morning of the month of January, the poet quits the copfe and the bank, now destitute of verdure and flowers, and walks towards the fea-beach. The dawn of day is expreffed by a beautiful and brilliant metaphor.

By this, fair Titan with his lemis licht

Oer all the land had spred his banner bricht.

In his walk, mufing on the defolations of the winter, and the distance of spring, he meets Flora disguised in a sable robe ".

I met dame Flora in dule weid diffgyfit*,
Quhilk into May was dulce and delectabill,
With stalwart' ftorms hir sweitness war fupprist,
Her hevinlie hewis war turnid into fabill,
Quhilk umquihle war to luffaris amiabill.
Fled from the frost the tender flouris I faw
Under dame NATURIS mantill lurking law.

The birds are then reprefented, flocking round NATURE, complaining of the severity of the season, and calling for the genial warmth of fummer. The expoftulation of the lark with Aurora, the fun, and the months, is conceived and conducted in the true spirit of poetry.

"Allace, AURORE, the fyllie lark gan cry,

Quhare has thou left thy balmy liquour sweit,
"That us rejoyfit, mounting in the skye?
"Thy fylver dropps are turnit into fleit!
"O fair Phebus, where is thy holfum heit?

Quhair art thou, MAY, with JUNE thy fifter fchene, "Weill bordourit with dafyis of delyte?

"And gentill JULIE, with thy mantill grene
"Enamilit with rofis reid and quhyte i

The poet afcends the cliffs on the fea-fhore, and entering a cavern, high in the crags, fits down to register in rhyme fome mery mater of antiquitie. He compares the fluctuation of the fea with the inftability of human affairs; and at length, being comfortably fhrouded from the falling fleet by the closeness of his cavern, is lulled asleep by the whistling of the winds among the rocks, and the beating of the tide. He then has the following vifion.

He fees a lady of great beauty, and benignity of afpect; who fays, fhe comes to footh his melancholy by fhewing him fome new fpectacles. Her name is REMEMBRANCE. Inftantaneously she carries him into the center of the earth. Hell is here laid open'; which is filled with popes, cardinals, abbots, archbishops in their pontifical attire, and ecclefiaftics of every degree. In explaining the caufes of their punifhments, a long fatire on the clergy enfues. With thefe are joined bishop Caiphas, bishop Annas, the traitor Judas, Mahomet, Chorah, Dathan, and Abiram. Among the tyrants, or unjust kings, are Nero, Pharaoh, and Herod. Pontius Pilate is hung up by the heels. He fees alfo many ducheffes and counteffes, who fuffer for pride and adultery. She then gives the poet a view of purgatory".

It was a part of the old mundane fyf-
tem, that hell was placed in the centre of
the earth. So a fragment, cited by Hearne,
GLOSSARY Rob. Glouc. ii. 583.

Ryght fo is hell-pitt, as clerkes telles,
Amyde the erthe and no where elles.
So alfo an old French tract, LIMATGE DU
MONDE, or Image of the world, "Saches

que en la terre eft enfer, car enfer ne

pourrait eftre en fi noble lieu comme eft "l'air, &c." ch. viii.

See above, p. 197. feq. I have there mentioned a Vision of Hell, under the title of OWAYNE MILES. One Gilbertus Ludenfis, a monk fent by king Stephen into Ireland, where he founded a monaftery, with an Irish knight called OEN, wrote De OENI Vifione in Purgatorio. See Wendover, apud Mat. Paris, fub ann. 1153.

Reg.

A litle above that dolorous dungeon,
We enterit in ane countre full of cair;

Quhare that we faw mony one legioun

Gretand and grouland with mony ruthfull rair‘.
Quhat place is this, quod I, of blis fo bair?
Scho anfwerit and faid, Purgatorie,

Qhuilk purgis faulis or they cum to glorie*.

After fome theological reafonings on the abfurdity of this intermediate state, and having viewed the dungeon of unbaptized babes, and the limbus of the fouls of men who died before Chrift, which is placed in a vault above the region of torment, they reafcend through the bowels of the earth. In paffing, they furvey the fecret riches of the earth, mines of gold, filver, and precious ftones. They mount, through the ocean, which is fuppofed to environ the earth: then travel through the air, and next through the fire. Having passed the three elements, they bend towards heaven, but first vifit the feven planets'. They enter the fphere of the moon, who is elegantly styled,

Reg. Stephan. According to Ware, Gilbertus flourished in the year 1152. SCRIPTOR. HIBERN. p. 111. Among the manufcripts of Magdalene college in Oxford, are the VISIONES of Tundal, or Tungal, a knight of Ireland. "Cum anima mea "corpus exueret." MSS. Coll. Magd. 53. It is printed in Tinmouth's SANCTILOGIUM. And in the SPECULUM HISTORIALE of Vincentius Bellovacenfis, lib. xxvii. cap. 88. He is called Fundalus in a manufcript of this piece, Bibl. Bodl. NE. B. 3. 16. He lived in the year 1149. Ware, ut fupr. p. 55. I believe this piece is in the Cotton library, under the name of TUNDALE, MS. CALIG. A. 12. f. 17. See what is faid in Froiffart, of the vifions of a cave in Ireland, called faint Patrick's Purgatory. tom. ii. c. 200. Berners's Tranil. d Roar.

SIGNAT. D. iii.

The planetary fyftem was thus divided. i. The Primum Mobile, or first motion. ii. The cristalline heaven, in which were placed the fixed stars. iii. The twelve figns of the zodiac. iv. The fpheres or circles of the planets in this order: viz. Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Sol, Venus, Mercury, and laftly the moon, which they placed in the centre of univerfal nature. Again, they fuppofed the earth to be furrounded by three elementary spheres, fire, air, and water. Milton, in his Elegy on the DEATH OF A FAIR INFANT, makes a very poetical ufe of the notion of a primum mobile, where he fuppofes that the foul of the child hovers

Above that high FIRST MOVING

SPHERE,

Or in th' Elyfian fields, &c.

Sr. vi. v. 39. See PARAD. L. iii. 483.
Quene

Quene of the fea, and beautie of the nicht.

The fun is then defcribed, with great force.

Than paft we to the fpheir of Phebus bricht,
That lufty lamp and lanterne of the hevin;
And glader of the fterris with his licht;
And principal of all the planets fevin,
And fate in myddis of thame all full evin:
As roy royall rolling in his fphair

Full plefandlie into his goldin chair.

For to difcryve his diademe royall,
Bordourit about with ftonis fchyning bricht,

His goldin car, or throne imperiall,

The four ftedis that drawith it full richt, &c".

They now arrive at that part of heaven which is called the CHRYSTALLINE', and are admitted to the Empyreal, or heaven of heavens. Here they view the throne of God, furrounded by the nine orders of angels, finging with ineffable harmony. Next the throne is the Virgin Mary, the queen of

queens, "well cumpanyit with ladyis of delyte.". An exterior circle is formed by patriarchs, prophets, evangelists, apostles, conquerors in the three battles of the world, of the. flesh, and of the devil, martyrs, confeffors, and doctours in divinitie, under the command of faint Peter, who is reprefented as their lieutenant-general'.

Milton, who feigns the fame vifionary route with very different ideas, has these admirable verses, written in his nineteenth year, yet marked with that characteristical great manner, which distinguishes the poetry of his maturer age. He is addreffing his native language.

Yet I had rather, if I were to chufe,
Thy service in some graver subject use;

Such as may make thee search thy coffers round,
Before thou clothe my fancy in fit found:

GIER. LIB. xviii. 96. And Spenfer fpeaks of the angels finging in their TRINALL TRIPLICITIES. FAIR. QU. i. xii. 39. And again, in his Hymne of HEAVENLY LOVE. See alfo Sannazarius, Dɛ PART. VIRGIN. iii. 241. Milton perhaps is the laft poet who has used this popular theory. PARAD. L. V. 748. Regions they pafs'd, and mighty regencies Of Seraphim, and Potentates, and Thrones, In their TRIPLE DEGREES.

And it gives great dignity to his arrangement of the celestial army. See ibid. fupr. 583.

Th' empyreal hoft

Of angels, by imperial fummons call'd,
Innumerable before th' Almighty's throne,
Forthwith from all the ends of heaven ap-
pear'd,

Under their HEIRARCHIES in ORDERS

Stream in the air, and for distinction serve
Of HIEARCHIES, of ORDERS, and DE-

GREES.

Such fplendid and fublime imagery has
Milton's genius raised on the problems of
Thomas Aquinas! See alfo ibid. v. 600:
Hence a paffage in his Hymn on THE
MORNING OF CHRIST'S NATIVITY is to
be illuftrated. ST. xiii. v. 131.

And with your ninefold harmony
Make up full concert to the angelike fym-
phony.

That is, the fymphony of the nine ordersof angels was to be answered by the ninefold mufic of the fpheres. One Thomas Haywood, a moft voluminous dramatic poet in the reign of James the first, wrote a long poem with large notes on this fubject, called THE HIERARCHIE OF ANGELS, printed in folio, at London, 1635. See alfo Jonfon's ELEGIE ON MY MUSE, in the UNDERWOOD, p. 260. edit. fol. Lond. 1640.

Ibid.

Such