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B. i. c. vi. f. xiv.

Sylvanus is here introduced :

His weake steps governing,

And aged limbes on cypreffe ftadle ftout.

I do not remember that Sylvanus is any where described as infirm with old age. Neither would the young cypress tree which he carried in his hand, a fapling, or small plant torn up by the root, have ferved for this use. Virgil addreffes him ;

Teneram ab radice ferens, Sylvane, cupressum*.

B. i. c. vii. f. xvii.

The renowned fnake

Which great Alcides in Stremona flew,
Long-foftred in the filth of Lerna lake.

Hercules flew the hydra in the lake of Lerna, between Mycenae and Argos. Stremona is no where to be found, which he probably put for Strymon, a river of Macedonia, in the confines of Thrace. But to read Strymon here, would no more agree with the history than the metre.

B. ii. c. iv. f. xli.

Sonne of Erebus and Night.

Georg, i. v. 20.

Spenfer

Spenfer is just to mythology in representing Erebus and Night as married. In another place, this address

is made to Night.

Black Erebus thy husband is.

3. 4. 55.

In these lines of Milton,

Hence loathed Melancholy,

Of CERBERUS and blackest Midnight born,

Mr. Upton fubftitutes Erebus inftead of Cerberus. The alteration is ingenious; and to his defence of it he might have added, that Milton, in more than onę of his juvenile poems, has given us the true genealogy.

Nox fenis amplexus EREBI taciturna petivit*.

Again.

Non eft, ut arbitraris elufus mifer,
Mors atra Noctis filia,

EREBOVE patre creta f.

And in his Prolufions. "Cæterum nec defunt qui Ethera "et Diem itidem EREBO NOCTEM peperiffe tradunt 1." But after all, without infifting on the material circumftance of two editions of this poem being printed

* In Quintum Novemb.

+ In Obitum Præful. Eliens.

↑ An Nox utrum Dies, &c, Birch's Edit. vol. 2. pag. 585.

And

in the life-time, and under the inspection, of Milton, in both of which Cerberus is found, I an inclined to think, that he certainly wrote Cerberus. Full of the idea of the loathsomeness of Melancholy, he feems to have chosen two the most detestable parents for fo foul a demon, that his imagination could fuggeft. it is to be further observed, that he does not fay Midnight fimply, but blackeft midnight, an epithet by which he feelingly fignifies his abhorrence of the offspring of this infernal pair, and the propriety and confiftency of her being leagued with the monster CERBERUS.

But to return to Spenfer. -He is also exact in his mythology concerning Night, in the following verses.

O thou moft antient grandmother of old,

More old than Jove, whom thou at first didft breed.
I. 5. 22.

Thus Orpheus, in his Hymn to Night.

ΝΥΚΤΑ θεων γενέτειραν αεισομαι, ηδε καὶ άνδρων,
ΝΥΞ γενεσις παίων.

Noctem deorum genetriem cantabo atque hominum,
Nox genetrix omnium.

He afterwards fays of her:

Which waft begott in Demogorgon's hall.

That

That is, in Chaos, who is the parent of Night, according to Hefiod.

Ε« ΧΑΕΟΣ Δ' ΕΡΕΒΟΣΤΕ μελαινάλε Νυξ εγενοντο

A Chao autem Erebus atraque Nox gignebantur.

Spenfer makes Night the mother of Falfhood, according to Hefiod.

Of Falfefbood.

Though I the mother be

Νυξ όλου μελα την δ' ΑΠΑΤΗΝ τεκε †.

Nox perniciofa poft illam Fraudem peperit.

f. 27. inf.

Spenfer gives Night a chariot and horses, for which he has the authority of many antient poets. Without citing the particular paffages, which are frequent and obvious, I fhall take occafion to remark, that what Spenfer fays of the horses of Night, in all probability, tempted Milton's fancy to go further, and to give them names,

Thus Spenfer.

And cole-black fteeds yborne of hellish broode, That on their ruftie bits did champ as they were wood.

I. 5. 20.

Theog. 123.

† Ibid. 224.

L 2

And

And afterwards.

Her twyfold teme, of which two black as pitch,
And two were brown, yet each to each unlitch.

Milton's lines are these.

1. 5. 28.

Nox fenis amplexus Erebi taciturna reliquit,
Præcipitefque impellit Equos, ftimulante flagello:
Captum oculis Typhlonta, Melanchæ temque ferocem,
Atque Acherontao prognatam patre Siopem
Torpidam, et hirfutis borrentem Phrica capillis*.

It is at the fame time not less probable, that in defcribing thefe, he thought of the horfes of the Sun, which are named in Ovid; as are the horses of Pluto in Claudiant. Milton, in the fame poem, had an eye to another paffage in Spenser; who having defcibed the perfonages that fate by the highway leading to hell, adds this fine image.

And over them fad Horror with grim hewe,

Did alwaies fore, beating his iron wings. 2. 7. 2.

Milton, after mentioning fome of the fame allegorical beings, adds,

Exanguifque locum circumvolat HORROR 1.

* In Quint. Novemb. v. 151. Ibid. v. 148.

+ Rapt. Proferp. 1. 285.

Among

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