‘Brightest, if there be remaining Any service, without feigning I will do it; were I set To catch the nimble wind, or get Shadows gliding on the green.’ It would be a task no less difficult than this, to follow the flight of the poet’s Muse, or catch her fleeting graces, fluttering her golden wings, and singing in notes angelical of youth, of love, and joy! There is only one affected and ridiculous character in this drama, that of Thenot in love with Clorin. He is attached to her for her inviolable fidelity to her buried husband, and wishes her not to grant his suit, lest it should put an end to his passion. Thus he pleads to her against himself: ——‘If you yield, I die To all affection; ’tis that loyalty You tie unto this grave I so admire; And yet there’s something else I would desire, If you would hear me, but withal deny. Oh Pan, what an uncertain destiny Hangs over all my hopes! I will retire; For if I longer stay, this double fire Will lick my life up.’ This is paltry quibbling. It is spurious logic, not genuine feeling. A pedant may hang his affections on the point of a dilemma in this manner; but nature does not sophisticate; or when she does, it is to gain her ends, not to defeat them. The Sullen Shepherd turns out too dark a character in the end, and gives a shock to the gentle and pleasing sentiments inspired throughout. The resemblance of Comus to this poem is not so great as has been sometimes contended, nor are the particular allusions important or frequent. Whatever Milton copied, he made his own. In reading the Faithful Shepherdess, we find ourselves breathing the moonlight air under the cope of heaven, and wander by forest side or fountain, among fresh dews and flowers, following our vagrant fancies, or smit with the love of nature’s works. In reading Milton’s Comus, and most of his other works, we seem to be entering a lofty dome raised over our heads and ascending to the skies, and as if nature and every thing in it were but a temple and an image consecrated by the poet’s art to the worship of virtue and pure religion. The speech of Clorin, after she has been alarmed by the Satyr, is the only one of which Milton has made a free use.