Lo! here the gentle lark, weary of rest,
From his moist cabinet mounts up on high,

And wakes the morning, from whose silver breast
The Sun ariseth in his majesty;

Who doth the world so gloriously behold,

That cedar-tops and hills seem burnish'd gold2.

Venus salutes him with this fair good-morrow:
O thou clear god3, and patron of all light,

From whom each lamp and shining star doth borrow

The beauteous influence that makes him bright, There lives a son, that suck'd an earthly mother, May lend thee light, as thou dost lend to other.

This said, she hasteth to a myrtle grove,

5

Musing the morning is so much o'er-worn;

2 That cedar-tops and hills seem burnish'd gold.] So, in his 33d Sonnet:

"Full many a glorious morning have I seen

"Flatter the mountain-tops with sovereign eye;

Kissing with golden face the meadows green;

Gilding pale streams with heavenly alchymy." MALONE. 3 O thou clear god, &c.] Perhaps Mr. Rowe had read the lines that compose this stanza, before he wrote the following, with which the first act of his Ambitious Stepmother concludes:

"Our glorious sun, the source of light and heat,
"Whose influence chears the world he did create,
"Shall smile on thee from his meridian skies,
"And own the kindred beauties of thine eyes;
"Thine eyes, which, could his own fair beams decay,
Might shine for him, and bless the world with day."
STEEVENS.

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4 There lives a son, that suck'd an earthly mother, May lend thee light,] So, in Romeo and Juliet:

"Would through the airy region stream so bright,
"That birds would sing, and think it were not night."

MALONE.

5 MUSING] In ancient language, is wondering. See vol. xi.

p. 170, n. 4. MALONE.

And yet she hears no tidings of her love:
She hearkens for his hounds, and for his horn:
Anon she hears them chaunt it lustily,
And all in haste she coasteth to the cry *.

And as she runs, the bushes in the way
Some catch her by the neck, some kiss her face,
Some twin'd about her thigh to make her stay;
She wildly breaketh from their strict embrace,
Like a milch doe, whose swelling dugs do ake,
Hasting to feed her fawn' hid in some brake.

By this she hears the hounds are at a bay,
Whereat she starts like one that spies an adder
Wreath'd up in fatal folds, just in his way,

The fear whereof doth make him shake and shudder;
Even so the timorous yelping of the hounds
Appals her senses, and her spright confounds.

For now she knows it is no gentle chase,
But the blunt boar, rough bear, or lion proud,
Because the cry remaineth in one place,
Where fearfully the dogs exclaim aloud:
Finding their enemy to be so curst,

They all strain court'sy who shall cope him first.

This dismal cry rings sadly in her ear,
Through which it enters to surprise her heart;

6

she COASTETH to the cry.] i. e. she advanceth. So, in Troilus and Cressida :

"O these encounterers, so glib of tongue,

"That give a coasting welcome, ere it come!" MALONE. 7 Like a milch DOE, whose swelling dugs do ake,

Hasting to FEED HER FAWN-] So, in As You Like It:

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While, like a doe, I go to find my fawn,

"And give it food." STEEVENS.

Who, overcome by doubt and bloodless fear,
With cold-pale weakness numbs each feeling part:
Like soldiers, when their captain once doth yield,
They basely fly, and dare not stay the field.

Thus stands she in a trembling ecstacy';
Till, cheering up her senses sore-dismay'd',
She tells them, 'tis a causeless fantasy,
And childish errour that they are afraid;

Bids them leave quaking, bids them fear no

more;

And with that word she spy'd the hunted boar ;

Whose frothy mouth, bepainted all with red,
Like milk and blood being mingled both together,
A second fear through all her sinews spread,
Which madly hurries her she knows not whither:
This way she runs, and now she will no further,
But back retires to rate the boar for murther.

A thousand spleens bear her a thousand ways;
She treads the path that she untreads again;
Her more than haste is mated with delays,
Like the proceedings of a drunken brain;

:

8 With COLD-PALE weakness] In our author's own edition of this piece, 1593, this compound adjective is marked, as here, by a hyphen which shews that the emendations, which have been made in his plays in similar instances, where, from the carelessness of printers, that mark is wanting, are well-founded. So valiant-wise, &c. MALONE.

9 Thus stands she in a trembling ECSTACY;] Ecstacy anciently signified any violent perturbation of mind. See vol. xi. p. 230, n. 5. MALone.

I

So, in the Comedy of Errors:

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Mark, how he trembleth in his ecstacy!" STEEVENS. SORE-dismay'd,] The original copy, 1593, reads, with less force-all dismay'd. The present reading, which is found in the 16mo. 1596, was doubtless the author's correction. MALONE. 2 Her more than haste is MATED with delays,] Is confounded VOL. XX.

F

Full of respect, yet nought at all respecting: In hand with all things, nought at all effecting".

Here kennel'd in a brake she finds a hound,
And asks the weary caitiff for his master;
And there another licking of his wound,
'Gainst venom'd sores the only sovereign plaster;
And here she meets another sadly scowling,
To whom she speaks; and he replies with howling.

When he hath ceas'd' his ill-resounding noise,
Another flap-mouth'd mourner, black and grim,
Against the welkin vollies out his voice;
Another and another answer him;

Clapping their proud tails to the ground below.
Shaking their scratch'd ears, bleeding as they go.

Look, how the world's poor people are amaz'd
At apparitions, signs, and prodigies,

Whereon with fearful eyes they long have gaz'd,
Infusing them with dreadful prophecies;

So she at these sad sighs draws up her breath, And, sighing it again, exclaims on death.

or destroyed by delay. See vol. xi. p. 243, n. 5. The modern editions read marred. MALONE.

3 Full of RESPECT,] i. e. full of circumspection, and wise consideration. See a note in the Rape of Lucrece, st. 40, &c. on the words" Respect and reason wait on wrinkled age."-This is one of our author's nice observations. No one affects more wisdom than a drunken man. MALONE.

In hand with all things, nought at all effecting.] So, in Hamlet:

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like a man to double business bent,

"I stand in pause where I shall first begin,
"And both neglect." MALONE.

5 When he HATH ceas'd-] Thus the original copy 1593, and that of 1596. In the edition of 1600, for hath, had was substituted, and of course kept possession in all the subsequent editions.

MALONE.

Hard-favour'd tyrant, ugly, meagre, lean,
Hateful divorce of love, (thus chides she death,)
Grim-grinning ghost, earth's worm, what dost thou

mean,

To stifle beauty, and to steal his breath,

Who when he liv'd, his breath and beauty set
Gloss on the rose, smell to the violet?

If he be dead,-O no, it cannot be,
Seeing his beauty, thou should'st strike at it;-
O yes, it may; thou hast no eyes to see,
But hatefully at random dost thou hit.

Thy mark is feeble age; but thy false dart
Mistakes that aim, and cleaves an infant's heart.

Hadst thou but bid beware, then he had spoke,
And hearing him, thy power had lost his power,
The destinies will curse thee for this stroke;

6

They bid thee crop a weed, thou pluck'st a flower: Love's golden arrow at him should have fled, And not death's ebon dart, to strike him dead".

They BID thee-] Bid is here, as in many other places in our author's works, inaccurately used for bade. MALONE. 7 Love's golden arrow at him should have fled,

And not death's ebon dart, to strike him dead.] Our poet had probably in his thoughts the well-known fiction of Love and Death sojourning together in an Inn, and on going away in the morning, changing their arrows by mistake. See Whitney's Emblems, p. 132. MALONE.

Massinger, in his Virgin Martyr, alludes to the same fable:
Strange affection!

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66

Cupid once more hath changed his shafts with Death, "And kills instead of giving life -."

Mr. Gifford has illustrated this passage, by quoting one of the elegies of Joannes Secundus. The fiction is probably of Italian origin. Sanford, in his Garden of Pleasure, 1576, has ascribed it to Alciato, and has given that poet's verses, to which he has added a metrical translation of his own. Shirley has formed a masque upon this story-Cupid and Death, 1650. BoSWELL.