Among these beings Milton's defcription of PHONOS, or Murder, whom he couples with PRODOTES, or Treason, is remarkably beautiful. Ipfi etiam pavidi latitant penetralibus antri Et Phonos et Prodotes; nulloque fequente per antrum, But, I think it is equalled by Fletcher's figure of Phonos, in his forgotten poem, called the Purple Island. Laft of this rout the favage PHONOS went, Whom his dire mother nurft with human blood; And when more age and strength more fierceness lent, She taught him in a darke and defart wood, With force and guile poore paffengers to flay, And on their flesh his barking ftomach stay, And with their wretched blood his fiery thirst allay. Ten thousand Furies on his fteps awaited, Some fear'd his harden'd foul with Stygian brand, Which for revenge to heaven from earth did loudly roar *. * Cant. 7. ft. 69. 71. It It is obfervable, that this little poem of Milton, as containing a council, confpiracy, and expedition, of Satan, may be looked upon as an early prelufion of his genius, to the subject of the Paradife Loft. B. ii. c. vii. f. liii. The garden of Proferpina this hight, And in the midft thereof a filver feat, With a thick arbor goodly overdight, In which the often us'd from open heat Herfelfe to shroud, and pleasures to entreat. Next thereunto did growe a goodly tree, With branches broad diffpred and body great, Cloathed with leaves that none the wood mote fee, And loden all with fruit, as thick as it might be. liv, Their fruit was golden apples gliftring bright. This mythology is drawn from Claudian. Pluto confoles Proferpine with these promises. Nec mollia defunt Prata tibi: zephyris illic melioribus halant Hat Hæc tibi facra datur; fortunatumque tenebis The golden fruit, and a filver ftoole, are afterwards offered to the knight by Mammon, as objects of temptation. Thou fearfull foole, Why takeft not of that fame fruit of gold, Ne fitteft downe on that fame filver ftoole, To reft thy weary perfon in the fhadow coole? Ovid relates, that Proferpine would have been reftored to her mother Ceres, had she not been obferved by Afcalaphus to pluck a radiant apple from a tree which grew in her garden; the fame, I fuppofe, which Claudian speaks of in the verses juft quoted. Cereri certum eft educere natam: Non ita fata finunt ; quoniam jejunia virgo From these verses, Spenfer feems to have borrowed, and to have adapted to his prefent purpose, the notion that these golden apples were prohibited fruit. The filver ftoole is added from his own fancy, and is a New Circumftance of TEMPTATION. His own allegorifing * Rapt, Prof. 1. 2. v. 290. + Met. 1. 5. v. 533. invention invention has also feigned, that the plants which grew in the garden of Proferpine, were, Direful deadly blacke, both leaf and bloom, Fit to adorn the dead, and deck the dreary toomb. ft. 51. Whereas Claudian describes this garden as filled with flowers more beautiful than thofe of Enna. Nor is he less attentive to the antient fabulifts, where he tells us, that the tree of the Hefperides sprung from this of Proferpine; that these were thrown in the way of Hippomanes and Atalanta, ft. 54; and that those with which Acontius won Cydippe, and which Ate flung among the gods, were gathered from Proferpine's tree, ft. 55. He adds, that the branches of this tree overfpread the river Cocytus, in which Tantalus was plunged to the chin, and who was perpetually catching at it's fruit. Homer relates, that many trees of delicious fruit waved over the lake in which Tantalus was placed; but it does not appear from Homer, that Tantalus was fixed in Cocytus, but in fome lake peculiarly appropriated to his punishment. Ετα εν ΛΙΜΝΗ. Spenfer has alfo made another use of Cocytus; That the fhores of this river eternally refounded with the fhrieks fhrieks of damned ghosts, who were doomed to suffer an everlasting immerfion in it's loathfome waters. Cocytus, fays antient fable indeed, muft be paffed, before there is any poffibility of arriving at the infernal regions: but we are not taught, that it was a punishment allotted to any of the ghofts, to be thus plunged in it's waves; nor that this circumftance was the cause of the ceafelefs lamentations which echoed around it's banks. What Spenfer has invented, and added to antient tradition, concerning Cocytus, exhibits a fine image. He feigns, that when Sir Guyon came to this river, He clomb up to the bank, And looking downe, faw many damned wights That with their piteous cries, and yelling fhrights, B. ii. c. xii. f. xlvii. They in that place him GENIUS do call: That lives, pertaines in charge particular, |