ight_, l. 301.

373. ~Virtue could see~, etc. The best commentary on this line is in lines
381-5: comp. Spenser: "Virtue gives herself light through darkness for
to wade," _F. Q._ i. 1. 12.

375. ~flat sea~: comp. _Lyc._ 98, "level brine": Lat. _aequor_, a flat
surface, used of the sea.

376. ~seeks to~, applies herself to. This use of seek is common in the
English Bible: see _Deut._ xii. 5, "_unto_ his habitation shall ye
_seek_"; _Isaiah_, viii. 19, xi. 10, xix. 3; i. _Kings_, x. 24.

377. ~her best nurse, Contemplation~. The wise man loves contemplation and
solitude: comp. _Il Penseroso_, 51, where "the Cherub Contemplation" is
the "first and chiefest" of Melancholy's companions. In Sidney's
_Arcadia_, "Solitariness" is "the nurse of these contemplations."

378. ~plumes~. Some would read _prunes_, both words being used of a bird's
smoothing or trimming its feathers--or (more strictly) picking out
damaged feathers. See Skeat's _Dictionary_, and compare Pope's line,
"Where Contemplation _prunes_ her ruffled wings."

379. ~various~, varied: comp. l. 22. The 'bustle of resort' is in
_L'Allegro_ the 'busy hum of men.'

380. ~all to-ruffled~. Milton wrote "all to ruffled," which may be
interpreted in various ways: (1) all to-ruffled, (2) all too ruffled,
(3) all-to ruffled. The first of these is given in the text as it is
etymologically correct: _to_ is an intensive prefix as in 'to-break' =
to break in pieces; 'to-tear' = to tear asunder, etc.; while _all_ (=
quite) is simply an adverb modifying _to-ruffled_. But about 1500 A.D.
this idiom was misunderstood, and the prefix _to_ was detached from the
verb and either read along with _all_ (thus all-to = altogether), or
confused with _too_ (thus all-to = too too, decidedly too). It is
doubtful in which sense Milton used the phrase; like Shakespeare, he may
have disregarded its origin. See Morris, Sec. 324; Abbott, Sec.Sec. 28, 436.

381. ~He that has light~, etc. Comp. _Par. Lost_, i. 254: 'The mind is
its own place,' etc.

382. ~centre~, _i.e._ centre of the earth: comp. _Par. Lost_ i. 686, "Men
also ... Ransacked the _centre_"; and _Hymn Nat._ 162, "The aged Earth
... Shall from the surface to the _centre_ shake." Sometimes the word
'centre' was used of the Earth itself, the _fixed_ centre of the whole
universe according to the Ptolemaic system. The idea here conveyed,
however, is not that of immovability (as in _Par. Reg._ iv. 534, "as a
_centre_ firm") but of u