And awful shapes of warriors and of kings Like spectres fwarming to the wifard's hall; 20 There doth my foul in boly vifion fit, In penfive trance, and anguish, and ecftatic fit. The Paffion, St. 6. V. 18. And awful fhapes of warriors and of kings People the bufy mead,] Mr. Headley quotes the following lines from Thomfon's Alfred, Act. ii. Sc. 3. -a long line of kings From thee descending, glorious and renown'd In fhadowy pomp I fee Slow let the visionary forms arise, And folemn pafs before our wondering eyes. And refers to Macbeth, A&t. iv. Sc. 1. where the Kings of Banquo's line pafs in proceffion. We have the fame imagery and the fame expreffions in Ode to a Friend: Who peopled all thy vocal bowers With fhadowy bapes and airy powers. Ver. 49. See alfo Thomson's Winter, ver. 297. Then throng the bufy fhapes into his mind. V. 20. Like fpectres fwarming to the wifard's hall;] From Akenfide's Pleafures of Imagination, as Mr. Headley has remarked: -Anon ten thoufand Shapes, Like Spectres trooping to the wifard's call, Flit fwift before him. B. iii. ver. 385. In the text the fubftitution of "ball" for call is from Comus, ver. 649: Boldly affault the necromancer's ball. On which fee Warton's note. By the way, an expreffion in the above paffage from Akenfide may have been taken from one in Comus, ver. 602. But for that damn'd magician, let him be girt And flowly pace, and point with trembling hand A weeping mourner, fmote with anguish sore, With all the grisly legions that troop Under the footy flag of Acheron. 25 V. 22. The wounds ill-cover'd by the purple pall.] The fame sentiment occurs in Verses on the Marriage of the King, ver. 54. Those wounds that lurk beneath the tiffued veft. Mr. Headley refers to Sir Philip Sidney's Defence of Poely, p. 26. edit. 1724. "The high and excellent Tragedy, that openeth the greatest wounds, and fhoweth forth Ulcers that are covered with tiffue." But "the purple pall" is from Spenfer. F. Q. B. V. c. ix. ft. 50. Mercilla is thus defcribed: But rather let, inftead thereof, to fall Few pearly drops from her faire lampes of light; The which the covering with her purple pall Would have the paffion hid. I may add that Telemachus in a very affecting paffage of the Odyssey makes use of his "purple pall" (xhawar woggen) to conceal his agitation at the mention of his father's merits and fufferings, (A. 113.) as Ulyffes does at the finging of Demodocus. (. 84.) V. 26. His robe, with regal woes embroider'd o'er.] Denoting hereby that royal fufferings, or at least those of distinguished characters, are the proper fubjects for tragedy agreeably to Ariftotle's direâtion, των εν μεγάλη δόξη όντων και ευτυχιᾳ· οίον, Οιδίπους και Θυεσης, και οἱ εκ των τοιύτων γενών επιφανεις ανδρες. (De Poet. p. 42. ed. Tyrwhitt.) Mr. John Warton remarked to me that the image in this line is perhaps taken from Savage's Wanderer, Canto 2: -A robe fhe wore With life's calamities embroider'd o'er. Pale Terror leads the vifionary band, And fternly shakes his fceptre, dropping blood. And again, She muses o'er her woe-embroider'd vest. But it may be added as a curious incident, that Witlaf, a king of the Weft Saxons, grants in his charter, dated 833, among other things to Croyland Abbey, his robe of tiffue, on which was embroidered the deftruction of Troy. See Hift. of Eng. p. i. 128, note; and Obf. on Spenfer, i. 176. See also Geft. Romanorum, p. 28. Hift. of Eng. p. iii. 261. V. 27. Pale Terror leads the vifionary band, And fternly shakes his fceptre, dropping blood.] From Milton, Eleg. i. ver. 37: Sive cruentatum furiofa Tragoedia fceptrum THE PLEASURES OF MELANCHOLY. -Præcipe lugubres Cantus, Melpomene !— (Written in 1745, the Author's 17th year. Published anonymoufly in 1747.) MOTHER of mufings, Contemplation sage, 6 V. 4. in calmeft meditation held,] There is an awkwardnefs in defcribing Contemplation held in meditation. Contemplation is meditation. It is fomewhat like an apparent overfight of Milton, who in his Hymn on the Nativity reprefents Peace ftriking a peace. The expreffion "in meditation beld" is Miltonic. See note on Ode on Summer, ver. 338. Warton has remarked that "the beft poets imperceptibly adopt phrafes and formularies from the writings of their contemporaries and immediate predeceflors." (Note on Lycidas, ver. 1.) And we may add, of those whom they are much in the habit of reading. His own imitations of Milton, more than of any other poet, may be repeatedly traced throughout this, which is the carliest, and the rest of his poetical compositions. 11 Whence gazing ftedfaft on the spangled vault V. 13. -the wild uproar] Par. Loft, ii. 541: V. 16. -converfing with the spheres !] Or, as Milton expreffes it," commercing with the fkies." Il Penf. ver. 39. . Drayton fays in his Elegy on Poets and Poefy, They with the Mufes which converfed. Vol. iv. 1255. V. 19. to twilight cells and bow'rs, Where thoughtful Melancholy loves to mufe,] Comus, ver. 386: -"Tis moft true That mufing Melancholy most affects The penfive fecrefy of defert cell, Far from the cheerful baunt of men and herds. Twilight was first used as an epithet by Milton; and from him borrowed by Pope, as Dr. Warton has observed, Essay on Pope, i. 318, note. Shakspere however had used moonlight in the fame manner: If you will patiently dance in our round, And see our moonlight revels, go with us. The epithet" twilight" is familiar with our poet. |