him in the first book, ver. 650, et seq. upon which project Beelzebub grounds his proposal in the present book, ver. 344, &c.-ADDISON. 20 Ver. 410. The happy isle. The earth hanging in the sea of air. So Cicero calls the earth, De Nat. Deor. ii. 66:"Quasi magnam quandam insulam, quam nos orbem terræ vocamus."-NEWTON. 21 Ver. 439. Of unessential Night. Unessential, void of being; darkness approaching nearest to, and being the best resemblance of, non-entity.-HUMe. 22 Ver. 445. But I should ill become this throne. The whole speech, from this line, is wonderfully beautiful in every respect. But the reason why I have quoted it, is, to show how the poet supports Satan's Monarchal pride, conscious of highest worth, as he expresses it. In the line But I should ill become this throne, O Peers, I have no doubt but he had in view the speech of Sarpedon in Homer; in which indeed the thought is Homer's, "That a king, being most honoured, should likewise expose himself most to danger." But Milton has given it so much of the rhetorical cast, and dressed it so up with sentences and enthymemas, after the manner of Demosthenes, who, as I have said elsewhere, was his model for speeches, that Homer is hardly to be found in it.-MONBODDO. 23 Ver. 476. Their rising all at once. The rising of this great assembly is described in a very sublime and poetical manner.-ADDISON. 24 Ver. 482. Neither do the spirits damn'd Lose all their virtue. This seems to have been a sarcasm on the bad men of Milton's time. 25 Ver. 489. While the north wind sleeps. A simile of perfect beauty: it illustrates the delightful feeling resulting from the contrast of the stormy debate with the light that seems subsequently to break in upon the assembly. 26 Ver. 497. Men only disagree. This has allusion to the contentious age in which Milton lived and wrote.-THYER. Ver. 508. Midst came their mighty paramount. Here Satan's pre-eminence is described with a mighty splendour. 26 Ver. 528. Part on the plain. The diversions of the fallen angels, with the particular account of their place of habitation, are described with great pregnancy of thought and copiousness of invention. The diversions are every way suitable to beings who had nothing left them but strength and knowledge misapplied. Such are their contentions at the race, and in feats of arms, with their entertainments at v. 539, &c. Their music is employed in celebrating their own criminal exploits; and their discourse, in sounding the unfathomable depths of fate, free will, and foreknowledge.-ADDISON. 29 Ver. 534. To battel in the clouds. Another image of sublime poetry. Armies rush 30 Ver. 554. Suspended hell. The effect of their singing is somewhat like that of Orpheus in hell, Virg. Georg. iv. 481.-NEWTON. 31 Ver. 556. For eloquence the soul. Here is the preference given to intellect above the pleasures of the senses. 32 Ver. 559. Foreknowledge, will, and fate. The turn of the words here is admirable, and very well expresses the wanderings and mazes of their discourse: and the turn of the words is greatly improved, and rendered still more beautiful, by the addition of an epithet to each of them.— NEWTON. 33 Ver. 574. Of four infernal rivers. Along the banks The several circumstances in the description of hell are finely imagined; as the four rivers which disgorge themselves into the sea of fire, the extremes of cold and heat, and the river of oblivion. The monstrous animals, produced in that infernal world, are represented by a single line, which gives us a more horrid idea of them than a much longer description would have done :— worse Than fables yet have feign'd, or fear conceived. This episode of the fallen spirits, and their place of habitation, comes in very happily to unbend the mind of the reader from its attention to the debate. An ordinary poet would indeed have spun out so many circumstances to a great length, and by that means have weakened, instead of illustrated, the principal fable.-ADDISON. 34 Ver. 595. Burns frore. See Ecclus. xlii. 20, 21: "When the cold north-wind bloweth, it devoureth the mountains, and burneth the wilderness, and consumeth the grass as fire.”—Newton. 35 Ver. 608. In sweet forgetfulness. This is a fine allegory, to show that there is no forgetfulness in hell. Memory makes a part of the punishment of the damned, and the reflection but increases their misery.-NEWTON. 36 Ver. 621. Rocks, caves, &c. Milton's are the Rocks, caves, lakes, fens, bogs, dens, and shades of death: and the idea, caused by a word, which nothing but a word could annex to the others, raises a very great degree of the sublime; which is raised yet higher by what follows, a UNIVERSE OF DEATH.-. .-BURKE. 37 Ver. 631. Toward the gates of hell. The flight of Satan to the gates of hell is finely imagined.-ADDISON. 38 Ver. 636. As when far off at sea. Satan, 66 towering high," is here compared to a fleet of Indiamen discovered at a distance, as it were "hanging in the clouds," as a fleet at a distance seems to do. This is the whole of the comparison; but, as Dr. Pearce observes, Milton in his similitudes, (as is the practice of Homer and Virgil too) after he has shown the common resemblance, often takes the liberty of wandering into some unresembling circumstances; which have no other relation to the comparison than that it gave him the hint, and as it were set fire to the train of his imagination.-NEWTON. 39 Ver. 647. Impaled with circling fire. Perhaps Milton might take the hint of this circumstance from his favourite romances, where we frequently meet with the gates of enchanted castles thus impaled with circling fire.-THYER. 40 Ver. 648. Before the gates there sat. Here begins the famous allegory of Milton, which is a sort of paraphrase on St. James, i. 15:-" Then, when Lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth Sin; and Sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth Death." The first part of the allegory says only, that Satan's intended voyage was dangerous to his being, and that he resolved however to venture.-RICHARDSON. 41 Ver. 664. Lured with the smell of infant blood. Here is a mixture of classical and demonological learning. Compare Æschylus, Eumenid.' 246. ed. Schütz.; and Wierus, 'De Lamiis,' 4to. 1582, coll. 240, 241.—Todd. 42 Ver. 665. The labouring moon. The ancients believed the moon greatly affected by magical practices; and the Latin poets call the eclipses of the moon labores luna. The three foregoing lines, and the former part of this, contain a short account of what was once believed, and in Milton's time not so ridiculous as now.-RICHARDSON. 43 Ver. 666. The other shape. See Spenser, F. Q. VII. vii. 46.-THYER. 44 Ver. 678. Created thing. God and his Son except, The commentators try in vain to justify this ungrammatical expression. 45 Ver. 681. Whence, and what art thou? Milton has interwoven in the texture of his fable some particulars which do not seem to have probability enough for an epic poem ; particularly in the actions which he ascribes to Sin and Death, and the picture which he draws of the Limbo of Vanity, with other passages in the second book. Such allegories rather savour of the spirit of Spenser and Ariosto, than of Homer and Virgil. It is, however, a very finished piece of its kind, when it is not considered as a part of an epic poem. The genealogy of the several persons is contrived with great delicacy: Sin is the daughter of Satan, and Death the offspring of Sin: the incestuous mixture between Sin and Death produces those monsters and hell-hounds, which from time to time enter into their mother, and tear the bowels of her who gave them birth: these are the terrors of an evil conscience, and the proper fruits of Sin, which naturally rise from the apprehensions of death. This last beautiful moral is, I think, clearly intimated in the speech of Sin, where, complaining of this her dreadful issue, she adds :— Before mine eyes in opposition sits Grim Death, my son and foe; who sets them on, |