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Smit with the love of facred fong; but chief
Thee, Sion, and the flowry brooks beneath,
That wash thy hallow'd feet, and warbling flow,
Nightly I vifit: nor fometimes forget
Those other two equal'd with me in fate,

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So

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in IV. 783.thefe other wheel the north: but then it must be acknowledged that too is a forry botch at best. The most probable explanation of this paffage I conceive to be this. Tho' he mentions four, yet there are but two whom he particularly defires to refemble, and those he distinguishes both with the epithet blind to make the likeness the more ftriking.

Blind Thamyris and blind Mæonides.

Maonides is Homer, fo call'd from the name of his father Mæon: and no wonder our poet defires to equal him in renown, whose writings he fo much ftudied, admir'd and imitated. The character of Thamyris is not fo well known and eftablish'd: but Homer mentions him in the Iliad II. 595; and Euftathius ranks him with Orpheus and Mufæus, the most celebrated poets and muficians. That luftful challenge of his to the nine Mufes was probably nothing more than a fable invented to exprefs his violent love and affection for poetry. Plato mentions his hymns with honor in the beginning of his eighth book of Laws, and towards the conclufion of the last book of

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So were I equal'd with them in renown,
Blind Thamyris and blind Mæonides,
And Tirefias and Phineus prophets old :
Then feed on thoughts, that voluntary move
Harmonious numbers; as the wakeful bird
Sings darkling, and in fhadiest covert hid
Tunes her nocturnal note. Thus with the year 40
Seafons return, but not to me returns

his Republic feigns, upon the principles of tranfmigration, that the foul of Thamyris paffed into a nightingale. He was a Thracian by birth, and invented the Doric mood or measure, according to Pliny, L. 7. c. 57. Plutarch in his treatife of Mufic fays that he had the finest voice of any of his time, and wrote a poem of the war of the Titans with the Gods: and from Suidas we learn that he compos'd likewife a poem of the generation of the world, which being fubjects near of kin to Milton's might probably occafion the mention of him in this place. Thamyris then and Homer are thofe other to whom the poet principally defires to refemble: And it feems as if he had intended at first to mention only these two, and then currente calamo had added the two others, Tirefias and Phineus, the one a Theban, the other a king of Arcadia, famous blind prophets and poets of antiquity, for the word prophet fometimes com

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And the verfe appears to be ge-
nuin by Mr. Marvel's alluding to
it in his verses prefix'd to the fe-
cond edition;

Juft Heav'n Thee, like Tirefias,
to requite,
Rewards with prophecy thy lofs
of fight.

37. Then feed on thoughts,] No

Day, or the fweet approach of ev'n or morn,
Or fight of vernal bloom, or fummer's rose,
Or flocks, or herds, or human face divine;
But cloud instead, and ever-during dark
Surrounds me, from the chearful ways of men
Cut off, and for the book of knowledge fair
Presented with a univerfal blank

Of nature's works to me expung'd and ras'd,

thing could better exprefs the mufing thoughtfulnefs of a blind poet. The phrafe was perhaps borrowed from the following line of Spenfer's Tears of the Mufes,

I feed on fweet contentment of my thought. Thyer.

37.-that voluntary move Harmonious numbers; &c.] And the reader will obferve the flowing of the numbers here with all the eafe and harmony of the fineft voluntary. The words feem of themfelves to have fall'n naturally into verfe almost without the poet's thinking of it. And this harmony appears to greater advantage for the roughnels of fome of the preceding verfes, which is an artifice frequently practic'd by Milton, to be careless of his numbers in fome places, the better to fet off the mufical flow of those which immediately follow.

39.- darkling,] It is faid that this word was coin'd by our au

45

And

thor, but I find it used feveral times in Shakespear and the authors of that age. Lear's Fool fays, A&I. So out went the candle, and we were left darkling.

41. Seafons return, but not to me returns] This beautiful turn of the words is copied from the beginning of the third Act of Guarini's Paftor Fido. Mirtillo addreffes the fpring.

Tu torni ben, ma teco
Non tornano &c.

Tu torni ben, tu torni,
Ma teco altro non torna &c.

Thou art return'd; but the fe-
licity

Thou brought'ft me last is not re-
turn'd with thee:
Thou art return'd; but nought
returns with thee
Save my last joys regretful me-

mory. Fanshawe.

49. Of nature's works &c.] Dr. Bentley reads All nature's map &c. becaufe (he fays) a blank of works

?

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powers

And wisdom at one entrance quite shut out.
So much the rather thou, celeftial Light,
Shine inward, and the mind through all her
Irradiate, there plant eyes, all mist from thence
Purge and difperfe, that I may fee and tell
Of things invifible to mortal fight.

is an unphilofophical expreffion. If fo, and if the fentence must terminate at blank, why may we not read?

Prefented with an univerfal blank; All nature's works to me expung'd and ras'd,

ex

that is, all nature's works being, in respect to the universal blank, or abfence of light from me, pung'd to me and ras'd. Pearce. It is to be wifh'd that fome fuch emendation as this was admitted. It clears the fyntax, which at prefent is very much embarass'd. All nature's works being to me expung'd and ras'd, and wisdom at one entrance quite fout out is plain and intelligible; but otherwife it is not eafy to fay what the conjunction And copulates wisdom to; And wifdom at one entrance quite but out.

49 ras'd,] Of the Latin radere; the Romans who writ on waxed tables with iron ftiles, when they ftruck out a word, did tabulam radere rafe it out. Light and the bleflings of it were never drawn in more lively colors and finer ftrokes; nor was the fad lofs of it

.

55 Now

and them ever fo paffionately and fo patiently lamented. They that will read the moft excellent Homer, bemoaning the fame misfortune, will find him far short of this. Herodotus in his life gives us fome verfes, in which he bewailed his blindness. Ните.

52 Shine inward,] He has the fame kind of thought more than once in his profe works. See his Epift. to Emeric Bigot. Orbitatem certe luminis quidni leniter feram, quod non tam amiffum quam revocatum intus atque retractum, ad acuendam potius mentis aciem quam ad hebetandam, fperem? Epift. Fam. 21. See alfo his Defenfio Secunda, p. 325. Edit. 1738. Sim ego debiliffimus, dummodo in mea debilitate immortalis ille et melior vigor eò fe efficacius exerat; dummodo in meis tenebris divini vultûs lumen eò clarius eluceat; tum enim infirmiffimus ero fimul et validiffimus, cæcus eodem tempore et perfpicaciffimus; hac poffim ego infirmitate confummari, hac perfici, poffim in hac obfcuritate fic ego irradiari. Et fane haud ultima Dei cura cæci fumus ;

nec

eye,

Now had th' almighty Father from above,
From the pure empyréan where he fits
High thron'd above all highth, bent down his
His own works and their works at once to view:
About him all the Sanctities of Heaven
Stood thick as stars, and from his fight receiv'd

nec tam oculorum hebetudine, quam celeftium alarum umbrâ has nobis feciffe tenebras videtur, factas illuftrare rurfus interiore ac longè præftabiliore lumine haud raro folet.

56. Now bad th' almighty Father

&c.] The furvey of the whole creation, and of every thing that is tranfacted in it, is a profpect worthy of omnifcience; and as much above that, in which Virgil has drawn his Jupiter, as the Chriftian idea of the fupreme Being is more rational and fublime than that of the Heathens. The particular objects, on which he is described to have caft his eye, are reprefented in the most beautiful and lively manner. Addijon.

This picture of the Almighty's looking down from Heaven is much the fame with that which Taffo gives in the following lines, Cant. I. St. 7.

Quando da l'alto foglio il Padre

eterno,

Ch'è ne la parte più del Ciel fincera ;

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Beatitude

E quanto è da le ftelle al baffo inferno,

Tanto è più in sù de la ftellata fpera:

Gli occhi in giù volse, e in un fol punto, e in una

Vista mirò ciò, che'n fe il mondo aduna.

When God almighty from his lofty throne,

Set in those parts of Heav'n that purest are,

(As far above the clear stars every

one,

As it is hence up to the highest ftar)

Look'd down, and all at once

this world beheld, Each land, each city, country, town, and field. Fairfax. Thyer.

59.and their works] That is the works of his own works, the operations of his own creatures, Angels, Men, Devils.

61.and from his fight receiv'd Beatitude paft utterance ;] Our author here alludes to the beatifie vifion, in which divines fuppofe

the

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