageants. See Mayne's City Match, act ii. s. 6. edit. 1639. T. Warton. 113. And crop-full out of doors he flings, Ere the first cock his matin When larks gin sing 110 115 Mr. Bowle suggests an illustra- Hoho, hoho, needs must I laugh, How clatter'd I amongst their pots and pans, &c. Much the same is said in Scot's Discoverie of Witchcraft, Lond. 1588. 4to. p. 66. See also, To the readers. T. Warton. 114. Ere the first cock his matin rings.] Mr. Bowle supposes that the poet here thought of a passage in the Faerie Queene, v. vi. 27. The native bellman of the night, The bird that warned Peter of his fall, First rings his silver bell t' each sleepy wight. It is certainly the same allusion -The shrill matin-song T. Warton. Tow'red cities please us then, And the busy hum of men, Where throngs of knights and barons bold 119 Where throngs of knights and barons bold &c.] It may perhaps be objected that this is a little unnatural, since tilts and tourneaments were disused when Milton wrote this poem: but when one considers how short a time they had been laid aside, and what a considerable figure these make in Milton's favourite authors, his introducing them here is easily accounted for, and I think as easily to be excused. Thyer. 120. triumphs] Triumphs are shews, such as masks, revels, &c. See note on Sams. Agon. 1312. Pomp also had a technical sense in masques, train, retinue, procession. See notes on P. L. viii. 60. and Sams. Agon. 449 and 1312. T. Warton. 121. With store of ladies,] An expression probably taken from Sydney's Astrophel and Stella, st. 106. 120 125 "Pris ne doit ne peult estre "donne, sans les dames: car pour elles sont toutes les pro r nesses faietes, et par elles en "doit estre le pris donne." See also c. cxxvii. and the articles of the Justes at Westminster, 1509. Hardyng's Chron. c. xlv. Robert of Gloucester, vol. i. 190. and Geoff. Monm. b. ix. c. xiv. T. Warton. 125. There let Hymen oft appear In saffron robe, with taper For, according to Shakespeare, For revels, dances, masks, and merry Fore-run fair love, strewing her way with flowers. In these pageantries, exhibited with great splendour, and a waste of allegoric invention, at the nuptials of noble personages, the classical Hymen was of course introduced as an actor, with his proper habit and symbols. Thus in Jonson's " Hymenai, or the "solemnities of Masque and Bar"riers at a Marriage," is this stage-direction: "On the other And On summer eves by haunted stream. "hand entered Hymen, in a saf- 132. If Jonson's &c.] We see by this, that Milton's favourite dramatic entertainments were Jonson's Comedies, and Shakespeare's Plays: and in a few words he touches the distinguishing characteristics of these two famous poets, the art of Jonson and nature of Shakespeare, the learning of the one and the genius of the other: and there is this farther propriety in his praising of Shakespeare, that while he commends, he imitates him. Love's Labour's Lost, act i. sc. 1. This child of fancy, that Armado hight. 134. Warble his native woodnotes wild.] Milton shews his judgment here, in celebrating 130 135 Shakespeare's Comedies, rather than his Tragedies. For models of the latter, he refers us rightly, in his Penseroso, to the Grecian scene, v. 97. Hurd. There is good reason to suppose that Milton threw many additions and corrections into the Theatrum Poetarum, a book published by his nephew, Edward Philips, in 1675. It contains criticisms far above the taste of that period: among these is the following judgment on Shakespeare, which was not then, I believe, the general opinion, and which perfectly coincides both with the sentiment and words of the text. "In tragedy, never any expressed a more lofty and tragic height, never any represented nature more purely to the life and "where the polishments of art "are most wanting, as probably "his learning was not extraor dinary, he pleases with a cer"tain wild and native elegance, "&c." Mod. Poets, p. 194. T. Warton. 135. And ever against eating cares, Lap me in soft Lydian airs, &c.] |