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Milton and Marston

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 December 2021

S. Foster Damon
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Extract

A possible source for the opening lines of L'Allegro, apparently unnoted hitherto, is to be found in the opening lines of the last satire in John Marston's Scourge of Villanie:

      Sleep grim Reproofe, my iocond Muse doth sing
      In other keyes, to nimbler fingering.
      Dull sprighted Melancholy, leaue my braine
      To hell Cimerian night, in liuely vaine
      I striue to paint, then hence all darke intent
      And sullen frownes, come sporting meriment,
      Cheeke dimpling laughter, crowne my very soule
      With iouisance, whilst mirthfull iests controule
      The goutie humours of these pride-swolne dayes,
      Which I doe long vntill my pen displaies.
      0 I am great with mirth, some midwifrie,
      Or I shall breake my sides at vanitie.
      Roome for a capering mouth, whose lips nere stur,
      But in discoursing of the gracefull slur:
      Who euer heard spruce skipping Curio
      Ere prate of ought, but of the whirle on toe

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 42 , Issue 4 , December 1927 , pp. 873 - 874
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1927

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References

1 At least, unnoted by Masson, J. W. Good (Studies in the Milton Tradition, 1913), E. N. S. Thompson (Topical Bibliography, 1916), and J. N. Hanford (A Milton Handbook, 1926).

2 Numbered X in both editions of 1598 and 1599; numbered XI in most modern editions, because in the 1599 volume an unnumbered Satyra Nova was inserted between Satires IX and X.

3 Bodley Head Quartos XIII, 1925, p. 105.

4 Did. Nat. Biog., art. “Marston,” Vol. XII, p. 1142.