That even to his last breath-there be that say 't—
As he were prest to death, he cried: More weight!
But, had his doings lasted as they were,

He had been an immortal carrier.
Obedient to the moon he spent his date
In course reciprocal, and had his fate
Linked to the mutual flowing of the seas,

Yet-strange to think!-his wain was his increase.
His letters are delivered all and gone,

Only remains this superscription.

30

AN EPITAPH ON THE MARCHIONESS OF

WINCHESTER.-M.

(1631.)*

THIS rich marble doth inter

The honoured wife of Winchester,

A Viscount's daughter, an Earl's heir,
Besides what her virtues fair

Added to her noble birth,

30. course reciprocal, sc. between Cambridge and London; and as he went so many times a month regularly, he may be said to have obeyed the moon. 32. wain. A play on the similar sound of wain and wane. Shakespeare also (Son. 126) has a play on wane: "Who hast by waning grown."

* Led astray by the assertion of Warton, in our Life of Milton, when treating of this poem, we dated it too early by the space of three years. The subject of Sir John Beaumont's poem, alluded to by Warton, died in 1614. Ben Jonson, as well as Milton, wrote a noble elegy on this illustrious lady. It commences thus:

"What gentle ghost, besprent with April-dew,

Hails me so solemnly to yonder yew?

And beckoning woos me from the fatal tree

To pluck a garland for herself or me?"

The reader will call to mind Pope's imitation of this passage.

1. inter. The employment of this word here is not quite correct; for it is only persons who inter (in terram ponunt).

3. an Earl's heir. Her mother was one of the coheiresses of Earl Rivers

(Life of Milton, p. 256). Earl's, a dissyl. (ib. p. 260).

"The golden wires of his ravishing harp" (Peele, Dav. & Baths. Prol.)

is exactly parallel in structure.

More than she could own from earth.
Summers three times eight save one
She had told; alas! too soon,

After so short time of breath,

To house with darkness and with death!
Yet, had the number of her days
Been as complete as was her praise,
Nature and Fate had had no strife
In giving limit to her life.

Her high birth and her graces sweet
Quickly found a lover meet;
The virgin-quire for her request
The god that sits at marriage-feast;
He at their invoking came,

But with a scarce well-lighted flame;
And in his garland, as he stood,
Ye might discern a cypress-bud.
Once had the early matrons run
To greet her of a lovely son,
And now with second hope she goes,
And calls Lucina to her throes;
But, whether by mischance or blame,
Atropos for Lucina came,

And, with remorseless cruelty,
Spoiled at once both fruit and tree.
The hapless babe before his birth
Had burial, yet not laid in earth,

And the languished mother's womb

Was not long a living tomb.

6. own, i.q. possess; here perhaps, derive. Her virtues, he intimates, were derived from heaven.

12. praise. Used perhaps in the Latin sense, praiseworthy deeds.

19.

"Sunt hic sua præmia laudi." En. i. 461.

"Adfuit ille quidem; sed nec solemnia verba

Nec lætos voltus, nec felix attulit omen;

Fax quoque, quam tenuit, lacrimoso stridula fumo

Utque fuit, nullosque invenit motibus ignes." Ov. Met. x. 4.-J.

22. cypress. Emblematic of a funeral.

25. And now, etc., i.e. she now goes a second time with child.

33. languished. He seems to use this verb, like cease and shrink (Ode on Nativ. vv. 45, 202), in a causal sense.

So have I seen some tender slip,
Saved with care from winter's nip,
The pride of her carnation train,
Plucked up by some unheedy swain,
Who only thought to crop the flower
New shot-up from vernal shower;
But the fair blossom hangs the head
Sideways, as on a dying bed,
And those pearls of dew she wears
Prove to be presaging tears,
Which the sad morn had let fall
On her hastening funeral.

Gentle Lady, may thy grave

Peace and quiet ever have!
After this thy travail sore
Sweet rest seize thee evermore,
That, to give the world increase,
Shortened hast thy own life's lease!
Here, besides the sorrowing
That thy noble house doth bring,
Here be tears of perfect moan
Wept for thee in Helicon;

And some flowers and some bays

For thy hearse, to strew the ways,

"Cut his hedges, prune his

35. tender slip, i.e. tender, delicate plant. trees, look to his tender slips." Anim. Rem. Def.—T.

37. The pride, etc. i.e. this slip is the finest in the garden, the pride of the remaining flowers, which he calls her 'carnation train,' apparently using 'carnation' in the sense of the Latin purpureus, i.e. brilliant, glowing; for he could hardly mean the flower of that name. See on Par. Lost, ix. 429.

38. Plucked, etc. There is some confusion here (see Life of Milton, p. 426), but the meaning seems to be that as the swain, when intending only to crop a flower, by proceeding too roughly pulls up the plant, so Death when only intending to take the child took the mother also.

And renowned be thy grave." Cymb. iv. 2.-K. 55. Here be, etc. Meaning the verses by Ben Jonson and others, written on this occasion.

57. And some, etc.

A collection of verses in her honour, among which was this poem, was made at Cambridge.

58. herse. Probably the A.-S. hypre, ornament, decoration. Minshew says, a herse is "a monument or empty tomb erected or set up at the month's or year's end, for the honourable memory of the dead."

Sent thee from the banks of Came,

Devoted to thy virtuous name;

Whilst thou, bright Saint, high sittest in glory,

Next her, much like to thee in story,

That fair Syrian shepherdess,

Who, after years of barrenness,

The highly-favoured Joseph bore

To him that served for her before,
And at her next birth, much like thee,
Through pangs fled to felicity,
Far within the bosom bright
Of blazing Majesty and Light :
There with thee, new-welcome Saint,
Like fortunes may her soul acquaint,
With thee there clad in radiant sheen,
No Marchioness, but now a Queen.

60

70

SONNET I.* [VII]

On his being arrived to the age of twenty-three.

How soon hath Time, the subtle thief of youth,

Stolen on his wing my three-and-twentieth year!

63. That fair, etc. Rachel, whose name signifies ewe, who kept the flock of her father Laban, the Syrian, and for whom Jacob served her father. 73. sheen. See on Ode on Nativity, v. 145.

74. Queen. He alludes perhaps to, "And hast made us unto our God kings and priests," Rev. v. 10; and to the Virgin's title Regina Cæli, and, as Todd thinks, to Anne Boleyn's last message to her brutal husband. Jonson, in his Elegy, has a similar idea :—

"Beholds her Maker, and in him doth see

What the beginnings of all beauties be;
And all beatitudes which thence do flow :

Which they that have the crown are sure to know."

* See Life of Milton, p. 266. In our observations on this poem in that work we fell into an error with respect to France; for in the sixteenth and early part of the seventeenth century the sonnet was very much cultivated there by Ronsard and other eminent poets.

1.

"Time's thievish progress to eternity." Shakespeare, Son. 77.—K.

2. stolen, i.e. brought on furtively, without my perceiving it. This, and not

My hasting days fly on with full career,
But my late spring no bud or blossom sheweth.
Perhaps my semblance might deceive the truth,
That I to manhood am arrived so near;
And inward ripeness doth much less appear,
That some more timely-happy spirits indueth.
Yet be it less or more, or soon or slow,
It shall be still in strictest measure even

To that same lot, however mean or high,
Toward which Time leads me, and the will of Heaven.
All is, if I have grace to use it so,

As ever in my great Task-Master's eye.

10

ON TIME.-M.

FLY, envious Time, till thou run out thy race;
Call on the lazy leaden-stepping Hours,
Whose speed is but the heavy plummet's pace;
And glut thyself with what thy womb devours,

taking away, must be the sense, as in Milton's mode of computation his twenty-third year began on his twenty-fourth birthday, i.e. the day he completed his twenty-third year.

4. But, etc. It appears from this, that, though he had already written the Ode on the Nativity, etc., he regarded himself as a late-flowering plant in the gardens of literature.

5. Perhaps, etc., i.e. his very youthful appearance might induce people to think him younger than he was.

7. inward ripeness, i.e. that inward ripeness. He seems to mean that his youthful appearance might also conceal from people the fact that the development of his mental powers was not so great as in those whose minds had ripened earlier.

9. soon, i.e. quick, early. He uses it as an adjective.

10. even, i.e. equal, in proportion.—lot, i.e. station in life.

13. All, etc. His meaning here is obscure, but it seems to be: All depends upon my employing it as feeling myself to be under the eyes of my great Task-Master.

1. envious. On account of his destructive nature, as if he envied existence to any.

2. Call on, i.e. bid hasten.

3. Whose speed, etc. An evident allusion to the pendulum.

4. And glut, etc. Alluding probably to Saturn's (Time's) devouring his offspring.