If all these mighty fictions had really existed, they could have done no more for us! We shall only give one other passage from _Lycidas_; but we flatter ourselves that it will be a treat to our readers, if they are not already familiar with it. It is the passage which contains that exquisite description of the flowers: ‘Return, Alpheus; the dread voice is past That shrunk thy streams; return, Sicilian Muse, And call the vales, and bid them hither cast Their bells, and flow’rets of a thousand hues. Ye valleys low, where the mild whispers use Of shades and wanton winds and gushing brooks, On whose fresh lap the swart star sparely looks, Throw hither all your quaint enamell’d eyes, That on the green turf suck the honied showers, And purple all the ground with vernal flowers; Bring the rathe primrose that forsaken dies, The tufted crow-toe, and pale jessamine, The white pink, and the pansy freak’d with jet, The glowing violet, The musk-rose, and the well-attired woodbine, With cowslips wan, that hang the pensive head, And every flower that sad embroidery wears; Bid amaranthus all his beauty shed, And daffadillies fill their cups with tears, To strew the laureat hearse where Lycid lies. For so to interpose a little ease Let our frail thoughts dally with false surmise. Ay me! Whilst thee the shores and sounding seas Waft far away, where’er thy bones are hurl’d, Whether beyond the stormy Hebrides, Where thou perhaps under the whelming tide Visit’st the bottom of the monstrous world, Or whether thou, to our moist vows denied, Sleep’st by the fable of Bellerus old, Where the great vision of the guarded mount Looks towards Namancos and Bayona’s hold, Look homeward, Angel, now, and melt with ruth, And, O ye Dolphins, waft the hapless youth.’ Dr. Johnson is very much offended at the introduction of these Dolphins; and indeed, if he had had to guide them through the waves, he would have made much the same figure as his old friend Dr. Burney does, swimming in the _Thames_ with his wig on, with the water-nymphs, in the picture by Barry at the Adelphi. There is a description of flowers in the _Winter’s Tale_, which we shall give as a parallel to Milton’s. We shall leave it to the reader to decide which is the finest; for we dare not give the preference. _Perdita_ says, ——‘Here’s flowers for you, Hot lavender, mints, savoury, marjoram, The marygold, that goes to bed with the sun, And with him rises weeping; these are flowers Of middle summer, and I think, they’re given To men of middle age. Y’are welcome.