Tell her of things that no grofs ear can hear, 460 v. 458. Tell her of things that no grofs ear can hear.] See Note on ARCADES, V. 72. This dialogue between the two Brothers, is an amicable contest between fact and philofophy. The younger draws his arguments from common apprehenfion, and the obvious appearance of things: the elder proceeds on a profounder knowledge, and argues from abftracted principles. Here the difference of their ages is properly made fubfervient to a contrast of character. But this flight variety must have been infufficient to keep fo prolix and learned a difputation alive upon the stage. It muit have languifhed, however adorned with the fairest flowers of eloquence. The whole dialogue, which indeed is little more than a folitary declamation in blank verfe, much resembles the manner of our author's Latin Prolufions at Cambridge, where philosophy is inforced by pagan fable, and poetical allufion. WARTON. 459. Converfe is here accented on the fecond fyllable as in PAR. LOST, B. ix. 909. 2. Thy fweet convérfe and love fo dearly join'd. But on the firft, B. viii. 408. and B. ix. 247. Shakspeare affords an inftance of the accent on the facond fyllable, in HAMLET, A. ii. S. i. Your party in convérfe, him you would found And Pope, Ess. ON CRITICISM, V. 642. "He Gen'rous convérfe; a foul exempt from pride. EDITOR. v. 461. The unpolluted temple of the mind.] For this beautiful metaphor he was probably indebted to St. JOHN. ii. 21. "fpake of the temple of his body." And Shakspeare has the fame. TEMPEST, A. i. S. vi. There's nothing ill can dwell in fuch a temple. NEWTON. So, in his RAPE OF LUCRECE, of Tarquin. his foul's fair temple is defac'd. EDITOR. v. 462. And turns it by degrees to the foul's effence. This is agreeable to the fyftem of the Materialifts, of which Milton was one. WARBURTON. The fame notion of body's working up to Spirit Milton afterwards introduced into his PAR. LOST, v. 469. &c. which is there, I think, liable to fome objection, as he was entirely at liberty to have chosen a more rational system, and as it is alfo put into the mouth of an Archangel. But in this place it falls in fo well with the poet's defign, gives fuch force and ftrength to this encomium on Chastity, and carries in it fuch a dignity of fentiment, that however repugnant it may be to our philofophical ideas, it can Till all be made immortal: but when Luft, 465 not mifs ftriking and delighting every virtuous and intelligent reader. THYER. v. 464. By unchafte looks, &c.] "He [Christ] cenfures an un"chafte look to be an adultery already committed: another time he "paffes over actual adultery with lefs reproof than for an unchafte "look." DIVORCE, B. ii. c. 1. PR. W. i. 184. See alfo, p. 304. Milton therefore in the expreffion here noted, alludes to our Saviour, “ πᾶς ὁ ΒΛΕΠΩΝ ΓΥΝΑΙΚΑ πρὸς τὸ ΕΠΙΘΥΜΗΣΑΙ αὐτῆς," . . S. Matth. EVANG. v. 28. WARTON. v. 465. But most by leud and lavish act of fin, &c.] It is the fame idea, yet where it is very commodiously applied, in P. L. B. vi. 660. -Spirits of pureft light, Pureft at firft, now grofs by finning grown. WARTON. v. 467. The foul grows clotted by contagion, &c.] I cannot resist the pleasure of tranflating a paffage in Plato's PHAEDON, which Milton here evidently copies. "A foul with fuch affections, "does it not fly away to fomething divine and resembling itself? "To fomething divine, immortal, and wife? Whither when it arrives, it becomes happy; being freed from error, ignorance, "fear, love, and other human evils.But if it departs from "the body polluted and impure, with which it has been long "linked in a state of familiarity and friendfhip, and by whofe "pleasures and appetites it has been bewitched, fo as to think "nothing else true, but what is corporeal, and which may be "touched, feen, drank, and used for the gratifications of luft: at "the fame time, if it has been accustomed to hate, fear or fhun, "what ever is dark and invisible to the human eye, yet difcerned "and approved by philofophy: I afk, if a foul fo disposed, will go fincere and difincumbered from the body? By no means. "And will it not be, as I have fuppofed, infected and involved "with corporeal contagion, which an acquaintance and converse "with the body, from a perpetual affociation, has made conge"nial? So I think. But my friend, we must pronounce that "fubftance to be ponderous, depreffive, and earthy, which fuch "a foul draws with it: and therefore it is burthened by fuch a "clog, and again is dragged off to fome vifible place, for fear of "that which is hidden and unfeen; and, as they report, retires "to tombs and fepulchres, among which the fhadowy phantafms "of these brutal fouls, being loaded with somewhat vifible, have "often actually appeared. Probably, O Socrates. And it is "equally probable, O Cebes, that these are the fouls of wicked, not Imbodies, and imbrutes, till fhe quite lofe Such are those thick and gloomy fhadows damp, 471 "virtuous men, which are forced to wander amidst burial-places, 468. Imbodies, and imbrutes.] Thus alfo Satan fpeaks of the debasement and corruption of its original divine effence, PAR. L. B. ix. 165. mixt with bestial flime, This effence to incarnate and imbrute, That to the hight of Deitie afpir'd. Our author, with thefe Platonic refinements in his head, fuppofes that the human foul was for a long time embodied and imbruted with the carnal ceremonies of popery, juft as the is fenfualifed and degraded by a participation of the vicious habits of the body. OF REFORMATION, &C. PROSE-WORKS, vol. i. 1. Imbrute or embrute, occurs in G. Fletcher, p. 38. I believed it to be Milton's coinage. WARTON. G. Fletcher's expreffion is applied to the "fwilling rout," transformed by Circe from men into beafts. CHRIST'S VICT. P. ii. ft. 46. This their imbruted fouls esteem'd their wealth, To crown the boufing can from day to night. EDITOR. v. 469. The divine property of her firft being.] Hor. SAT. ii. ii. 79. Atque adfligit humo divine particulam auræ. EDITOR. v. 473. As loath to leave the body that it lov'd.] See Sir Kenelme Digby's OBSERVATIONS on Religio Medici. 4th edit. p. 327. "Souls that go out of their Bodies with affection to those ob.. "jects they leave behind them, (which ufually is as long as they 66 can relish them) do retain still, even in their feparation, a byas “and a languishing towards them: which is the reason, why L To a degenerate and degraded ftate. Sec. Br. How charming is divine Philofophy And a perpetual feaft of nectar'd fweets, Where no crude furfeit reigns. El. Br. 475 479 Lift, lift, I hear Some far off hallow break the filent air. "fuch terrene Souls appeare ofteneft in cæmeteries and charnel"houfes." See alfo Dr. Henry More's IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL, B.ii. Ch. xvi. And compare Homer IL. P. 856. Ψυχὴ δ ̓ ἐκ ξεθέων πλαμένη εϊδοςδε βεβήκει, Ὃν πότμον γοόωσα, λιπᾶσ ̓ ἀνδροτῆτα καὶ ἥβην. And Taffo GIER. LIB. C. ix. 33. Dal giovinetto corpo ufcì divifa Con gran contrasto l'Alma, e lasciò mesta v. 376. How charming is divine Philofophy!] This is an immediate reference to the foregoing fpeech, in which the divine Philofophy of PLATO concerning the nature and condition of the human foul after death, is fo largely and fo nobly displayed. The speaker adds, Not harsh and crabbed, as dull fools fuppofe; And a perpetual feast of nectar'd fweets. Much the fame fentiments appear in the TRACTATE ON EDUCATION. "I fhall not detain you longer in the demonstration of "what we should not do; but strait conduct you to a hill-fide, "where I will point ye out the right path of a vertuous and noble "education, laborious indeed at the first afcent, but also so fmooth, "fo green, fo full of goodly profpect and melodious founds, that "the harp of Orpheus was not more charming." p. 101. ed. 1675. And fee PAR. REG. B. i. 478. &c. WARTON. v. · 478. But mufical as is Apollo's lute.] Perhaps from Love's LABOUR LOST, as Mr. Bowle fuggefts, A. iv. S. iii. as fweet and mufical As bright Apollo's lute ftrung with his hair. WARTON. v. 479. And a perpetual feast of nectar'd fweets.] Petrarca, SoN. 160. P. i. Pafco la mente d' un sì nobil cibo, Ch' ambrofia, e nettar non invidio a Giove. EDITOR. v. 480. Where no crude furfeit reigns.] As in P. L. B. v. 638. quaff immortality and joy, fecure Of furfeit. WARTON. Sec. B. Methought fo too; what should it be? El. B. I'll hallow: [Enter the Attendant Spirit, habited like a shepherd.] That hallow I fhould know, what are you? speak; Come not too near, you fall on iron ftakes elfe, 491 Spir. What voice is that? my young Lord? speak agen. Sec. B. O Brother, 'tis my father's fhepherd, fure. 66 v. 483,-night-founder' d.] So, in PARAD. LOST, B. i. 204. Night-founder'd fkiff." Where Bentley, who perhaps had fcarcely feen our Mafk, would read nigh-founder'd. WARTON. v. 494. Thyrfis? Whofe artful strains, &c.] A compliment to Lawes, who perfonated the Spirit. We have juft fuch another above, v. 86. But this, being spoken by another, comes with better grace and propriety; or, to ufe doctor Newton's pertinent expreflion, is more genteel. The Spirit appears habited like a fhepherd; and the poet has here caught a fit of rhyming from Fletcher's paftoral comedy. Milton's eagerness to praise his friend Lawes, makes hint here forget the circumftances of the fable: he is more intent on the mufician than the fhepherd, who comes at a critical feason, and whofe affiftance in the prefent difficulty fhould have haftily been afked. But time is loft in a needlefs encomium, and in idle enquiries how the fhepherd could poffibly find out this folitary part of the foreft. The youth, however, feems to be ashamed or unwilling to tell the unlucky accident that had befallen his Sifter. Perhaps the real boyism of the Brother, which yet fhould have been forgotten by the poet, is to be taken into the account. WARTON, Jonfon's SAD SHEPHERD, another Paftoral Drama, exhibits also an intermixture of heroic rhymes and blank verfe. And the |