Seated as on the top of Virtue's hill," Or turn to reverent awe! for beauty stands In the admiration only of weak minds Led captive; cease to admire, and all her plumes At every sudden slighting quite abash'd.' Of worth, of honour, glory, and popular praise; And now I know he hungers, where no food Is to be found, in the wide wilderness : No advantage, and his strength as oft assay. One look from his majestick brow, Seated as on the top of Virtue's hill. 220 225 230 Here is the construction that we so often meet with in Milton: "from his majestick brow," that is, from the majestic brow of him seated as on the top of Virtue's hill: and the expression of "Virtue's hill," was probably in allusion to the rocky eminence on which the Virtues are placed in the Table of Cebes; or the arduous ascent up the hill, to which Virtue is represented pointing in the best designs of the Judgment of Hercules.-NEWTON. Milton's meaning here is best illustrated by a passage in Shakespeare, which most probably he had in his mind. Hamlet, in the scene with his mother, pointing to the picture of his father, says, See what a grace was sented on this brow! See See also "Love's Labour's Lost," a. iii. s. 4. "Greatness, nobleness, authority, and awe," says Bentley, "are by all Greek and Latin poets placed in the forehead." "Par. Lost," b. vii. 509. ix. 538. And Spenser's Belphoebe : Among Milton's early Latin Elegies, we find one, the seventh, of the amatory kind: but when he published his Latin poems, eighteen years afterwards, he thought it neces sary to add to it ten lines, apologizing for the puerile weakness, or rather vacancy, of his mind, that could admit such an impression.-DUNSTER. b Cease to admire, and all her plumes This is a very beautiful and apposite allusion to the peacock; speaking of which bird, Pliny notices the circumstance of its spreading its tail under a sense of admiration :"Gemmantes laudatus expandit colores, adverso maxime sole, quia sic fulgentius radiant.' Nat. Hist. 1. x. c. 20. Tasso compares Armida, in all the pride and vanity of her beauty and ornaments, to a peacock with its tail spread, cxvi. st. 24. But Milton had here in his mind Ovid, "De Arte Am." i. 627. Landatas ostentat avis Junonia pennas; Si tacitus spectes, illa recondit opes.-DUNSTER. He ceased, and heard their grant in loud acclaim; d Of spirits, likest to himself in guile, If cause were to unfold some active scene Of various persons, each to know his part; Now hungering first, and to himself thus said: c He ceased. 235 240 Our Lord (ver. 110) is, in a brief but appropriate description, again presented to us in the wilderness. The poet, in the mean time, makes Satan return to his infernal council, to report the bad success of his first attempt, and to demand their counsel and assistance in an enterprise of so much difficulty. This he does in a brief and energetic speech. Hence arises a debate; or at least a proposition on the part of Belial, and a rejection of it by Satan, of which I cannot sufficiently express my admiration. The language of Belial is exquisitely descriptive of the power of beauty; without a single word introduced, or even a thought conveyed, that is unbecoming its place in this divine poem. Satan's reply is eminently fine: his imputing to Belial, as the most dissolute of the fallen angels, the amours attributed by the poets and mythologists to the heathen gods; while it is replete with classic beauty, furnishes an excellent moral to those extravagant fictions; and his description of the little effect which the most powerful enticements can produce on the resolute mind of the virtuous, while it is heightened with many beautiful turns of language, is, in its general tenor, of the most superior and dignified kind. Indeed, all this part of his speech (from ver. 191 to ver. 225) seems to breathe such a sincere and deep sense of the charms of real goodness, that we almost forget who is the speaker: at least, we readily subscribe to what he had said of himself in the first book: After such sentiments so expressed, it might have been thought difficult for the poet to return to his subject, by making the arch-fiend resume his attempts against the Divine Person, the commanding majesty of whose invincible virtue he had just been describing with such seemingly heartfelt admiration. This is managed with much address, by Satan's proposing to adopt such modes of temptation as are apt to prevail most where the propensities are virtuous, and where the disposition is amiable and generous: and, by the immediate return of the tempter and his associates to the wilderness, the poem advances towards the heighth of its argument.-DUNSTER. d To him takes a chosen band Of spirits, likest to himself in guile. "Then goeth he and taketh with himself seven other spirits more wicked than himself," Matt. xii. 45.-DUNSTER. • Now hungering first. There seems, I think, to be a little inaccuracy in this place. It is plain, by the Scripture account, that our Saviour hungered before the devil first tempted him by proposing to him his making stones into bread, and Milton's own account in the first book is consistent with this: is there not therefore a seeming impropriety in saying that he "now first hungered;" especially, considering the time that must have necessarily elapsed during Satan's convening and consulting with his companions?-THYER. Milton comprises the principal action of the poem in four successive days. This is the second day, in which no positive temptation occurs; for Satan had left Jesus (as was said, ver. 116 of this book) "vacant," i. e. unassailed, that day. Previous to the tempter's appearing at all, it is said (b. i. 303) that our blessed Lord had "passed full forty days" in the wilderness. All that is here meant is that he was not hungry till the forty days were ended; and accordingly our Saviour himself presently says that, during the time, he human food Nor tasted, nor had appetite. As to the time necessary for convening the infernal council, there is the space of Where will this end? four times ten days I've pass'd It was the hour of night, when thus the Son Of trees thick interwoven ; there he slept, 245 250 255 200 twenty-four hours taken for the devil to go up to "the region of mid air," where his council was sitting, and where we are told he went "with speed;" (ver. 117 of this book) and for him to debate the matter with his council and return "with his chosen band of spirits:" for it was the commencement of night when he left our Saviour at the end of the first book; and it is now "the hour of night" (ver. 260), when he is returned. But it must also be considered that spiritual beings are not supposed to require, for their actions, the time necessary to human ones; otherwise we might proceed to calculate the time requisite for the descent of Michael, or Raphael, to Paradise, and criticise the "Paradise Lost" accordingly. But Raphael, in the eighth book of that poem, says to Adam, inquiring concerning celestial motions; The swiftness of those circles attribute, That to corporeal substances could add Speed almost spiritual: me thou think'st not slow, By numbers that have name. We are also expressly told by St. Luke, when the devil took our Lord up into a high mountain, that "he showed unto him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time," Luke iv. 5.-DUNSTER. Me hungering more to do my Father's will. In allusion to our Saviour's words, John iv. 34:-"My meat is to do the will of him that sent me, and to finish his work."-Newton. But with reference also to, "Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness," Matt. v. 6.-DUNSTER. Communed in silent walk, then laid him down. Agreeable to what we find in the Psalms, iv. 4:-" Commune with your own heart upon your bed, and be still."-NEWTON. And dream'd, as appetite is wont to dream, Of meats and drinks, nature's refreshment sweet: 2:45 Him thought, he by the brook of Cherith stood, Food to Elijah bringing, even and morn, Though ravenous, taught to abstain from what they brought: 270 Into the desert, and how there he slept The strength whereof sufficed him forty days: Thus wore out night; and now the herald lark 275 290 The morn's approach, and greet her with his song :i iHe by the brook of Cherith stood, &c. Alluding to the account of Elijah, 1 Kings xvii. 5, 6; and xix. 4. And Daniel's living upon pulse and water, rather than the portion of the king's meat and drink, is celebrated, Dan. i. So that as our dreams are often composed of the matter of our waking thoughts, our Saviour is with great propriety supposed to dream of sacred persons and subjects. Lucretius, iv. 960: Et quoi quisque fere studio devinctus adhæret, ¿ To descry The morn's approach, and greet her with his song. This is a beautiful thought, which modern wit hath added to the stock of antiquity. We may see it rising, though out of a low hint of Theocritus, like the bird from his "thatch'd pallat,” Idyll. x. 50. Chaucer leads the way to the English poets, in four of the finest lines in all his works, "Knight's Tale," 1493: The merry lark, messengere of the day, In the same manner, Spenser, "Faery Queen," 1. xi. 51: When Una did her mark Climb to her charet all with flowers spread, From heaven high to chase the cheerless dark; With merry notes her loud salutes the mounting lark.-CALTON. Thus, in "Comus," the early hour of morning is marked by the lark's rousing from his thatch'd pallat, ver. 315; and the lark, high-towering and greeting the morn with ter song, is thus beautifully described in P. Fletcher's "Purple Island," c. ix. st. 2:— The cheerful lark, mounting from early bed, With sweet salutes awakes the drowsy light: The earth she left, and up to heaven is filed: There chants her Maker's praises out of sight. See also Spenser's Astrophel. st. vi. : As summers lark, that with her song doth greete * From his grassy couch. So in "Paradise Lost," b. iv. 600: For beast and bird, Our Saviour, and found all was but a dream;1 0 1 And found all was but a dream. "Paradise Lost," b. v. 92. But O! how glad I waked, m If cottage were in view, sheep-cote, or herd; 285 290 This mode of repetition our poet is fond of, and has frequently used with singular effect. See "Comus," v. 221, &c. Thus also, in "Paradise Lost," b. iv. 640, a delightful description of morning, evening, and night is beautifully recapitulated.-DUNster. ■ Only in a bottom saw a pleasant grove, &c. The tempter here is the magician of the Italian poets. This "pleasant grove" is a magical creation in the desert, designed as a scene suited for the ensuing temptation of the banquet. Thus Tasso lays the scene of the sumptuous banquet, which Armida provides for her lovers, amidst High trees, sweet meadows, waters pure and good, FAIRFAX'S "Tasso," c. x. 63, 64. The whole of Milton's description here is very beautiful; and I rather wonder that the noble author of the "Anecdotes of Painting" did not subjoin it to his citations from the "Paradise Lost," in the "Observations on Modern Gardening." He there ascribes to our author the having foreseen, with "the prophetic eye of taste," our modern style of gardening. It may however be questioned, whether his idea of a garden was much, if at all, elevated above that of his contemporaries. In the "Comus," speaking of the gardens of the Hesperides, he describes "cedarn alleys," and "crisped shades and bowers;" and in his "Penseroso," "retired leisure" is made to please itself in "trim gardens." Mr. Warton, in a note on the latter passage, observes that Milton had changed his ideas of a garden when he wrote his "Paradise Lost:" but the Paradise which he there describes is not a garden, either ancient or modern: it is in fact a country in its natural, unornamented state; only rendered beautiful, and (which is more essential to happiness in a hot climate) at all times perfectly habitable, from its abundance of pleasingly-disposed shade and water, and its consequent verdure and fertility. From all such poetical delineations, as from Nature herself, the landscape-gardener may certainly enrich his fancy and cultivate his taste. The poet in the mean time contributes to the perfection of art, not by laying down rules for it, but by his exquisite descriptions of the more beautiful scenes of nature, which it is the office of art to imitate and to represent. One merit of our modern art of laying out ground, independent of the beauty of its scenery, is its being peculiarly adapted to the circumstances of our climate. A modern English pleasure-ground would not be considered as a Paradise on the sultry plains of Assyria, if it could be formed or exist there: accordingly, another mode of gardening has always prevailed in hot countries, which, though it would be the height of absurdity to adopt in our own island, may be well defended in its proper place by the best of all pleas, necessity. The reader may see this question fully discussed with great taste and judgment, by my learned friend Dr. Falconer, in his "Historical View of the Taste for Gardening and laying out grounds among the Nations of Antiquity."-DUNSTER. • Determined there To rest at noon. The custom of retiring to the shade and reposing, in hot countries, during the extreme heat of the day, is frequently alluded to by Milton, in his "Paradise Lost." See b. iv. 627; b. v. 230 and 300; and b. ix. 401.-DUNSTER. |