With timely pride above the Aegyptian vale, His fattie waves doe fertile flime outwell, And overflow each plaine and lowly dale: But, when his later spring gins to avale, Huge heapes of mudd he leaves, wherin there breed .01 Ten thoufand kindes of creatures, partly male And partly femall, of his fruitful feed; Such ugly monstrous fhapes elfwhere may no man reed. XXII. The fame fo fore annoyed has the Knight, That, wel-nigh choked with the deadly ftinke, His forces faile, ne can no lenger fight. Whofe corage when the Feend perceivd to fhrinke, She poured forth out of her hellish finke Her fruitfull curfed fpawne of ferpents fmall, (Deformed monsters, fowle, and blacke as inke,) I Which swarming all about his legs did crall, And him encombred fore, but could not hurt. at all. XXI. 5. But, when his later spring gins to avale,] Spenfer corrected this verfe himself among the errata of the prefs. To avale is to abate, to fink down, Ital. avallare. Spenfer ufes Dante's expreffion, Infern. C. xxxiv. "Vengon di là, ove 'l Nilo s' avvalla." Here the meaning is, when the spring tide at the turn begins to lower and abate. UPTON. XXIII. As gentle fhepheard in fweete eventide, A cloud of cumbrous gnattes doe him moleft, wings He brusheth oft, and oft doth mar their mur murings. XXIV. Thus ill bestedd, and fearefull more of fhame Then of the certeine perill he ftood in, Halfe furious unto his foe he came, XXIII. 1. As gentle shepheard &c.] Vida in his art of poetry, Lib. ii. v. 282. allowes you to take your images from Imall and little things; he has no quarrel with you for comparing your heros to ants or bees; but gnats or flies offend him mightily. The truth is that both Vida and Scaliger wrongly thought to raife Virgil on the ruins of Homer. I think a fly or a gnat is as good in comparifon or illuftration as an ant: Our poet thinks fo, I am certain, and his fimile here is very picturefque. Compare this with that below in F. Q. ii. ix. 16, vi. i. 24, vi. xi. 48. See likewife Ariosto, Orl. Fur. xiv. ft. 109. Thefe fimilies are after the caft of Homer, Iliad B'. 469, '. 641. p. 570. Milton likewife had a better notion of these kind of comparisons than Vida. See Par. Reg. B. iv. 15. Thefe images from common life give variety to a poem, and a kind of relief to the reader, who is called off from the terrible and more glaring images. UPTON. Refolvd in minde all fuddenly to win, Or foone to lofe, before he once would lin; And ftroke at her with more then manly force, That from her body, full of filthie fin, He raft her hatefull heade without remorse: A ftreame of cole-black blood forth gushed from her corse. XXV. Her fcattred brood, foone as their parent deare They faw fo rudely falling to the ground, Groning full deadly all with troublous feare Gathred themselves about her body round, Weening their wonted entrance to have found At her wide mouth; but, being there withftood, They flocked all about her bleeding wound, And sucked up their dying mothers bloud; XXV. 5. Weening their wonted entrance to have found At her wide mouth;] See before, ft. 15. The circumftance, as Mr. Warton obferves, is not the poet's invention; it being reported of adders by many naturalifts. The painting of Milton, I fhould add, is fomewhat fimilar, where he describes the barking hell-hounds about the middle of Sin, as creeping, if aught difturbed their noife, into her womb, and kennelling there. The brood of Sin, are represented in an old publication, confifting of nine quarto plates without date, to each of which fix verfes are fubjoined, as numerous little Serpents creeping from the parent's belly; and the publication is entitled, The Ages of Sin, or Sinnes Birth and Groweth. Nor should I omit to mention that Bancroft, in his Second booke of Epigrammes, 1639, defcribes " Sinne, like a ferpent; bearing a fting behind." But Milton, as I have mentioned, in a note on Par. Loft, B. ii. 650, is indebted to P. Fletcher, rather than to Spenfer. Topp. Making her death their life, and eke her hurt their good. XXVI. That déteftable fight him much amazde, To fee th' unkindly impes, of heaven accurst, Now needeth him no lenger labour spend, His foes have flaine themselves, with whom he fhould contend. XXVII. His Lady feeing all, that chaunft, from farre, Who fee your vanquifht foes before you lye; XXVI. 1. That déteftable fight] The accent appears to have been usual on the first fyllable of detestable. See F. Q. ii. xii. 8, and délectable, ii. xii. 12. See alfo Shakspeare, Rom. and Jul. A. v. S. iii. "Thou déteftable maw, thou womb of death." And Epigrams and Satyrs, entitled The Maftive, 4to. Lond. 1615. Signat. G. 4. "Thus doth the dotard, dull and détestable, XXVI. 6. And bowels gushing forth:] Errour are a type of Judas, Acts i. 18. the midft, and all his bowels gufhed out." TODD. Thefe nurflings of "He burft afunder in UPTON. Well worthie be you of that armory, Wherein ye have great glory wonne this day, And proov'd your strength on a strong enimie; Your first adventure: Many fuch I And henceforth ever wish that like fucceed it may !" XXVIII. pray, Then mounted he upon his fteede againe, Ne ever would to any by-way bend; But ftill did follow one unto the end, The which at laft out of the wood them brought. So forward on his way (with God to frend) He paffed forth, and new adventure fought: Long way he traveiled, before he heard of ought. XXIX. At length they chaunst to meet upon XXVIII. 7. the way with God to frend] To befriend him. The fame kind of expreffion, as Mr. Upton obferves, the poet ufes, F. Q. iii. iii. 14. "Untill the hardie mayd with love to friend.” And thus Fairfax, Ta. B. vi. 102. Laftly the forward rode with love to guide." Shakspeare affords a paraphrafe, in a kindred expreffion, on the paffage before us, K. Hen. V. A. iii. S. viii. "My army's but a weak and fickly guard ; "Yet, God before, tell him we will come on." TODD. XXIX. 1. At length they chaunft to meet &c.] This circumstance of the Red-crofs Knight and Una meeting with Archimago difguifed like a hermit, who tells them a feigned |