Page:The Works of Ben Jonson - Gifford - Volume 7.djvu/324

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Pleasure reconciled to Virtue.] From the second fol. If the scenery answered the poet's description, the opening of this Masque must have had a very striking effect. The entrance of Comus is picturesque and full of voluptuous gaiety. The commentators on Milton, after spending twenty or thirty pages in conjectures on the origin of Milton's Comus, without the slightest reference to Jonson, condescend, in the course of their subsequent annotations, to observe that "Jonson's Masque of Pleasure might, perhaps, afford some hint to Milton!" Perhaps it might: and so, I suspect, might some others: but enough on this head.