Unmindful of the crown that virtue gives, To fuch my errand is; and but for such, I would not foil thefe pure ambrofial weeds Shakespeare has "LIPSBURY PIN FOLD," where, as Mr. Steevens obferves, fomething like the cant-phrafe Lobs pound is perhaps intended. K. LEAR, A. ii. S. . Some miferable puns are constructed on this word, in the Two GENTLEMEN OF VERONA. "Pro. You mistake, I mean the Pound, a pin-fold, &c." A. i. S. i. It is a Pound in HUDIBRAS. A Pinner is a fhepherd in fome parts of England, one who pins the fold. Compare Reed's OLD PLAYS, vol. iii. p. 7. In old deeds, among manerial rights, the privilege of a Pinfold for Pound, is claimed. 11. Among ft the enthron'd gods on fainted feats.] We may read, with Fenton, "th' enthroned." Or rather, Amongst the gods enthron'd on fainted feats. But Shakespeare seems to ascertain the old collocation, ANTON. CLEOPATR. A. i. S. iii. Though you in fwearing shake the THRONED GODS. Milton, however, when speaking of the inhabitants of heaven, exclufively of any allufion to the clafs of angels ftyled throni, seems to have annexed an idea of a dignity peculiar, and his own, to the word ENTHRON'D. See PARAD. L. B. v. 536. Myfelf, and all th' angelic hoft, that ftand In fight of God, ENTHRON'D. .. For fo I point the paffage. Compare B. i. 128. "O chief of many "THRONED Powers." "That poem affords many other proofs. 15. -Errand.-] See Note on SAMS. AGON. V. 1284. 16. I would not foil thefe pure ambrofial weeds With the rank vapours of this fin-worn mold.] But in the PARADISE LOST, an Angel eats with Adam, B. v. 433. This, however, was before the fall of our firft parent: and it is not quite yet decided by Thomas Aquinas, whether or no Angels may not eat, when affuming a human form. He has a question, "An Angeli poffint COMEDERE in corporibus affumptis ?" Tom. vi. p. 27. In Lib. Sec. Petri Lomb. Quæft. i. Diftinet. viii. Artic. iv. edit, " With the rank vapours of this fin-worn mold. But to my task. Neptune, befides the fway And gives them leave to wear their faphir crowns, And wield their little tridents: but this Ifle, 20 25 Antv. 1612. fol. As the angel Gabriel condefcends to feast with Adam, while yet unpolluted, and in his primeval ftate of innocence, fo our guardian Spirit would not have foiled the purity of his ambrofial robes with the noifom exhalations of this fin-corrupted earth, but to affift thofe diftinguished mortals, who by a due progrefs in virtue, afpire to reach the golden key which opens the palace of eternity. 22. -Sea-girt ifles, That like to rich and various gems inlay The unadorned bofom of the deep.] The thought, as has been obferved, is first in Shakespeare, of England. K. RICHARD . A. ii. S. i. This precious ftone fet in the filver fea. But Milton has heightened the comparifon, omitting Skakespeare's petty conceit of the filver fea, the conception of a jeweller, and fubftituting another and a more ftriking piece of imagery. This RICH INLAY, to use an expreffion in the PARADISE LOST, gives beauty to the bofom of the deep, else UNADORNED. It has its effect on a fimple ground. Thus the bare earth, before the creation, was "defert and bare, unfightly, UNADOR N'D." PARADISE L. vii. 314. B. Eve's treffes are unadorned, Ibid. B. iv. 305. 24. Tributary Gods.] Hence perhaps Pope, in a fimilar vein of allegory, took his " TRIBUTARY urns." WINDS. FOR. v. 33. 29. He quarters.-] That is Neptune : with which name he ho. nours 30 35 And all this tract that fronts the falling fun 40 nours the King, as Sovereign of the four feas; for from the British Neptune only, this Noble Peer derives his authority. W. 32. -With temper'd awe to guide An old and hanghty nation, proud in arms.] That is the Cambro-Britons, who were to be governed by respect mixed with awe. The earl of Bridgewater, "A noble peer of mickle truft and power," was now governour of the Welch as lord-prefident of the principality." Proud in arms," is Virgil's "belloque superbi.” EN. i. 21. 34. Where his fair offspring, nurs'd in princely lore, &c..] I have been informed from a manufcript of Oldys, that Lord Bridgewater, being appointed lord prefident of Wales, entered upon his official refidence at Ludlowe caftle with great folemnity. On this occafion he was attended by a large concourfe of the neighbouring nobility and gentry. Among the reft came his children; in particular, Lord Brackley, Mr. Thomas Egerton, and Lady Alice, To attend their father's ftate, And new-intrufted fcepter. They had been on a vifit at a house of their relations the Egerton family in Herefordshire; and in paffing through Haywood forest were benighted, and the Lady Alice was even loft for a fhort time. This accident, which in the end was attended with no bad confaquences, furnished the fubject of a MASK for a Michaelmas feftivity, and produced Coмus. Lord Bridgewater was appointed Lord Prefident, May 12, 1633. When the perilous adventure in Haywood foreft happened, if true, cannot now be told. It must have been foon after. The Mask was acted at Michaelmas, 1634. I was dispatch'd for their defense and guard; 45 44. The poet infinuates, that the story or fable of his Mask, was new and unborrowed: although diftantly founded on antient poetical hiftory. The allufion is, to the antient mode of entertaining a Aplendid affembly, by finging or reciting tales. 45. From old or modern bard, in ball or bower.] That is literally, in Hall or CHAMBER. The two words are often thus joined in the old metrical romances. And thus in Spenfer's ASTROPHEL, Merrily mafking both in Bowre and Hall. So Chaucer, MILL. T. 259. Heare thou not Absolon, That chauntith thus under our BOURIS-wall? Under our chamber-window." And Spenfer as literally, Paor THALAM. ft. viii. Of the Temple, Where now the studious lawyers have their BOWERS. And in his COLIN CLOUTS COME HOME AGAIN. And purchase highest roome in Bowre or Hall. "Where, roome is place. "Take the lowest room," S. Luke, xiv. 8. 9. 10. That is, the lowest place at the table. A paffage, I believe, not always properly understood. Shakespeare has literally BowER for Chamber. CORIOLAN. A. iii. S. ii. I know, thou hadst rather, Follow thine enemy in a fiery gulf, I could add a variety of proofs. 48. After the Tuscan mariners transform'd.] This ftory is alluded to in Homer's fine Hymn to Bacchus; the punishments he inflicted on the Tyrrhene pirates, by transforming them into various animals, are the subjects of that beautiful Frieze on the LANTERN of Demofthenes, fo accurately and elegantly defcribed by Mr. Stuart in his ANTIQUITIES OF ATHENS, p. 33. Dr. J. WARTON. See the fable in Ovid. METAM. iii. 660. feq. Lilius Gyraldus relates, that this hiftory was most beautifully reprefented in Mofaic work, in the Church of S. Agna at Rome, originally a temple of Bacchus. 50 Coasting the Tyrrhene fhore, as the winds lifted, Bacchus. HIST. DEOR. S. viii. OPP. vol. i. p. 271. col. i. edit. 1697. fol. And it is one of the Pictures in Philoftratus. 49.-Winds lifted.] So in S. JOHN, iii. 8. "The wind bloweth " where it LISTETH.' 50. -Who knows not Circe, The daughter of the fun, &c.] Mr. Bowle obferves, that Milton here undoubtedly alluded to the following lines in Boethius, L. iv. M. iii. SOLIS edita SEMINE; Vertit herbipotens manus, Hunc APRI facies tegit, &c. But fee Virgil, ÆN. vii. 11. 17. Alcina has an enchanted cup in Ariofto, C. x. 45• 54. This Nymph that gax'd upon his cluftring locks.] See Note on SAMS. AGON. v. 568. Doctor Newton is of opinion, that Milton by his use of the word GAZED in this place, favours the notion of those etymologifts who derive to GAZE from the Greek ATAZOMAI. Mr. Upton might have quoted Shakespeare on this occafion, to prove his knowledge of Greek. FIRST P. K. HENRY vi. A. i. S. i. All the whole army stood AGAZ'D on him. But this is nothing more than at gaze. In PARADISE LOST, our author has a fingular ufe of GAZE, applied to the fun. B. xi. 845. And the clear fun on his wide watry glass GAZ'D hot, and of the fresh wave largely drew. Perhaps from Shakespeare, where it also expreffes almost the fame thought. COMED. OF ERR. A. i. S. i. At length the fun, GAZING upon the earth, VOL. I. T With |