[100.] Upland lawn. Cf. Milton, Lycidas, 25:
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"Ere the high lawns appear'd Under the opening eyelids of the morn." |
In L'Allegro, 92, we have "upland hamlets," where Hales thinks "upland=country, as opposed to town." He adds, "Gray in his Elegy seems to use the word loosely for 'on the higher ground;' perhaps he took it from Milton, without quite understanding in what sense Milton uses it." We doubt whether Hales understands Milton here. It is true that upland used to mean country, as uplanders meant countrymen, and uplandish countrified (see Nares and Wb.), but the other meaning is older than Milton (see Halliwell's Dict. of Archaic Words), and Johnson, Keightley, and others are probably right in considering "upland hamlets" an instance of it. Masson, in his recent edition of Milton (1875), explains the "upland hamlets" as "little villages among the slopes, away from the river-meadows and the hay-making."
[101.] As Mitford remarks, beech and stretch form an imperfect rhyme.
[102.] Luke quotes Spenser, Ruines of Rome, st. 28:
"Shewing her wreathed rootes and naked armes."
[103.] His listless length. Hales compares King Lear, i. 4: "If you will measure your lubber's length again, tarry." Cf. also Brittain's Ida (formerly ascribed to Spenser, but rejected by the best editors), iii. 2:
"Her goodly length stretcht on a lilly-bed."
[104.] Cf. Thomson, Spring, 644: "divided by a babbling brook;" and Horace, Od. iii. 13, 15: