Ley was
daughter
to Sir J.
Golden Treasury
_Favonius_: the spring wind.
Poem 77.
_Themis_: the goddess of justice. Skinner was grandson by his mother to
Sir E. Coke;--hence, as pointed out by Mr. Keightley, Milton's allusion
to the _bench_.
_what the Swede intends, and what the French_: Sweden was then at war
with Poland, and France with the Spanish Netherlands.
Poem 79.
_Sydneian showers_: either in allusion to the conversations in the
"Arcadia," or to Sidney himself as a model of "gentleness" in spirit and
demeanour.
Poem 84.
_Elizabeth of Bohemia_: Daughter to James I. , and ancestor to Sophia of
Hanover. These lines are a fine specimen of gallant and courtly
compliment.
Poem 85.
Lady M.
Ley was daughter to Sir J. Ley, afterwards Earl of Marlborough,
who died March, 1628-9, coincidently with the dissolution of the third
Parliament of Charles's reign. Hence Milton poetically compares his
death to that of the Orator Isocrates of Athens, after Philip's victory
in 328 B. C.
Poems 92, 93.
These are quite a Painter's poems.
Poem 99.
_From Prison_: to which his active support of Charles I. twice brought
the high-spirited writer.
Poem 105.
Inserted in Book II. as written in the character of a Soldier of Fortune
in the Seventeenth Century.
Poem 106.
_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_: at the foot of Arthur's Seat
by Edinburgh.
