[85] 105 Delicate humour, delightfully united to thought, at once simple and subtle. It is full of conceit and paradox, but these are imaginative, not as with most of our Seventeenth Century poets, intellectual only.
[88] 110 Elizabeth of Bohemia: Daughter to James I, and ancestor of Sophia of Hanover. These lines are a fine specimen of gallant and courtly compliment.
[89] 111 Lady M. Ley was daughter to Sir J. Ley, afterwards Earl of Marlborough, who died March, 1629, coincidently with the dissolution of the third Parliament of Charles' reign. Hence Milton poetically compares his death to that of the Orator Isocrates of Athens, after Philip's victory in 328 B.C.
[93] 118 A masterpiece of humour, grace, and gentle feeling, all, with Herrick's unfailing art, kept precisely within the peculiar key which he chose,—or Nature for him,—in his Pastorals. L. 2 the god unshorn: Imberbis Apollo. St. 2 beads: prayers.
[96] 123 With better taste, and less diffuseness, Quarles might (one would think) have retained more of that high place which he held in popular estimate among his contemporaries.
[99] 127 From Prison: to which his active support of Charles I twice brought the high-spirited writer. L. 7 Gods: thus in the original; Lovelace, in his fanciful way, making here a mythological allusion. Birds, commonly substituted, is without authority. St. 3, l. 1 committed: to prison.
[100] 128 St. 2 l. 4 blue-god: Neptune.
[104] 133 Waly waly: an exclamation of sorrow, the root and the pronunciation of which are preserved in the word caterwaul. Brae, hillside: burn, brook: busk, adorn. Saint Anton's Well: below Arthur's Seat by Edinburgh. Cramasie, crimson.
[105] 134 This beautiful example of early simplicity is found in a Song-book of 1620.
[106] 135 burd, maiden.