where indeed {116} Milton, like Spenser in the bower of Acrasia, has lavished such wealth upon his sinner that he has hardly been able to give a due over-balance to his saint. Yet she is no lay figure, and one is not surprised that Comus should twice show his consciousness that she has within her some holy, some more than mortal power. Milton has given her a song of such astonishing music that one wonders whether the composer Lawes, for whom the whole was written, could touch it without injury-- "Sweet Echo, sweetest Nymph, that liv'st unseen Within thy airy shell By slow Meander's margent green, And in the violet-embroidered vale Where the love-lorn nightingale Nightly to thee her sad song mourneth well; Canst thou not tell me of a gentle pair That likest thy Narcissus are? O, if thou have Hid them in some flowery cave, Tell me but where, Sweet Queen of Parley, Daughter of the Sphere! So mayst thou be translated to the skies, And give resounding grace to all Heaven's harmonies." The lyrics were the chief beauty of the old masks, but the best of them sink into {117} insignificance before such a masterpiece of art as this. Perhaps nothing in a modern language comes nearer to giving the peculiar effect which is the glory of Pindar. Of course there is in it more of the fanciful, and more of the romantic, than there was in Pindar; and its style is tenderer, prettier and perhaps altogether smaller than his. But the elaborate and intricate perfection of its art and language, the way in which the intellect in it serves the imagination, is exactly Pindar. In any case it is certainly one of the most entirely beautiful of English lyrics. One listens with delight to the musician working out his intricately beautiful theme; or is it nearer the impression we get to say that we watch the skilful dancer executing his elaborate figure? In either case we await with sure confidence the triumphant close. The final couplet, by the way, and particularly the great Alexandrine, is a curious anticipation of Dryden's finest manner. But the rest is a music Dryden's ear never heard. No wonder Comus cries-- "Can any mortal mixture of earth's mould Breathe such divine enchanting ravishment? Sure something holy lodges in that breast, And with these raptures moves the vocal air To testify his hidden residence. {118} How sweetly did they float upon the wings Of silence, through the empty-vaulted night, At every fall smoothing the raven down Of darkness till it smiled!" The last lines show that Milton has not yet outgrown the Jacobean taste for conceits. So a little later on we find him writing that-- "Silence Was took ere she was ware, and wished she might Deny her nature, and be never more Still to be so displaced";