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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;
And like the slain in bloody fight,
That in the grave lie deep.
Whom thou rememberest no more,
Dost never more regard,
Them, from thy hand deliver'd o'er,
Death's hideous house hath barr'd.
6. Thou in the lowest pit profound
Hast set me all forlorn,
Where thickest darkness hovers round,

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,
Mine eye grows dim and dead;

Lord, all the day I thee entreat,
My hands to thee I spread.

10. Wilt thou do wonders on the dead?
Shall the deceas'd arise,

And praise thee from their loathsome bed
With pale and hollow eyes?

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,
Astonish'd with thine ire.

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
Author at fifteen years old.

WHEN the blest seed of Terah's faithful son,
After long toil, their liberty had won;

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O, let us his praises tell,
Who doth the wrathful tyrants quell.
For his, &c.

Who, with his miracles, doth make,
Amazed Heaven and Earth to shake.
For his, &c.

Who, by his wisdom, did create
The painted Heavens so full of state.
For his, &c.

Who did the solid earth ordain

To rise above the watery plain.
For his, &c.

Who, by his all-commanding might,
Did fill the new made world with light.
For his, &c.

And caus'd the gold entressed Sun

All the day long his course to run.
For his, &c.

The horned Moon to shine by night,
Amongst her spangled sisters bright.
For his, &c.

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.

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JOANNIS MILTONI

LONDINENSIS

POEMATA.

QUORUM PLERAQUE INTRA ANNUM ÆTATIS
VIGESIMUM CONSCRIPSIT.

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 ;
Sebetus Tassum desinat usque loqui;
At Thamesis victor cunctis ferat altior undas,
Nam per te, Milto, par tribus unus erit.

Questa feconda sà produrre Eroi,

Ch' hanno a region del sovruman tra noi.

Alla virtù sbandita

Danno ne i petti lor fido ricetto,
Quella gli è sol gradita,

Perche in lei san trovar gioia, e diletto;
Ridillo tu, Giovanni, e mostra in tanto
Con tua vera virtù, vero il mio Canto.

Lungi dal Patrio lido
Spinse Zeusi l' industre ardente brama;
Ch' udio d'Helena il grido

Con aurea tromba rimbombar la fama,
E per poterla effigiare al paro

Dalle più belle Idee trasse il più raro.

Cosil Ape Ingegnosa
Tra con industria il suo liquor pregiato
Dal giglio e dalla rosa,
E quanti vaghi fiori ornano il prato;
Formano un dolce suon diverse Chorde,
Fan varie voci melodia concorde.

Di bella gloria amante

Milton dal Ciel natio per varie parti
Le peregrine piante
Volgesti a ricercar scienze, ed arti;
Del Gallo regnator vedesti i Regni,
E dell' Italia ancor gl' Eroi più degni.

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Ch' à Ingegni sovrumani
Troppo avara tal' hor gli chiude, e serra,
Chiaramente conosci, e giungi al fine
Della moral virtude al gran confine.

Non batta il Tempo l' ale,

Fermisi immoto, e in un fermiu si gl' anni,
Che di virtu immortale

Scorron di troppo ingiuriosi a i danni;
Che s' opre degne di Poema e storia
Furon gia, l'hai presenti alla memoria.

Dammi tua dolce Cetra

Se vuoi ch' io dica del tuo dolce canto,
Ch' inalzandoti all' Etra

Di farti huomo celeste ottiene il vanto,
Il Tamigi il dirà che gl' e concesso
Per te suo cigno pareggiar Permesso.
Io che in riva del Arno

Tento spiegar tuo merto alto, e preclaro
So che fatico indarno,

E ad ammirar, non a lodarlo imparo;
Freno dunque la lingua, e ascolto il core
Che ti prende a lodar con lo stupore.

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,
At cur nitor in arduum?

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

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At mare immensum oceanusque Lucis
Jugitèr cælo fluit empyræo;
Hinc inexhausto per utrumque mundum
Funditur ore.

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,
Quem Chaos fertur peperisse primam,
Cujus ob formam bene risit olim
Massa severa!
Risus O terræ sacer et polorum,
Aureus vere pluvius Tonantis,
Quæque de celo fluis inquieto
Gloria rivo!-

Te bibens arcus Jovis ebriosus
Mille formosos revomit colores,
Pavo cœlestis, variamque pascit
Lumine caudam.
Lucidum trudis properanter agmen :
Sed resistentum super ora rerum
Lenitèr stagnas, liquidoque inundas
Cuncta colore :

strongly attached to the cultivation of Latin pоеtry. WARTON.

ELEGIARUM

LIBER.

ELEC. I. AD CAROLUM DEODATUM.

TANDEM, chare, tuæ mihi pervenere tabellæ,
Pertulitet voces nuncia charta tuas;
Pertulit, occiduâ Devæ Cestrensis ab orå

Vergivium prono quà petit amne salum.
Multùm, crede, juvat terras aliuisse remotas
Pectus amans nostrî, támque fidele caput,
Quódque mihi lepidum tellus longinqua sodalem
Debet, at unde brevi reddere jussa velit.
Me tenet urbs refluâ quam Thamesis alluit undâ,
Méque nec invitum patria dulcis habet.
Jam nec arundiferum mihi cura revisere Camum,
Nec dudum vetiti me laris angit amor.

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!
Nec duri libet usque minas perferre Magistri,
Cæteráque ingenio non subeunda meo.
Si sit hoc exilium patrios adiisse penates,
Et vacuum curis otia grata sequi,
Non ego vel profugi nomen sortémve recuso,
Lætus et exilii conditione fruor.

O, utinam vates nunquam graviora tulisset
Ille Tomitano flebilis exul agro;

Non tunc Ionio quicquam cessisset Homero,
Neve foret victo laus tibi prima, Maro.
Tempora nam licet hîc placidis dare libera Musis,

Et totum rapiunt me, mea vita, libri.
Excipit hinc fessum sinuosi pompa theatri,

Et vocat ad plausus garrula scena suos.
Seu catus auditur senior, seu prodigus hæres,
Seu procus, aut positâ casside miles adest,
Sive decennali fœcundus lite patronus
Detonat inculto barbara verba foro;
Sæpe vafer gnato succurrit servus amanti,
Et nasum rigidi fallit ubique patris:
Sæpe novos illic virgo mirata calores

Quid sit amor nescit, dum quoque nescit,

amat.

Sive cruentatum furiosa Tragœdia sceptrum
Quassat, et effusis crinibus ora rotat,
Et dolet, et specto, juvat et spectâsse dolendo,
Interdum et lacrymis dulcis amaror inest:
Seu puer infelix indelibata reliquit

Gaudia, et abrupto flendus amore cadit ;
Seu ferus è tenebris iterat Styga criminis ultor,
Conscia funereo pectora torre movens :
Seu mæret Pelopeia domus, seu nobilis Ili,
Aut luit incestos aula Creontis avos.

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
Palladium toties ore ciere gregem;
Ultima præconum, præconem te quoque sæva
Mors rapit, officio nec favet ipsa suo.
Candidiora licèt fuerint tibi tempora plumis,
Sub quibus accipimus delituisse Jovem;
O dignus tamen Hæmonio juvenescere succo,
Dignus in Æsonios vivere posse dies;
Dignus, quem Stygiis medicâ revocaret ab undis

Arte Coronides, sæpe rogante deâ.
Tu si jussus eras acies accire togatas,
Et celer à Phœbo nuntius ire tuo;
Talis in Iliaca stabat Cyllenius aulâ
Alipes, æthereâ missusab arce Patris:
Talis et Eurybates ante ora furentis Achillei
Rettulit Atridæ jussa severa ducis.
Magna sepulchrorum regina, satelles Averni,
Sæva nimis Musis, Palladi sæva nimis,
Quin illos rapias qui pondus inutile terræ ;
Turba quidem est telis ista petenda tuis.
Vestibus hunc igitur pullis, Academia, luge,
Et madeant lachrymis nigra feretra tuis.
Fundat et ipsa modos querebunda Elgëia tristes,
Personet et totis nænia mæsta Scholis.

ELEG. III. Anno Ætatis 17.

In obitum Prasulis Wintoniensis.

MOESTUS eram, et tacitus, nullo comitante, sede-
Hærebántque animo tristia plura meo: [bam;
Protinus en! subiit funestæ cladis imago,
Fecit in Angliaco quam Libitina solo;
Dum procerum ingressa est splendentes marmore
turres,

Dira sepulchrali Mors metuenda face;
Pulsavitque auro gravidos et jaspide muros,
Nec metuit satrapum steinere falce greges.

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.

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