And every bud that* sorrow's liverie weares; Let daffadillies fill their cups with teares, Bid amaranthus all his beautie shed. Here also the well-attir'd woodbine appears, as at present, altered from garish columbine; and sad embroidery, an alteration of sad escocheon, instead of sorrow's liverie. Ver. 153. Let our sad thoughts &c. Ver. 154. Ay me, whilst thee the floods and sounding seas. Ver. 160. Sleep'st by the fable of Corineus old. But Bellerus is a correction. Ver. 176. Listening the unexpressive nuptial song. This remarkable expression, sorrow's liverie, may allude perhaps to a passage in an elegant poet, with which Milton might have been pleased. See Habington's Castara, edit. 1635, p. 88. "Vpon the death of a Ladie:" "sweet flowers "Which now adorne her hearse. The violet there "On her pale cheeke doth the sad livery weare, See also Wither's Juvenilia, 1622, p. 351. 66 my Muse, as yet vnknowne, "Should first in sorrowe's liuery be showne." TODD. PRELIMINARY NOTES ON L'ALLEGRO AND IL PENSEROSO. It will be no detraction from the powers of Milton's original genius and invention to remark, that he seems to have borrowed the subject of L'Allegro and Il Penseroso, together with some particular thoughts, expressions, and rhymes, more especially the idea of a contrast between these two dispositions, from a forgotten poem prefixed to the first edition of Burton's Anatomie of Melancholy, entitled "The Author's Abstract of Melancholy, or a Dialogue between Pleasure and Pain." Here Pain is Melancholy. It was written, as I conjecture, about the year 1600. I will make no apology for abstracting and citing as much of this poem, as will be sufficient to prove to a discerning reader, how far it had taken possession of Milton's mind. The measure will appear to be the same; and, that our author was at least an attentive reader of Burton's book, will be perhaps concluded from the traces of resemblance which I shall incidentally notice in passing through the L'Allegro and Il Penseroso. Nought so sweet as Melancholy! "When to myself I act and smile, "With pleasing thoughts the time beguile, |