Love can higher stie

Than reafon's reach.

rtizan is, to ascend, stizele, a ladder, stighel, a step. I have been told that they call a ladder afty in the north, but pronounce it free.

STANZ. LII.

There mournful cyprefs grew in greatest store, And trees of bitter gall, and heben fad, Dead-fleeping poppy, and Cicuta bad, With which th' unjust Athenians made to die Wife Socrates, who thereof quaffing glad Pour'd out his life, and laft philofophy To the fair Critias, his dearest belamy.

He had no authority, I prefume, for what he fays of Socrates and Critias. Critias had been a difciple of Socrates, but he hated his mafter. Here is the ftory, of which I fuppofe Spenfer had a confufed idea: Quam me delectat Theramenes! quam elato animo eft! etfi enim flemus, cum legimus, tamen non miferabiliter vir clarus emoritur. Qui cum conjectus in carcerem triginta juffu tyrannorum, venenum ut fitiens obduxiffet, reliquum fic e poculo ejecit, ut id refonaret: quo fonitu reddito, arridens, Propino, inquit, hoc pulcro Critiæ, qui in eum fuerat teterrimus. Cicero, Tufc. Difp. I. 40...

STANZ LV.

Here eke that famous golden apple grew,
The which emongst the gods false Até threw;

eauties For which th' Idaan ladies difagreed.

He calls boldly, but elegantly enough, Idaan ladies, thofe goddeffes,

quas paftor viderat olim

Idæis tunicam ponere verticibus.

CANTO VIII. 1.

And is there care in heaven? and is there love
In heavenly spirits to these creatures base,
That may compaffion of their evils move?
There is: elfe much more wretched were the cafe
Of men, than beafts. But O th' exceeding grace
Of highest God! that loves his creatures so,
And all his works with mercy doth embrace,
That bleffed Angels he fends to and fro

To ferve to wicked man, to ferve his wicked foe,

How oft do they their filver bowers leave,
To come to fuccour us, that fuccour want?
How oft do they with golden pinions cleave
The flitting fkies, like flying purfuivant,

Against foul fiends to aid us militant ?

They for us fight, they watch and duly ward, And their bright fquadrons round about us plant, And all for love, and nothing for reward:

Owhy should heavenly God to men have fuch regard!

These are fine lines, and would not fuffer by being compared with any thing that Milton has faid upon this fubject.

STANZ. V.

Description of an Angel:

Befide his head there fat a fair young man, Of wondrous beauty, and of freshest years, Whofe tender bud to bloffom new began. And flourish fair above his equal peers: His fnowy front curled with golden hairs, Like Phœbus' face adorn'd with funny rays, Divinely fhone; and two fharp winged fhears, Decked with divers plumes, like painted jays, Were fixed at his back, to cut his airy ways.

Like as Cupido on Idæan hill,

When, having laid his cruel bow away, &c.

Compare this with Milton's description of Raphael, V. 277.

Six wings he wore, to fhade

His lineaments divine; the pair that clad

Each

Each shoulder broad, came mantling o'er his breaft With regal ornament; the middle pair

Girt like a ftarry zone his waift, and round Skirted his loins and thighs with downy gold, And colours dipt in heaven; the third his feet Shadow'd from either heel with feather'd maile, Sky-tinctur'd grain.

STANZ. XI.

And ftrifeful Atin in their stubborn mind

Coals of contention and hot

to tine is to light, to kindle.

III. 111. 57.

vengeance tin'd,

Her hearty words fo deep into the mind
Of the young damzel funk, that great defire
Of warlike arms in her forthwith they tin'd.
III. VII. 15.

No love, but brutish luft, that was so beaftly tin'd.

And in other places. But he often ufes it in a different way. See IV. VII. 30. IV. x1. 36.

II. XI. 21. and Milton, Par. Loft, X. 1075.

STAN Z. XVI.

What hearse or steed (faid he) should he have dight, But be entombed in the raven or the kite?

Gorgias

Gorgias Leontinus called vulturs living fepulchres, γύπες ἔμψυχοι τάφοι for which he incurred the indignation of Longinus; whether justly or no I fhall not fay. There is a thought not very unlike it in Milton's Samfon Agoniftes, where Samfon, complaining of his blindness, fays:

To live a life half dead, a living death,
And buried; but, O yet more miserable!
My felf, my fepulchre, a moving grave,
Buried, yet not exempt

By privilege of death and burial

From worst of other evils.

Ovid, Met. VI. 665.

Flet modo, feque vocat buftum miferabile nati.

STANZ. L.

Nought booted it the Paynim then to ftrive:
For, as a bitturn in an eagle's claw,

That may not hope by flight to fcape alive,
Still waits for death with dread and trembling awe;
So he

Ovid. Met. VI. 516.

Non aliter, quam cum pedibus prædator obuncis
Depofuit nido leporem Jovis ales in alto:

Nulla fuga eft capto: fpectat fua præmia raptor.

Virgil.