4. Reckon'd I am with them that pass Down to the dismal pit; I am a man, but weak alas! And for that name unfit. 5. From life discharg'd and parted quite Among the dead to sleep; In horrid deeps to mourn. 7. Thy wrath, from which no shelter saves, Full sore doth press on me; Thou break'st upon me all thy waves, And all thy waves break me. 8. Thou dost my friends from me estrange, And mak'st me odious, Me to them odious, for they change, And I here pent up thus. 9. Through sorrow, and affliction great, Lord, all the day I thee entreat, 10. Wilt thou do wonders on the dead? And praise thee from their loathsome bed 11. Shall they thy loving kindness tell. On whom the grave hath hold? Or they, who in perdition dwell, Thy faithfulness unfold? 12. In darkness can thy mighty hand Or wonderous acts be known? Thy justice in the gloomy land Of dark oblivion? 13. But I to thee, O Lord, do cry, Ere yet my life be spent; And up to thee my prayer doth hie, Each morn, and thee prevent. 14. Why wilt thou, Lord, my soul forsake, And hide thy face from me, 15. That am already bruis'd, and shake With terrour sent from thee? Bruis'd and afflicted, and so low As ready to expire; While I thy terrours undergo, 16. Thy fierce wrath over me doth flow; Thy threatenings cut me through : 17. All day they round about me go, Like waves they me pursue. 18. Lover and friend thou hast remov'd, And sever'd from me far : hey fly me now whom I have lov'd, T And as indarkness are. A PARAPHRASE ON PSALM CXIV. This and the following Psalm were done by the WHEN the blest seed of Terah's faithful son, O, let us his praises tell, Who, with his miracles, doth make, Who, by his wisdom, did create Who did the solid earth ordain To rise above the watery plain. Who, by his all-commanding might, And caus'd the gold entressed Sun All the day long his course to run. The horned Moon to shine by night, He, with his thunder-clasping hand, Smote the first-born of Egypt land. For his, &c. And, in despite of Pharaoh fell, He brought from thence his Israël. JOANNIS MILTONI LONDINENSIS POEMATA. QUORUM PLERAQUE INTRA ANNUM ÆTATIS Hæc quæ sequuntur de authore testimonia, tametsi ipse intelligebat non tam de se quàm supra se esse dicta, eò quòd præclaro ingenio viri, nec non amici, ita ferè solent laudare, ut omnia suis potiùs virtutibus, quàm veritati congruentia, nimis cupidè affingant, noluit tamen horum egregiam in se voluntatem non esse notam; cùm alii præsertim ut id faceret magnoperè suaderent. Dum enim nimiæ laudis invidiam totis ab se viribis amolitur, sibique quod plus æquo est non attributum esse mavult, judicium interim hominum cordatorum atune illustrium quin summo sibi honori ducat, negare non potest. Joannes Baptista Mansus, Marchio Villensis, Neapolitanus, ad JOANNEM MILTONIUM Anglum. Ur mens, forma, decor, facies mos, si pietas sic, Non Anglus, verùm herclè Angelus, ipse fores. Ad JOANNEM MILTONEM Anglum triplici poescos laurea coronandum, Græca nimirum, Latin, atque Hetrusca, Epigramma Joannis Salsilli Romani. CADE, Meles; cedat depressâ Mincius urnâ ; Questa feconda sà produrre Eroi, Ch' hanno a region del sovruman tra noi. Alla virtù sbandita Danno ne i petti lor fido ricetto, Perche in lei san trovar gioia, e diletto; Lungi dal Patrio lido Con aurea tromba rimbombar la fama, Dalle più belle Idee trasse il più raro. Cosil Ape Ingegnosa Di bella gloria amante Milton dal Ciel natio per varie parti Ch' à Ingegni sovrumani Non batta il Tempo l' ale, Fermisi immoto, e in un fermiu si gl' anni, Scorron di troppo ingiuriosi a i danni; Dammi tua dolce Cetra Se vuoi ch' io dica del tuo dolce canto, Di farti huomo celeste ottiene il vanto, Tento spiegar tuo merto alto, e preclaro E ad ammirar, non a lodarlo imparo; Del sig. ANTONIO FRANCINI, gentilhuomo JOANNI MILTONI. LONDINENSI: Florentino. Juveni patriâ, virtutibus, eximio; VIRO, qui multae peregrinatione, studio cuncta orbis terrarum loca, perspexit; ut novus Ulysses omnia ubique ab omnibus apprehenderet: Polyglotto, in cujus ore linguæ jam deperditæ sic reviviscunt, ut idiomata omnia sint in ejus laudibus infacunda; et jure ea percallet, ut admirationes et plausus populorum ab propriâ sapientiâ excitatos intelligat : Illi, cujus animi dotes corporisque sensus ad admirationem commovent, et per ipsam motum euique auferent; cujus opera ad plausus hortan. tur, sed venustate vocem laudatoribus adimunt, Cui in memoriâ totus orbis; in intellectu sapientia; in voluntate ardor gloriæ; in ore eloquentia; harmonicos cœlestium sphærarum sonitus, astronomiâ duce, audienti; characteres mirabilium naturæ per quos Dei magnitudo de scribitur, magistrâ philosophiâ, legenti; antiquitatum latebras vetustatis excidia, eruditionis ambages, comite assiduâ autorum lectione, Exquirenti, restauranti, percurrenti, PRELIMINARY OBSERVATIONS ON THE LATIN VERSES. Milton is said to be the first Englishman, who after the restoration of letters wrote Latin verses with classic elegance. But we must at least ex▾ cept some of the hendecasyllables and epigrams of Leland, one of our first literary reformers, from this hasty determination. In the elegies, Ovid was professedly Milton's model for language and versification. They are not, however, a perpetual and uniform tissue of Ovidian phraseology. With Ovid in view, he has an original manner and character of his own, which exhibit a remarkable perspicuity, a native. facility and fluency. Nor does his observation of Roman models oppress or destroy our great poet's inherent powers of invention and sentiment. I value these pieces as much for their fancy and genius, as for their style and expression. That Ovid among the Latin poets was Milton's favourite, appears not only from his elegiac buts his hexametric poetry. The versification of our author's hexameters has yet a different structure from that of the Metamorphoses: Milton's is more clear, intelligible, and flowing; less desultory, less familiar, and less einbarrassed with a frequent recurrence of periods. Ovid is at once rapid and abrupt. He wants dignity: he has too much conversation in his manner of telling a story. Prolixity of paragraph, and length of sentence, are peculiar to Milton. This is seen, not, only in some of his exordial invocations in the Paradise Lost, and in many of the religious addresses of a like cast in the prose-works, but in his long verse. It is to be wished that, in his Latin compositions of all sorts, he had been more attentive to the simplicity of Lucretius, Virgil, and Tibullus. Dr. Johnson, unjustly I think, prefers the Latin poetry of May and Cowley to that of Milton, and thinks May to be the first of the three. May is certainly a sonorous versifier, and was sufficiently accomplished in poetical declamation for the continuation of Lucan's Pharsalia. But May is scarcely an author in point. His skill is in parody; and he was confined to the peculiarities of an archetype, which, it may be presumed, he thought excellent. As to Cowley when compared with Milton, the same critic observes, Milton is generally content to express the thoughts of the ancients in their language: Cowley, without much loss of purity or elegance, accommodates the diction of Rome to his own conceptions. The advantage seems to lie on the At mare immensum oceanusque Lucis It Milton's Latin poems may be justly considered as legitimate classical compositions, and are never disgraced with such language and such imagery. Cowley's Latinity, dictated by an irregular and unrestrained imagination, presents a mode of diction half Latin and half English. is not so much that Cowley wanted a knowledge of the Latin style, but that he suffered that knowledge to be perverted and corrupted by false and extravagant thoughts. Milton was a more perfect scholar than Cowley, and his mind was more deeply tinctured with the excellencies of ancient literature. He was a more just thinker, and therefore a more just writer. In a word, he had more taste, and more poetry, and consequently more propriety. If a fondness for the Italian writers has sometimes infected his English poetry with false ornaments, his Latin verses, both in diction and sentiment, are at least free from those depravations. Some of Milton's Latin poems were written in his first year at Cambridge, when he was only seventeen: they must be allowed to be very correct and manly performances for a youth of that age. And considered in that view, they discover an extraordinary copiousness and command of ancient fable and history. I cannot but add, that Gray resembles Milton in many instances. And in the same poem in a party worthy of the Among others, in their youth they were both pastoral pencil of Watteau. Hauserunt avide Chocolatam Flora venusque. Of the Fraxinella, Tu tres metropoles humani corporis armis Propugnas, uterum, cor, cerebrumque, tuis. He calls the Lychnis, Candelabrum ingens. Cupid is Arbiter formæ criticus. Ovid is Antiquarius ingens. An ill smell is shunned Olfactus tetricitate sui. And in the same page, is nugatoria pestis. But all his faults are conspicuously and collectively exemplified in these stanzas, among others, of his Hymn on Light. Pulchra de nigro soboles parente, Te bibens arcus Jovis ebriosus strongly attached to the cultivation of Latin pоеtry. WARTON. ELEGIARUM LIBER. ELEC. I. AD CAROLUM DEODATUM. TANDEM, chare, tuæ mihi pervenere tabellæ, Vergivium prono quà petit amne salum. Charles Deodate was one of Milton's most intimate friends. He was an excellent scholar, and practised physic in Cheshire. He was educated with our author at St. Paul's school in London; and from thence was sent to Trinity college Oxford, where he was entered Feb. 7, in the year 1621, at thirteen years of age. Lib. Matric. Univ. Oxon. sub ann. He was born in London and the name of his father, in Medicina Doetoris, was Theodore. Ibid. Nuda nec arva placent, umbrasque negantia Quot tibi, conspicuæ formáque auroque, puellæ molles: Quàm malè Phœbicolis convenit ille locus! O, utinam vates nunquam graviora tulisset Non tunc Ionio quicquam cessisset Homero, Et totum rapiunt me, mea vita, libri. Et vocat ad plausus garrula scena suos. Quid sit amor nescit, dum quoque nescit, amat. Sive cruentatum furiosa Tragœdia sceptrum Gaudia, et abrupto flendus amore cadit ; Sed neque sub tecto semper, nec in urbe, late mus; Irrita nec nobis tempora veris eunt. Nos quoque lucus habet vicinâ consitus ulmo, Atque suburbani nobilis umbra loci. Sæpius hic, blandas spirantia sidera flammas, Virgineos videas præteriisse choros. Ab quoties dignæ stupui miracula formæ, Quæ possit senium vel reparare Jovis ! Ah quoties vidi superantia lumina gemmas, Atque faces, quotquot volvit uterque polus! Colláque bis vivi Pelopis quæ brachia vincant, Quæque fluit puro nectare tincta via! Et decus eximium frontis, tremulósque capillos, Aurea quæ fallax retia tendit Amor! Pellacésque genas, ad quas hyacinthina sordet Purpura, et ipse tui floris, Adoni, rubor! Cedite, laudatæ toties Heroides olim, Et quæcunque vagum cepit amica Jovem. Cedite, Achæmeniæ turritâ fronte puellæ, Et quot Susa colunt, Memnoniamque Ninon; Vos etiam Danaæ fasces submittite Nymphæ, Et vos Iliacæ, Romuleæque nurus : Nec Pompeianas Tarpeia Musa columnas Jactet, et Ausoniis plena theatra stolis. Gloria virginibus debetur prima Britannis; Extera, sat tibi sit, fœmina, posse sequi. Túque urbs Daraaniis, Londinum, structa co Jonis, Turrigerum latè conspicienda caput, Tu nimium felix intra tua mœnia claudis Quicquid formosi pendulus orbis habet on tibi tot cœlo scintillant astra sereno, Endymioneæ turba ministra deæ, Per medias radiant turba videnda vias. Creditur huc geminis venisse invecta columbis Alma pharetrigero milite cincta Venus; Huic Cnidon, et riguas Simoentis flumine valles, Huic Paphon, et roseam post habitura Cyproa Ast ego, dum pueri sinit indulgentia cæci, Mœnia quàm subitò linquere fausta paro; Et vitare procul malefidæ infamia Circes Atria, divini Molyos usus ope. Stat quoque juncosas Cami remeare paludes, Atque iterum raucæ murmur adire Scholæ. Interea fidi parvum cape munus amici, Paucáque in alternos verba coacta modos. ELEG. II. Anno Ætatis 17. In obitum Præconis Academici Cantabrigiensis1. TE, qui, conspicuus baculo fulgente, solebas Arte Coronides, sæpe rogante deâ. ELEG. III. Anno Ætatis 17. In obitum Prasulis Wintoniensis. MOESTUS eram, et tacitus, nullo comitante, sede- Dira sepulchrali Mors metuenda face; The person here commemorated, is Richard Ridding, one of the university-beadles, and a master of arts of Saint John's College, Cambridge. He signed a testamentary codicil, Sept. 23, 1626, proved the eighth day of November following. From Registr. Testam. Cantabr. WARTON. • Lancelot Andrews, bishop of Winchester, had been originally master of Pembroke-hall in Cambridge; but long before Milton's time. He died at Winchester-House in Southwark, Sept. 21,1626. |