which the Countess may have seen nearly thirty years before at her paternal Althorpe. A Satyr there, gazing on the Queen and the young Prince, says :

"That is Cyparissus' face,

And the dame hath Syrinx' grace :

O that Pan were now in place!"

As Cyparissus here was young Prince Henry, and Syrinx Queen Ann, the Pan whose absence was regretted must have been King James.

ADDITIONAL NOTE:-The original draft of Arcades in Milton's own hand in the Cambridge volume of Milton MSS. (see Vol. I. pp. 102—107) shows that the text did not stand at first exactly as now, but sustained some corrections, either at the moment of composition, or at all events before it went to press in 1645. Todd (IV. 22, edit. 1852) has given a list of these little changes, calling them "Original Various Readings of Arcades." That, however, is hardly a fair name to give them. By "various readings" we usually mean those varieties of the text which are presented by different manuscripts or different printed copies of the same piece, and from among which we have to do our best to find out the correct readings, -viz. those that the author intended. But here there is no such doubt, and no such liberty. Milton printed his text, as he wished it to stand, in 1645, and reprinted it in 1673; and we have no more right to amend that text now by referring to the earlier manuscript draft than we should have to substitute parts of the rough draft of a legal document for the corresponding parts of the later and authenticated copy, or to change the wording of a letter by bringing back into it expressions which the writer erased, but which we can still read under the lines or blots of erasure. Still, out of curiosity respecting Milton's habits of composition, it is interesting to note differences between his first wording of a piece and the text as finally approved by his taste. In the present case they are but few, and of small consequence. The most important are these :—

I, 2. Milton had originally started Song I. in a different metre, thus (our present spelling substituted for that of the MS.) ::

"Look, Nymphs and Shepherds, look! here ends our quest,
Since at last our eyes are blest."

These two lines, however, he instantly dashes out with a cross line, to begin afresh as now.

10-14. These four lines were originally written thus (present spelling) :

"Now seems guilty of abuse

And detraction from her praise:

Less than half she hath expressed;
Envy bid her hide the rest."

"her hide" is erased and "conceal" written over the erasure; the rest of the correction into our present form being made by marginal substitution.

23. Originally as now, "Juno dares not give her odds"; but "Juno" erased, "Ceres" substituted, and then "Ceres" erased, so as to let back "Juno."

4I.

"What shallow-searching": a substitution for "Those virtues which dull" expunged.

59. The first form of this line was "And number all my and every sprout."

ranks

62. "locked up mortal sense": substitution for "chained mortality" erased.

66

Slighter corrections are these:-18. "sitting" substituted for "seated"; 24. "had" for "would have"; 44. "am" for "have"; With" for " 'In"; 49. and" for "6 or"; 50. "boughs" for "leaves"; 52. "Or " for "And"; 81. "ye" for "you"; 91. "you" for "ye."

47.

AT A SOLEMN MUSIC.

2. "Sphere-born." In Comus (241) Echo is called "Daughter of the Sphere."-See also note to lines 125-132 of Ode on the Nativity.

6. "concent," from the Latin concentus, "singing together," or harmony. In the First Edition it was printed "content.”

7-16. "sapphire-coloured throne," etc. Ezek. i. 26; Rev. v. 11,

and vi. 9.

20. "nature's chime." Warton quotes the exact phrase from Ben Jonson.

23. "perfect diapason": perfect in First Edition, but "perfet" in Second. Diapason (literally "through all") is, in music, "the octave or interval which includes all the notes of the scale."

27. "Consort": the word is so spelt in both Milton's own editions, and not "concert" as in some modern ones.

in Latin, means "society."

Consortium,

Various Readings from the Cambridge MS. Drafts :—There are several drafts of this piece in Milton's own hand in the Cambridge MS. volume (see Vol. I. p. 105); and they form an interesting example of Milton's habits of composition and care in correcting. From Todd's examination of these drafts (Todd, edit. of 1852, Vol. IV. pp. 280-1) it appears, in the first place, that the piece as it now stands does not contain several passages of the original sketch, these having been rejected by Milton's taste in revision. Thus, between lines 4 and 5 in our present copy there came in the first draft these four lines (printed here in our present spelling) :

"And, whilst your equal raptures, temper'd sweet,

In high mysterious spousal meet,

Snatch us from earth a while,

Us of ourselves and native woes beguile."

Again, after our present line 16, "Singing everlastingly," there came in the first draft this couplet, now omitted—

"While all the starry rounds and arches blue

Resound and echo Hallelu."

Farther, after our present line 18 the first draft ran as follows, three lines now omitted standing instead of the present seven between 18 and 26

:

But, besides these positive omissions or recasts of whole passages, a scrutiny of the drafts in comparison with each other and with our present printed copy brings to light many minute variations. Thus native in the last line of the first of the now omitted passages is a substitution in the original draft itself for home-bred. For whilst in the first line of the same passage the second draft substitutes as; and in the second line the second draft has the additional adjective holy before "spousal," this word holy being again deleted and happy substituted in the margin. So, in the second draft, the first two lines of the third of the now omitted passages are altered thus

The following is an indication of the chief differences of the original phrasing in the lines as they are now printed, and of the successive verbal changes through which the present text of these lines was arrived at:

"Mix your choice words, and happiest sounds employ ;"

now,

“Wed your divine sounds and mixed power employ." Line 10 originally princely, then tripled, now burning.

originally,

Line II

Line 14

now,

High-lifted, loud, and angel trumpets blow ;”

Their loud uplifted angel-trumpets blow."

"And Cherubim, sweet-winged squires ;"

"And the Cherubic host in thousand quires." originally the blooming, now victorious.

Line 15 originally sacred, now holy.

"To live and sing with Him in ever-endless light."

Subsequent successive variations

"To live and sing with Him in ever-glorious light;"

"To live and sing with Him in uneclipsèd light;"

"To live and sing with Him where Day dwells without Night;"

"To live and sing with Him in endless morn of light;"

"To live and sing with Him in cloudless birth of light;"

"To live and sing with Him in never-parting light;"

and now, finally,

"To live with Him, and sing in endless morn of light."

ON TIME.

3. "Whose speed is but the heavy plummet's pace": i.e. the slow rate of descent of the leaden weights in a clock. The lines, as the draft of them among the Cambridge MSS. shows, were written "to be set on a clock-case." Compare Shakespeare in Sonnet LXXVII.

"Thou by thy dial's shady stealth mayst know
Time's thievish progress to eternity."

12. “individual": meaning here "indivisible," never to be separated. See Par. Lost, IV. 486, VII. 382, and XII. 85, with

notes.

18. "happy-making sight": "the plain English," says Newton, "of Beatific Vision."

21. "Attired with stars." Either "clothed with stars," or, as Mr. Keightley suggests, "crowned with stars." He produces instances of "attire" meaning head-dress.

UPON THE CIRCUMCISION.

I-5. "Ye flaming Powers," etc. From the wording of these first lines of the piece, one may imagine it to have been written on some 1st of January, that being Circumcision Day in the Church Calendar. The " The "flaming Powers" are the Seraphim (which name in Hebrew implies "burning"); the "wingèd Warriors" may be the Cherubim. Gabriel is styled the "wingèd warrior," Par. Lost, IV. 576. Todd quotes from Tasso the very phrase "wingèd warriors ("guerrieri alati ").

6-9. "if your fiery essence can distil no tear, burn in your sighs," etc. i.e. "if it is impossible for your Angelic constitutions, formed as they are of fire, to yield tears, yet, by burning as you sigh, you may borrow the water of our tears, turned into vapour.'

IO. "Heaven's heraldry": i.e. the heraldic pomp of Heaven."whilere" a little while ago.

15, 16. “O more exceeding love," etc. This begins the second stanza of the piece; which consists of two stanzas of fourteen lines each, of exactly the same construction. The stanzas are not separated in the original editions. In the opening of the second stanza, as Richardson pointed out, there seems to be a recollection of two lines in Virgil's Eighth Eclogue (49, 50):

"Crudelis mater magis, an puer improbus ille?

Improbus ille puer : crudelis tu quoque mater!"

COMUS.

1-4. "Before the starry threshold," etc.

Mr. Browne compares

the passage in the Latin poem to Mansus, 94-98, and refers to John xiv. 2.

3. "insphered." 63-73.

See notes, Penseroso, 88, 89, and Arcades,

4. "serene." Mr. Keightley thinks the word has to be pronounced here with the accent on the first syllable; which I doubt.