Straight mine eye hath caught new pleasures, Whilst the landskip round it measures ; Russet lawns, and fallows gray, Where the nibbling flocks do stray; Mountains, on whose barren breast The labouring clouds do often rest; Meadows trim with daisies pide, Shallow brooks, and rivers wide: Towers and battlements it sees Bosom'd high in tufted trees, Where perhaps some beauty lies, The Cynosure of neighbouring eyes. Hard by, a cottage chimney smoaks From betwixt two aged oaks, Where Corydon and Thyrsis, met, Are at their savoury dinner set Of herbs, and other country messes, Which the neat-handed Phillis dresses ; And then in haste her bower she leaves, With Thestylis to bind the sheaves; Or, if the earlier season lead, To the tann'd haycock in the mead: Sometimes with secure delight The upland hamlets will invite, When the merry bells ring round, And the jocund rebecks sound To many a youth, and many a maid, Dancing in the chequer'd shade; And young and old come forth to play On a sunshine holyday, Till the livelong daylight fail : Then to the spicy nut-brown ale, and horns; the mower is whetting his VIII., and of some rather more anient Slythe to begin his work; the milk.maid, many of which yet remained in their whose business is of course at day break, original state, unchanged and undernyel. comes abroad singing; the shepherd Where only a little is seen, more is left opens his fold, and takes the tale of his to the imagination. These sympteins of sheep, to see if any were lost in the an old palace, especially when this dis night. Now for shepherds to tell tales, po ed, have a greater effect than a disor to sing, is a circumstance trite, com- covery of larger parts, and even a full mon, and general, and belonging only to display of the whole elfie. The emilealhepherds; nor do I know that such bosomed battlements, and the sprading sheplierds tell tales or sing more in the top of the tall grove, on which they remorning than at any other part of the flect a reciprocal charm, still further day. A hepherd taking the tale of his interest the funcy, from the novelty of heep which are just unfolded, is a new combination; while just enoush of the image, correspondent and appropriate, towering structure i shown to make an bautifully descriptive of a period of time, accompaniment to the tuf cd expanse is founderi in fact, and is more pleasing of venerable verdure, and to compose a as more natural.--WARTOx, pide for pied picturesque association. With respect to 77. Towers and battlements. This was their rural residence, there wils a corres the great mansion-house in Milton's early in our Gothic ancestors: m on scati days. tefore the old fashioned architee are seldom so deeply ambushed-they ture had given way to modern arts and disclose all their vories at once, and improvements. Turrets and battlements nerer excite expectation by ci cealment. were conspicuous marks of the numerous by gradual approaches, and by inter New buildings of the reign of King lleny rupted appearances.-T. WARTOX. With stories told of many a feat, 102. Firry Mb. See Shakspeare, Rom, of corn in the barn, which could not and Juliet, Act I.. sc. iv. This bewitch have been threshodi in so short a time by ing fancy sket h of Queen Mah is quoted ten labourers. lle then returns into the in "Compendium of English Literature," house, fatigued with his task; and, overp. 139. charred with his reward of the cream103. Ile was pinch'd. IIe and she are bowl, throws himself before the fire, and, persons of the company assembled to stretched along the whole brenulth of the spnd the evening after a country wake fireplace, basks till the morning.-T. at a rural junhet.-T. WARTON. WARTUN. 104. Fur's lantern is the Jack-o'-lan-' 117. Twer'd cities, &c. Then, that is, torn, which led people in the night into at night. The poet returns from his di marshes and waters. Milton gives the ression, perhaps disproportionately prophilosophy of this superstition, Para lix, concerning the feals of fairies and tise Lost." (ix. 031-612.) In the midst goblins, which protract the conversation ot a solemn and learned enarration, his over the spicy bowl of a village-super, strong imagination could not resist a roto enumerate other pleasures or amuse mantic tradition consecrated by popular ments of the night or evening. Then is, credulity.-T. WARTON, in this line, a repetition of the first 105. Drwiging goblin. This goblin is “Then,” line 100. Afterwards, we have Robin Goodfellow. His cream-bowl was another - Then," with the same sense earned, and he paid the punctuality of and reference, line 131. Here, too, is a those by whom it was duly place for his transition from mirth in the country to refection, by the service of threshing | mirth in the city.-T. WARTOX. with his invisible fairy fail, in one night, 120. Triumphs: Shows, masks, revels. and before the dawn of day, a quantity Or sweetest Shakspeare, Fancy's child, And ever, against eating cares, These delights, if thou canst give, Mirth, with thee I mean to live. 142. The melting roice, &c. Milton's which imprison and entangle the hidden meaning is not, that the senses are en- | soul, the essence or perfection of har chained or amazed by music, but that, mony. In common sense, let music be as the voice of the singer runs through made to show all, even her most hidden 'he manifold mazes or intricacies of powers.-T. WARTON. Bound, all the chains are untwisted IL PENSEROSO. (THE THOUGHTFUL, OR PENSIVE MAN.) Ilence, vain deluding Joys, The brood of Folly without father bred ! How little you bested, And fancies fond with gaudy shapes possess, Or likest hovering dreams, 10. Fickle: Transitory, perpetually | Andromeda, of whom he was enamoured, shifting. Pensiomers: train, attendauts, and transported Cassiope into heaven, 18. Memnon's sister: that is, an Ethis where she became a constellation. Hence opian princess, or sable beauty. Mem. she is called that starr d Ethiop queen." non, King of Ethiopia, and an auxiliary --T. WARTON, of the Troians, was sisin by Achilles. 1 25. His daughter she. The meaning of 19. That starr'd Ethiop queen. Cas. Milton's allegory is, that Melancholy is siope, as we learn from Apollo lorus, was the daughter of Genius, which is typified the wife of Cepheus, King of Ethiopia. by the bright-hair'" goldess or the She bosted herself to be more beautiful eternal fire. Saturn, the father, is the than the Nereids, and challenged them god of saturnine dispositions, of pensive 'o a trial, who, in revenre, persuaded aud gloomy minds.--T, WARTOX. eptune to send a prodigious whale into 30. Before Saturn was driven from his Ethiopia. To appease them, she was di. ancient kingdom by his son Jupiter, rected t expose her daughter An fromeda nursed on mount Ida. to the monster; but Perseus delivered Come, pensive Nun, devout and pure, 35. Cyprus laron, a veil of a thin, trans that conveyed the fiery-wheeled car in parent texture. Ezekiel, x. 2. See also Milton himself, 36. Decent : Not exposed, covered. * Paradise Lost," (vi. 750 :) so that no54. Cherub Contemplation. By contem- . thing can be greater or juster than this plation, is here meant that stretch of idea of “divine Contemplation."-ICED. thought, by which the mind ascends to 55. Mute Silince. I always fulmired the first tool. first perfect, and first fair; this and the seventeen following lines and is therefore very properly said to with excessive delight. There is a pell "oar on go den wing, gujuing the fiery. in it, which yoes far beyond mere descripwheeled throne;" that is, to take a high tion: it is the very perfection of ideal and and glorious flight, carrying bright ideas picturesque and contemplative poetryof Deity along with it. But the whole BRYDES. imagery alludes to the cherubic forms |