Grow they will, ye will grow, my loves. Meanwhile

71 O'er Mæn❜lus will I range with mingled Nymphs,

Or hunt the hot wild boars; no chills shall bar

My compassing with hounds Parthenian glades.

Meseems that now through rocks and ringing groves

I'm roaming; 'tis my joy from Parthian bow
To shoot Cydonian arrows; as if this
Were healing for my frenzy, or that god
May learn to soften at the ills of men.
Now neither Hamadryads any more,
Nor songs themselves charm us; ye very
woods,

"Hang there, my verse, in witness of my love:

80

And thou, thrice crowned queen of night, survey With thy chaste eye, from thy pale sphere above, Thy huntress' name, that my full life doth sway. O Rosalind! these trees shall be my books,

And in their barks my thoughts I'll character; That every eye, which in this forest looks,

Shall see thy virtue witness'd everywhere. Run, run, Orlando; carve on every tree The fair, the chaste, and unexpressive she." Drayton varies the idea in Quest of Cynthia, 5, 6:

"At length upon a lofty fir

It was my chance to find

Where that dear name, most due to her,
Was carved upon the rind.

Which whilst with wonder I beheld,

The bees their honey brought,

And up the carvèd letters filled,

As they with gold were wrought."

Shirley uses tears instead of wood-cuts :
"That every tear could fall
Into some character, which you might read,
That so I might dispense with my sad tongue,
And leave my sorrows legible.”

The Imposture, iv. 5. Cowley makes such carvings fatal to the tree: "I cut my love into his gentle bark,

And in three days, behold! 'tis dead."

"Pardon, ye birds and nymphs, who loved this shade;

And pardon me, thou gentle tree;

I thought her name would thee have happy made,
And blessed omens hoped from thee:

'Notes of my love, thrive here,' said I, 'and
grow;

And with ye let my love do so." "
The Mistress: The Tree.
"Oh! might I here

In solitude live savage: in some glade
Obscured, where highest woods, impenetrable
To star or sunlight, spread their umbrage broad
And brown as evening: cover me, ye pines,
Ye cedars; with innumerable boughs

Hide me."

Milton, P. L., b. ix.

Once more give way. Our woes cannot change him,

Nor if we in the midst of frosts were both
To drink the Hebrus, and Sithonian snows
Of wat'ry winter-tide to undergo;
Nor if, when dying on the lofty elm,
The bark is shriv'ling, we should shift the
sheep

Of Ethiopians under Cancer's star.
Love conquers all: let us too yield to Love."
'Twill be enough, Pierian maids divine, 90
That these your bard hath chanted, while
he sits,

And weaves with mallow slim his slender frail.

Ye these of deepest interest will make
To Gallus: [yea] to Gallus, love of whom
As fast is growing on me every hour,
As in the infant spring the alder green
Uprears her. Let us rise; the shade is wont
To prove calamitous to those who sing;
Calamitous the shade of juniper ;

The shades, too, harm the crops. Go, full-
fed, home,-
The star of Eve is rising ;-go, she-goats.

100

100.

"Shepherds all and maidens fair, Fold your flocks up, for the air 'Gins to thicken, and the sun Already his great course hath run. See the dewdrops, how they kiss, Every little flower that is, Hanging on their velvet heads, Like a rope of crystal beads: See the heavy clouds are falling, And bright Hesperus down calling, The dead night from under ground; At whose rising mists unsound, Damps and vapours fly apace, Hovering o'er the wanton face Of these pastures, where they come, Striking dead both bud and bloom." J. Fletcher, The Faithful Shepherdess, ii. 1.

THE

WHAT makes gay crops, beneath what star the earth

To turn, Mæcenas, and to elms to wed The vines, 'tis meet; what be the care of beeves,

What management in keeping of the flock; How vast the knowledge for the thrifty

bees :

I hence will undertake to sing. O ye,
All-brilliant luminaries of the world,
Who lead the year, as through the heav'n
it glides;

O Liber and boon Ceres, since the earth Hath through your gift Chaonian mast exchanged

For the rich ear, and Acheloan cups Hath blent with [new] discovered grapes; and ye,

The rustics' fav'ring Pow'rs, O Faunsadvance

Your foot in time, both Fauns and Dryad maids :

Line 3. "Two rows of elms ran with proportioned

grace,

Like Nature's arras, to adorn the sides; The friendly vines their lovèd barks embrace, With folding tops the checkered ground-work hides." Shirley, Narcissus, st. 13. "Or they led the vine

To wed her elm: she, spoused, about him twines
Her marriageable arms, and with him brings
Her dower, the adopted clusters, to adorn
His barren leaves." Milton, Par. Lost, b. v.

Shakespeare makes Titania say beautifully of the

ivy:

Sleep thou, and I will wind thee in my arms:
Fairies, begone; and be all ways away.
So doth the woodbine, the sweet honeysuckle,
Gently entwist,—the female ivy so
Enrings the barky fingers of the elm."

Midsummer Night's Dream, iv. 1. "Thou art an elm, my husband, I a vine, Whose weakness, married to thy stronger state, Makes me with thy strength to communicate." Shakespeare, Comedy of Errors, ii. 2. "Everlasting hate

The vine to ivy bears, nor less abhors
The colewort's rankness, but with amorous twine
Clasps the tall elm." J. Philips, Cider, b. i.

11. Or, "draughts."

14. Or, "at once."

22

E'en thou, too, quitting thy paternal lawn,
And woodlands of Lycæus, Pan! of sheep
The guardian, if thy Mænalus to thee
Is of concern, be kindly present here,
O [god] of Tegea! Minerva, too,
Creatress of the olive; and thou youth,
Discloser of the crooked plough; and [thou,]
Silvanus, bearing, from its root [uptorn],
A tender cypress; and ye gods and god-
desses,

All, whose delight it be to guard the fields, Both ye, who rear from no [implanted] seed

30

The infant fruits, and who on seeded crops Drop down the plenteous show'r from heav'n; and thou,

In chief, whom what assemblies of the gods

Hereafter shall enjoy is unresolved : Whether to visit cities, Cæsar, and the charge

Of countries mayest thou desire, and thee
And of its weather-changes lord, may hail,
The vasty globe, as parent of its fruits,
Environing thy brows with myrtle-plant
Of thy own mother;-or thou mayest come
The god of the immeasurable sea,
And mariners thy deity alone
Adore, the farmost Thule be thy serf,

4I

16. See the fabled dispute between Neptune and Minerva, treated by Spenser in his beautiful poem, Muio potmos.

"Percussa" is rather "thrilled," or "shocked." 18. Or, "Tenant,” “haunter."

25. Inventrix, creatress; so repertor, creator: En. xii. 829.

34. That is, though it might be known in heaven, it is a question on earth.

And Tethys buy thee for her son-in-law With all her waves ;-or whether thou a star,

New [-born], annex thee to the lazy months, There where a space between Erigone And the pursuing Claws is opened out :The fiery Scorpion of himself for thee E'en now draws in his arms, and hath resigned 50

A more than due proportion of the sky :Whate'er thou'lt be-for let nor Tartarus Expect thee for its monarch, nor on thee Let so accurst a lust of ruling come, Though Greece may her Elysian plains admire,

Nor Proserpine recovered feel concern T'attend her mother :-grant an easy course, And nod [thy sanction] to my bold emprize :

And pitying with me the rural [swains], Unknowing of the path, advance, and now, Inure thee now to be invoked with vows. 61 In early spring, when rimy moisture thaws

On hoary mountains, and the crumbling clod

Unbinds itself before the western breeze, Let now at once the bull begin for me Beneath the deeply sunken plough to groan, And, by the furrow worn, the share to flash.

That corny seedland answers at the last The greedy tiller's prayers, which twice the

51. "But this fair gem, sweet in the loss alone,
When you fleet hence, can be bequeathed to none;
Or, if it could, down from th' enamelled sky
All heaven would come to claim this legacy."
Marlowe, Hero and Leander, Sestiad 1.
"Thou shalt

Be drawn with horses, white as Venus' doves,
Till heaven itself, in envy of our bliss,
Snatch thee from earth, to place thee in his orb,
The brightest constellation."

Shirley, The Politician, ii. 1.

62. "And made the downy Zephyr, as he flew,
Still to be followed by the Spring's best hue."
B. Jonson, The Vision of Delight. See note on
Geo. ii. l. 449.

But he introduces a harbinger, still more charm. ing:

"I grant the linet, lark, and bullfinch sing, But best the dear good angel of the spring, The Nightingale.'

The Sad Shepherd, ii. 2.

To learn before, and both the native tilths And dispositions of the spots, and what Each district may produce, and what may each

Refuse. Here cereal crops, there clusters

come

More happily; the fruits of trees elsewhere; And uncommanded wax the grasses green. Dost thou not see how Tmolus saffron scents, 80

Ind iv'ry sendeth, Saba's tender sons
The frankincense their own; but naked
Chalybs,

Their iron; Pontus, too, rank castory,
Epirus palm-wreaths of Elean mares?
From first these laws and everlasting terms
Upon established spots hath Nature laid,
What time at first Deucalion tossed the

stones

Upon an empty globe, whence men were born, A flinty race. Then come, the soil of

earth That's rich, let straightway from the year's first months 90

Thy sturdy bulls upturn, and as they lie,
Let dusty-mantled summer bake the clods
With rip'ning suns. But should the land
not prove

Prolific, towards Arcturus' very [rise],
Sufficient will it be to hang it up,
With a diminished furrow: there-lest
weeds

May harass the delighted produce; here—
Lest scanty moisture quit the barren sand.
In every other year shalt thou, the same,
Allow thy fallow-lands, that have been
reaped,

100

To idle, and the listless plain to cake With rust; or there shalt sow the golden spelts

Beneath a constellation changed, whence

The fields repose; nor meanwhile no re

turn

Ariseth from the earth unploughed. Oft, too,

It hath bestead to fire the barren fields, And burn light stubble in the crackling flames :

Whether thereby the lands secreted powers
And juicy food conceive; or every fault 120
Is melted out of them by fire, and forth
The baneful moisture oozes ; or that heat
More passages, and darksome breathing-
pores

Unloosens, where to th' infant blades the

sap

May come; or hardens more, and braces close

The gaping arteries, lest filmy rains,
Or too fierce power of the raging sun,
Or piercing cold of Boreas sear them up.
Much, too, doth he, who breaks the lazy
clods

With rakes, and hurdles of the osier trails,
Bestead the fields; nor him in vain regards
The golden Ceres from Olympus high: 132
And who the ridges, which upon the plain,
When broken up, he rears, once more
breaks through

With plough transversely turned, and works his ground

Incessantly, and lords it o'er his lays.

For dropping summers and for winters

And beeves, in turning up the earth, essayed,

Naught do the graceless goose, and Stry. mon's cranes,

161. See note on 1. 115, where examples are quoted of Milton's imitation of such constructions as those in verses 118-120.

163. Improbus has a variety of meanings, whether applied to persons, qualities, or things; all of which arise from the radical signification of "improper," and hence "immoderate." In the present instance, the great mass of commentators refer the expression more to the physical desires of the goose than to his (poetically) moral turpitude; that is, the goose was rather a glutton than a rogue. Now the fact is, that he was both,-and a mischievous bird besides ; an exact parallel to his brother in crime, the anguis, in the third Book. The following remarks may serve as a help to ascertain its sense in the present

It is applied eleven times to persons, and five times to qualities or things.

Of the eleven times used of persons, in seven moral guilt. Twice it is doubtful, leaving the applicases it is used in the strongest sense, implying cation to anser and anguis to be determined.

Of the five occasions on which it is used in connection with qualities or things, thrice it bears a bad, and twice a harmless, sense.

Upon the whole, then, considering the immense mischief perpetrated by the wild goose, joined to his extraordinary appetite; (for he eats hugely, and tramples and scalds what he does not eat :) considering also the plain predominance of the bad sense in Virgil, " graceless "would seem to meet the necessities of the case, or the excellent term employed by Dr. Kennedy, "felon."

If the more usual view be taken, "glutton" is

And succory with bitter roots, obstruct, Or shade molest. The Father hath himself

Decreed that easy should not be the path

Of tilth, and he first roused the lands by skill,

Whetting with cares the hearts of human kind;

Nor suffered he his realms to lie benumbed In leaden torpor. Ere [the reign of] Jove No swains reduced the fields: not e'en to mark, 171

Or parcel off the champaign by a bourn, Was lawful. For the common stock they sought,

And of her own accord the earth her all More freely, at demand of none, produced. He baleful venom to the sable snakes Imparted, and commanded wolves to prowl, And ocean to be roused; and from the leaves

Shook honies down, and he sequestered fire,

And, everywhere in rills careering, wines He stayed; that practice, by the dint of thought, 181 The various crafts might slowly hammer out,

an effective rendering: which word is surely an adjective, though Johnson and Webster do not recognise it as such. Richardson differs from them, as well he may; for it is too constantly joined by the poets to nouns substantive to admit of "apposition:" e. g. Spenser, Muiopotmos, 179, "glutton sense;" Shakespeare, 2 Hen. IV. i. 3, glutton bosom;" and again, glutton eye;" Dryden, Rel. Lai. 33. 6. glutton souls;" Hind and P. 2275, "glutton kind;" &c.

166.

66

"For sloth, the nurse of vices, And rust of action, is a stranger to him." Massinger, The Great Duke of Florence, i. 1. "The fort, that's yielded at the first assault, Is hardly worth the taking."

ii. 3.

"The thrifty heavens mingle our sweets with gall, Least, being glutted with excess of good, We should forget the giver."

Rawlins, The Rebellion, v. end.

174. "Covered with grass more soft than any silk, The trees dropt honey, and the springs gushed milk;

The flower-fleeced meadow, and the gorgeous grove,

Which should smell sweetest in their bravery strove;"

"Whilst to the little birds' melodious strains The trembling rivers tripped along the plains ;" "The battening earth all plenty did afford, And without tilling, of her own accord."

Drayton, Noah's Flood.

176. Or, perhaps: "He wicked venom to the baleful snakes.'

182. How poor are they, that have not patience!" Shakespeare, Othello, iii. 3.

And in the furrows seek the blade of corn; That from the veins of flint it forth might strike

The hidden fire. Then first the rivers felt The hollowed alders; then the mariner Numbers and names invented for the stars, The Pleiads, Hyads, and Lycaon's sheeny Bear.

In nooses then wild creatures to entrap, And dupe them with the lime, it was devised, 190

And mighty glades to girdle round with dogs.

And one now lashes with his casting-net The spacious river, searching for its depths; And through the main another trails along His dripping lines. Then stiffness of the steel,

And blade of grating saw; for primal

183. Or, "through," "by."

185. "These earthly godfathers of heaven's lights That give a name to every fixed star." Shakespeare, Love's Labour's Lost, i. 1. 186. Or: "Then the sailor coined Numbers and names for stars, the Pleiad-train, The Hyads," &c.

192. With the great weight of commentators, it is better to make alta refer to amnem. Notwithstanding Forbiger's steadiness, and Wagner's change of mind, does there seem to be sufficient warrant for the awkwardness which their view involves? Does it not impose an unfair duty upon the conjunction que?

198. "Impossible! Nothing's impossible!

We know our strength only by being tried. If you object the mountains, rivers, woods Impassable, that lie before our march :Woods we can set on fire: we swim by nature; What can oppose us then but we may tame? All things submit to virtuous industry: That we can carry with us; that is ours." Southern, Oroonoko, iii. 4. 205. This primitive condition of the earth, prior to culture, is realised by the loss of Peace; which miserable state of things is feelingly described by the Duke of Burgundy in King Henry V. v. 2:

Alas! she hath from France too long been chas'd,
And all her husbandry doth lie on heaps,
Corrupting in its own fertility.

Her vine, the merry cheerer of the heart,
Unpruned dies; her hedges even-pleached,
Like prisoners wildly overgrown with hair,