Notes on Milton's Nativity Ode. 317 



Lord General Fairfax, four years before Milton wrote this sonnet, 

 namel}', in 1644, saved many manuscripts from destruction at the 

 blowing- up of St. Mar3''s Tower ; he devoted his leisure chiefly to 

 literature, was a man of strong literar}' tastes, and bequeathed 

 twent3--eight valuable manuscripts to the Bodleian Library (DNB. 

 18. 146 fl^.). As Milton and he were contemporaries at Cambridge 

 (he was born in 1612), and as Milton again praises him in the Second 

 Defense [Prose Works, ed. Bohn, 1. 286—7), it is not at all improb- 

 able that Milton, though several years after the composition of the 

 Ode, ma}' have seen this manuscript. Cf. note on 6. 



In the Coventry Pageant (Marriott's English Miracle Plays, p. 66) 

 there are several allusions to the cold : 



And this nyght hit ys soo cold. 



Thatt in the wynturs nyght soo cold, 

 A chyld of meyden borne be he wold. 



In wentur ny the schortist dey. 



See also the beginning of the Towneley Secunda Pastorum (Hem- 

 ingway, English Nativity Plays: Yale Studies in English Nr. 38, 

 p. 188.) 



In the Lyra Germanica, Miss Winkworth has a translation from a 

 14th century poem, in which occur the lines : 



The Blessed Babe she bare us 

 In a cold, cold winter's night. 



In one of the songs printed by Professor Fliigel in Anglia (26. 260) 

 we read : 



On Cristmas nyght, whan it was cold, 

 Owr lady lay amonge bestes bolde. 



A possible warrant for Milton's assumption may be found, as I 

 have alread}' pointed out (' Two Notes on Milton,' in Mod. Lang. 

 Rev. for Jan., 1907: 2. 2. 121-4), in John Baptist Mantuan, Opera, 

 ed. 1513, 1. 70 a, b (with slight changes of capitals, punctuation, etc.) : 



Deciderant umbrae nemorum ; sine crinibus omnis 

 Arbor erat, nidosque avium monstrabat inanes. 

 Stabat apex Lydi gelida nive candidus Hemi, 

 Thaurus Hyperboreos albenti vertice flatus 

 Accipiens, hyemem Assyrias spargebat in urbes. 

 Maenalon et Rhodopen, Pholon, Erymanthon, et Ossam, 

 Idseas rupes Apoeninique cacumen 



