Jam Nox aethereum nigris emenfa quadrigis And as the nights are different, fo are the horses Her twyfold teme, of which two black as pitch, Noctis agebat equos. but Gods: and Meleager in his Epigram thus addreffes her, *Εν τόδε παμμήτειρα θεῶν λίτομαι σε Φίλη Νύξ. Пaμμnça, is, according to Spenfer's expreffion, ancient grandmother of all. So Homer, NTRO 9-But fee what I have already obferved on this paffage of Homer in a letter to Mr. Weft concerning a new edition of Spenfer. The power and dignity of Night we find recognized in St. 34. For fhe in hell and beaven had power equally: Humentes jam Noctis equos, letheaque Somnus Claud. Bell. Gild. 213. Having viewed her dress and equipage, concerning which the poets and painters cannot entirely agree, let us now confider her genealogy. She is the most ancient grandmother of all, more old than Jove-St. 22. and St. 42. fhe is named ancient Night. Aratus v. 408. Agxáin Núž. So Milton ii. 894. Eldeft Night. ii. 962. Night eldeft of things: and twice afterwards he calls her, Ancient Night. According to Hefiod Night is the offspring of Chaos. Orpheus calls her the mother of the Chaos XXI. Who when the faw Duessa-] Dueffa makes so much haft for the fake of her Sarazin, that the acts quite contrary to all courtlike decorum, and the establish'd rules of good breeding, thus to appear in her masquerading dress before a person of such a dignity as Auncient NightBut though this may be contrary to the decorum of a court, yet it is agreeable to the decorum of poetry. This haft and this forgetfulness fhews her ardent love and zeal for the cause in which she is engaged. If old Aveugles fons fo evill heare? i. e. have so bad a name and character: are spoken fo ill of: 'tis a Greek and Latin idiom of fpeech, male audire, to hear ill: i. e. to have an ill character; to be ill fpoken of: xaxus axée. Horace uses audis, for named, called : Matutine pater, feu Jane libentius audis, Or heart thou rather Janus: So Milt. iii. 7. Or who shall not great Nightes children fcorne, When two of three her nephews are so fowle forlorne?] i. e. When two of her three grandchildren: 'tis a kind of fynchyfis or confusion of diction. The firft verfe is printed from the 1ft and 2d quarto editions: but the Folios, 1609. 1611. 1617. all read, Or who shall not great Nights drad children fcorne. In Hughes, Or who shall not great Night's dread children fcorn. Now thefe corrections, how plausible foever they appear, I believe never came from our poet. Nightes is of two fyllables, and not to be fpelt Night's: 'tis the Anglo-S. genitive cafe, as, smið smiðer. andgit andgites. þord þorder. The final e has a distinct pronunciation given it: and not only in the genitive cafe, but likewife in other cafes : Or Or who shall not great Nightes children fcorne. B. i. C. 5. St. 45. B. i. C. 11. St. 52. But clothes meet to keepe keene cold away. Then to her yron wagon fhe betakes] i. e. fhe betakes herself. This conftruction is frequent in B. i. C. 10. St. 39: Spenfer: and an instance or two may be here very properly given. To let them down before his flightes end. B. i. C. 11. St. 19. But here ly downe, and to thy reft betake [i. e. beThat vanifht into fmoke and cloudes frift. take thyself.] B. i. C. 9. St. 44.. B. i. C. 11. St. 54. To fee their blades fo greedily imbrew [i. e. imbrew themselves: be imbrewed] B. i. C. 6. St. 38. Which ells could not endure those beames bright. Introduct. B. ii. St. 5. Ne molten mettall in his blood embrew [i. e. imMe liefer were ten thousand deathes priefe brew itself: be imbrewed] B. i. C. 11. St. 36. B. ii. Č. 4. St. 28. She caft to bring him where he chearen might To laugh at shaking of the leaves light. [where he might chear himself: be cheared] B. ii. C. 6. St. 7. B. i. C. 10. St. 2. Hath tracted forth fome falvage beaftes trade. Verbs active receive often a paffive fignification, B. ii. C. 6. St. 39. by understanding the pronoun. Virg. vii. 27. cum venti pofuere, i. e. fe ponunt, pofiti funt, quiefcunt. Virg. G. i. 479. Siftunt amnes, i. e. curfus fuos fiftunt, Cic. Nat. Deor. i. 28. Qualis ille maritimus Triton pingitur natantibus invehens belluis, i. e. fefe invehens, invectus. And fleeves dependaunt Albanese-wyfe. B. iii. C. 12. St. 10. When Titan faire his beames did difplay. B. iii. C. 6. St. 6. But who can turn the ftreame of deftinee, Ibid. The fonnes of Day he favoureth]-As all the perturbed affections of the mind are the offsprings of Darkness: fo on the contrary all chearful, honeft, and generous thoughts are the offsprings of Day. Just above they are called the children of fayre Light: this too is fcriptural, Believe in the 2 Ibid. Then foming tarre their bridles they would champ.] impofe on a reader not well acquainted with Here is another idiom of fpeech, which might our poet's figurative language. However fuch kind of expreffions are to be found in approved writers. Parce privatus nimium cavere. Hor. L. iii. Od. 8. i. e. As if you were a private man: putting yourself in the condition of a private man WOTEP idiúrns, tanquam privatus. Rufticus expectat, i. e. ftands expecting, like the countryman in the fable, Hor. Epift. L. i. ii. 42. Poft hoc, vehemens lupus, et fibi et hofti Iratus pariter. L. ii. Epift. ii. 28. So that here the conftruction is, Then foming what resembled tarre and pitch-Then as it were foming forth tarre-The very fame kind of ex B b b 2 preffion preffion Fairfax uses, a great imitator of Spen- is the Chriftian hero, and Una Christian truth : fer, in his tranflation of Taffo, x. 15. To yawning gulfe of deepe Avernus hole-] The lake of Avernus in Italy is thus defcribed by our countryman Sandys in his Travels, p. 279. This was fuppofed the entrance into Hell by ignorant antiquity; where they offered infer<nal facrifice to Pluto and the Manes, here faid to give answers. For which purpose Homer ⚫ brought hither his Ulyffes [Odyff. x. fee Max. Tyr. p. 151. Edit. Lond. Cicero, Tufc. Difp. i. 16.] and Virgil his Aeneas [vi. 237.] and feigned they were to have defcended into Hell at this place for that those caves were, by ⚫ which the infernal spirits by the power of magick evoked were imagined to ascend.' if the poet mixes any heathen mythology, tis no more than what other poets have likewise done, who have profeffedly written on chriftian fubjects, fuch as Dante among the Italians, and our divine epic poet Milton. XXXII. Fild with rufty blood.] fild is always fo fpelt, when it means filled: and Hughes has printed it filled. But here perhaps it means defiled.-The following images in this ftanza are strongly painted: the reader at his leisure may compare Ovid's defcription of Orpheus' defcent into Hell, Met. x. or, of Juno's, who came to follicit one of the Furies to punish Athamas, Met. iv. 449. For I believe that Spenser in these defcriptions confulted both Ovid and Virgil. XXXIII. XXXIV. plain Spenier had Virgil in view, vi. 548. Sub The house of endlesse paine is built thereby.] Tis rupe finiftrâ Moenia lata videt, &c. This house of pain is called in Plato's Gorgias, p. 523. the Prifon of puniment, τὸ τῆς τίσεώς τε καὶ δίκης δεστ go. Which is Milton's expreffion, i. 71. here their prifon ordaind. ii. 59. the prison of his tyranny. And thus Shakespeare, where the Ghoft fpeaks to young Hamlet, -But that I am forbid To tell the fecrets of my prifon-house. I come no enemy, but to fet free The house of woe, And dungeon of our tyrant. x. 465. Dante, Inferno. Canto V. calls it dolorofo hofpitio. And Canto III. v. 1. mentions the following infcription over the gates of hell. Per me fi va nella città dolente: Per me fi va tra la perduta gente. Per me fi va nell eterno dolore: The defcriptions of the rivers in hell are taken Or like Virgil in Dante? Prefe Prefe la terra, e con piene le pugna, Like Hecate, whofe three-fold power, as Luna, Ceffit immanis tibi blandienti Janitor aulae Cerberus: quamvis furiale centum Spenser seems to have this passage of Horace before his eyes, His three deformed heads did lay along, The poets defcribe Cerberus with three deformed heads, and each head, or neck curled with thousand adders : Horrere videns jam colla colubris. Virg. vi. 424 Centum muniunt angues caput ejus. Hor. L. iii. Od. ii. and hence may be explained, what has pufled all the commentators and mythologifts that ever yet I have seen, and the beft of the mythologifts, the learned Spanheim in his treatife conconcerning ancient coins; namely, how came Horace to call Cerberus the hundred headed beast bellua centiceps, L. ii. Od. 13. And how came Hefiod to fay, werτnuortaxάgnvor, quinquaginta capitum, Theog. v. 312. The anfwer feems plainly from the ftate of this mythological queftion, to be, that they confidered the adders or fnakes on the neck or head of this monftrous creature of the imagination into the account, and affigned a determinate for an indeterminate number, according to the ufual custom of poets. The following translation of Virgil by Dryden, will not be unacceptable to the English reader of these notes; the more learned may compare the original. No fooner landed, in his den they found With three enormous mouths he gapes; and freight This image of Cerberus' hanging down his tail, seems taken from Horace, L. ii. Od. 19. where Bacchus defcends into hell, Te vidit infons Cerberus aureo Caudam; ET recedentis trilingui Which I formerly corrected and pointed thus, There was Ixion turned on a wheele, Verfantur celeri noxia membra rotâ. Ibid. And Sifyphus an huge round ftone did reele Against an hill-] This verse is no bad imitation of a well known and a very expreffive verse in Homer.-Dionyfius has fhewn how exactly the poet's verfes corresponds to the thing he would defcribe, and how artful his pauses are. I will add here the latin tranflation, which deferves more praise than I am at liberty to bestow. Sisyphon afpexi duros perferre dolores, Saxum utraque manu geftantem pondere vefto. [faxum Ille quidem manibufque humerifque volubile Ad juga connixus trudit. | Sed culmina jam jam Tacturum, retro fati vis afpera vertit: Fertur ad ima ruens lapis improbus aequora campi. |