Divine instructer, I have heard, than when To be both will and deed created free; Sad task and hard; for how shall I relate And perfect while they stood? how last unfold 550 555 560 565 The ruin of so many, glorious once The secrets of another world, perhaps Not lawful to reveal? yet for thy good 570 This is dispensed; and what surmounts the reach Of human sense, I shall delineate so, By likening spiritual to corporal forms, As may express them best; though what if earth As yet this world was not, and Chaos wild Reign'd where these heavens now roll, where earth now rests ■ Raphael. 575 Raphael's behaviour is every way suitable to the dignity of his nature, and to that character of a sociable spirit with which the author has so judiciously introduced him. He had received instructions to converse with Adam, as one friend converses with another, and to warn him of the enemy who was contriving his destruction. Accordingly, he is represented as sitting down at table with Adam, and eating of the fruits of Paradise. The occasion naturally leads him to his discourse on the food of angels. After having thus entered into conversation with man upon more indifferent subjects, he warns him of his obedience, and makes a natural transition to the history of that fallen angel who was engaged in the circumvention of our first parents.-ADDISON. • Though what if earth, &c. In order to make Adam comprehend these things, the angel tells him that he "must liken spiritual to corporal forms," and questions whether there is not a greater similitude and resemblance between things in heaven and things on earth than is generally imagined; which is suggested very artfully; as it is, indeed, the best apology that could be made for those bold figures which Milton has employed, and especially in his descriptions of the battles of the angels. To the same purpose, says Mede, Discourse x.: "If the visible things of God may be learned, as St. Paul says, from the creation of the world, why may not the invisible and intelligible world be learned from the fabric of the visible? the one (it may be) being the pattern of the other."-NEWTON. (For time, though in eternity, applied 580 To motion, measures all things durable By present, past, and future) on such day As heaven's great year brings forth, the empyreal host Of angels, by imperial summons call'd, Innumerable before the Almighty's throne 585 Forthwith, from all the ends of heaven, appear'd Under their hierarchs in orders bright: 590 Of hierarchies, of orders, and degrees; Holy memorials, acts of zeal and love 595 600 My only Son, and on this holy hill 605 United, as one individual soul, 610 For ever happy: him who disobeys, 615 P As heaven's great year. Our poet seems to have had Plato's great year in his thoughts. 5 and 12.-HUME. See also Virgil, Ecl. iv. Plato's great year of the heavens is the revolution of all the spheres. Everything returns to where it set out when their motion first began. See Auson. Idyl. xviii. 15. A proper time for the declaration of the vicegerency of the Son of God. Milton has the same thought for the birth of the angels, v. 861, imagining such kind of revolutions long before the angels or the world were in being. So far back into eternity did the vast mind of this poet carry him.-RICHARDSON. 9 The empyreal host. See Job i. 6, and 1 Kings xxii. 19. NEWTON: and Dan. vii. 10. TODD. Hear my decree. We observe before, that Milton was very cautious, what sentiments and language he ascribed to the Almighty, and generally confined himself to the phrases and expressions of Scripture; and in this particular speech the reader will easily remark how much of it is copied from Holy Writ, by comparing it with the following texts: Psalm ii. 6, 7; Gen. xxii. 16; Philip. ii. 10, 11. NEWTON. Also to Heb. i. 5. TODD. So spake the Omnipotent, and with his words 620 625 So smoothes her charming tones, that God's own ear 630 Desirous; all in circles as they stood, Fruit of delicious vines, the growth of heaven. Of surfeit, where full measure only bounds With copious hand, rejoicing in their joy. Now when ambrosial night with clouds exhaled 635 640 645 Wide over all the plain, and wider far Than all this globous earth in plain outspread, 650 Celestial tabernacles, where they slept Fann'd with cool winds; save those, who, in their course, 655 Melodious hymns about the sovran throne So the Psalmist, Psalm cxxi. 4:-"He that keepeth Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep." The author had likewise Homer in mind, II. ii. 1. NEWTON. t By living streams. Rev. vii. 17:-"The Lamb shall lead unto living fountains of water."-TODD. In favour, and pre-eminence, yet fraught Deep malice thence conceiving and disdain, Sleep'st thou, companion dear? what sleep can close Thy eyelids? and remember'st what decree Of all those myriads which we lead the chief; The quarters of the north. 605 670 675 680 685 See Sannazarius, de Partu Virginis, iii. 40. There are other passages in the same poem of which Milton has made use.-JORTIN. Some have thought that Milton intended, but I dare say he was above intending here, a reflection upon Scotland; though being himself an independent, he had no great affection for the Scotch presbyterians. He had the authority, we see, of Sannazarius for fixing Satan's rebellion in "the quarters of the north;" and he had much better authority, the same that Sannazarius had, -that of the prophet, whose words, though applied to the king of Babylon, yet alluded to this rebellion of Satan, Isaiah xiv. 12:"How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God; I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation in the sides of the north." St. Austin says, that the devil and his angels, being averse from the light and fervour of charity, grew torpid as it were with an icy hardness; and are therefore, by a figure, placed in the north. See his Epist. cxi. sect. 55. And Shakspeare called Satan "the monarch of the north," 1 Hen. VI. a. v., s. 3. I have seen too a Latin poem by Odoricus Valmerana, printed at Vienna in 1627, and entitled "Dæmonomachiæ, sive de Bello Intelligentiarum super Divini Verbi Incarnatione." This poem is longer than the Iliad, for it consists of five-and-twenty books, but it equals the Iliad in nothing but in length, for the poetry is very indifferent: however, in some particulars the plan of this poem is very like "Paradise Lost." It opens with the exaltation of the Son of God; and thereupon Lucifer revolts, and draws a third part of the angels after him into the quarters of the north: Pars tertia lævam, Hoc duce persequitur, gelidoque, aquilone locatur. It is more probable that Milton had seen this poem, than some others from which he is charged with borrowing largely. He was indeed a universal scholar, and read all Fit entertainment to receive our King, 690 Bad influence into the unwary breast 695 700 705 710 715 sorts of authors, and took hints from the moderns as well as the ancients. He was a great genius, but a great genius formed by reading; and, as it was said of Virgil, he collected gold out of the dung of other authors.--NEWTON. The commentators have not observed that there is still another poem, which Milton seems to have copied, "L'Angelida di Erasmo di Valvasone," printed at Venice in 1590, describing the battle of the angels against Lucifer. I beg leave to add that Milton seems also to have attended to a poem of Tasso, not much noticed, on the Creation, "Le Sette Giornate del Mondo Creato," in 1607.-J. WARTON. This poem of Tasso is in blank verse: the measure, therefore, as well as the subject, would particularly interest Milton. There is another poem, still less noticed, into which also Milton might have looked, "Della Creatione del Mondo, Poema Sacro, del Signor Gasparo Murtola, Giorni sette, Canti sedici," printed at Venice in 1608: the printer of which informs the reader that this work had been expected by the learned with much impatience.-TODD. ▼ His countenance, as the morning-star. This similitude is not so new as poetical. Virgil, in like manner, compares the beautiful young Pallas to the morning-star, Æn. viii. 589, &c. But there is a much greater propriety in Milton's comparing Satan to the morning-star, as he is often spoken of under the name of Lucifer, as well as denominated Lucifer, son of the morning. -NEWTON. w The third part of heaven's host. See Rev. xii. 3, 4.-NEWTON. * The golden lamps. Alluding to the lamps before the throne of God, which St. John saw in his vision, Rev. iv. 5:-"And there were seven lamps of fire burning before the throne." -NEWTON. y Sons of morn. See Isaiah xiv. 12. - TODD. |