fore us, is his being the first that awakens out of the general trance, with his posture on the burning lake, his rising from it, and the description of his shield and spear: to which we may add his call to the fallen angels, that lay plunged and stupefied in the sea of fire. Amidst those impieties which this enraged spirit utters in other places of this poem, the author has taken care to introduce none that is not big with absurdity, and incapable of shocking a religious reader; his words, as the poet himself describes them, bearing only 66 a semblance of worth, not substance." He is also with great art described as owning his adversary to be Almighty. Whatever perverse interpretation he puts on the justice, mercy, and other attributes of the Supreme Being, he frequently confesses his omnipotence; that being the perfection he was forced to allow him, and the only consideration which could support his pride under the shame of his defeat.-ADDISON. 19 Ver. 82. And thence in heaven call'd Satan. For the word Satan, in Hebrew, signifies an enemy: he is THE ENEMY by way of eminence, the chief enemy of God and man.-NEWTON. 20 Ver. 105. All is not lost. What though the field be lost? This passage is an excellent improvement upon Satan's speech to the infernal spirits in Tasso, c. iv. st. 15; but seems to be expressed from Fairfax's translation, rather than from the original We lost the field, yet lost we not our heart. NEWTON. 21 Ver. 116. Since, by fate, the strength of gods. For Satan supposes the angels to subsist by fate and necessity; and he represents them of an empyreal, that is, a fiery sub stance, as the Scripture itself does, Psalm civ. 4:-" He maketh his angels spirits, and his ministers a flame of fire." -NEWTON. " Ver. 126. Vaunting aloud. This speech is remarkable for brevity and energy of expression, and justness of the thought, arising from the nature of the foregoing speech, and Satan's present misery.-CALLAN der. 23 Ver. 141. Though all our glory extinct. As a flame put out and extinguished for ever. This word is very properly applied to their irrecoverable loss of that angelic beauty which accompanied them when in a state of innocence. The Latins have used the word 'extinctus' in the same metaphorical sense. Thus Virgil, Æn. iv. 322 :— te propter eundem Extinctus pudor, et, qua sola sidera adibam, Fama prior. CALLANDER. To be weak is miserable, 24 Ver. 157. Doing or suffering. Satan having in his speech boasted that the "strength of gods could not fail," v. 116, and Beelzebub having said, v. 146, "If God has left us this our strength entire, to suffer pain strongly, or to do him mightier service as his thralls, what then can our strength avail us?" Satan here replies very properly, whether we are to suffer or to work, yet still it is some comfort to have our strength undiminished for it is a miserable thing, says he, to be weak and without strength, whether we are doing or suffering. This is the sense of the place; and this is farther confirmed by what Belial says, b. ii. 199: To suffer, as to do, : Our strength is equal. PEARCE 25 Ver. 169. But see, the angry Victor hath recall'd. Dr. Bentley has really made a very material objection to this and some other passages of the poem, wherein the good angels are represented as pursuing the rebel host with fire and thunderbolts down through Chaos, even to the gates of hell, as being contrary to the account which the angel Raphael gives to Adam in the sixth book; and it is certain that there the good angels are ordered to "stand still only and behold,” and the Messiah alone expels them out of heaven; and after he has expelled them, and hell has closed upon them, b. vi. 880: Sole victor from the expulsion of his foes, To meet him all his saints, who silent stood These accounts are plainly contrary the one to the other; but the author does not therefore contradict himself, nor is one part of his scheme inconsistent with another for it should be considered who are the persons that give these different accounts. In book vi. the angel Raphael is the speaker, and therefore his account may be depended upon as the genuine and exact truth of the matter: but in the other passages Satan himself, or some of his angels, are the speakers; and they were too proud and obstinate ever to acknowledge the Messiah for their conqueror: as their rebellion was raised on his account, they would never own his superiority; they would rather ascribe their defeat to the whole host of heaven than to him alone; or, if they did indeed imagine their pursuers to be so many in number, their fears multiplied them, and it serves admirably to express how much they were terrified and confounded. In book vii. 830, the noise of his chariot is compared to "the sound of a numerous host;" and perhaps they might think that a numerous host were really pursuing. In one place, indeed, we have Chaos speaking thus, b. ii. 996 :— and heaven gates Pour'd out by millions her victorious bands But what a condition was Chaos in during the fall of the rebel angels! See b. vi. 871 : Nine days they fell; confounded Chaos roar'd And felt tenfold confusion in their fall Through his wild anarchy; so huge a rout Incumber'd him with ruin. We must suppose him therefore to speak according to his own fruitful and disturbed imagination; he might conceive that so much Ruin upon ruin, rout on rout, could not all be effected by a single hand: and what a sublime idea must it give us of the terrors of the Messiah, that he alone should be as formidable as if the whole host of heaven were pursuing! So that the seeming contradiction, upon examination, proves rather a beauty than any blemish to the poem.-NEWTON. 26 Ver. 177. To bellow through the vast and boundless deep. A truly magnificent line. 27 Ver. 191. If not, what resolution from despair. The sentiment in this verse may be referred to Seneca's Medea, ver. 163:-"Qui nihil potest sperare, nihil desperet."DUNSTER. 28 Ver. 198. Titanian, or Earth-born, that warr'd on Jove. Here Milton commences that train of learned allusions, which was among his peculiarities, and which he always makes poetical by some picturesque epithet, or simile. 29 Ver. 204. The pilot of some small_night-founder'd` skiff. Some little boat, whose pilot dares not proceed in his course for fear of the dark night: a metaphor taken from a VOL. II. D foundered horse that can go no farther; or night-foundered, in danger of sinking at night, from the term, foundering at I prefer the former, as being Milton's aim.-HUME. Surely Hume is wrong: the whole of this imagery is beautiful. sea. 30 Ver. 208. Invests the sea. A phrase often used by the poets, who call darkness the mantle of the night, with which he invests the earth. Milton, in another place, has another such beautiful figure, and truly poetical, when speaking of the moon, b. iv. 609 :— And o'er the dark her silver mantle threw. And in another place, b. ix. 52:— Night's hemisphere had veil'd the horizon round. Thus the epithet кvavóπemλos is given to the night by Musæus. Statius has a similar expression to that of Milton, Theb. v. 51: ingenti tellurem proximus umbra Vestit Athos, &c. CALLANDER. 31 Ver. 211. But that the will. This is a material part of the poem ; and the management of it is admirable. The poet has no where shown his judgment more, than in the reasons assigned, on account of which we find this rebel released from his adamantine chains, and at liberty to become the great, though bad agent of the poem. We may also notice the finely plain but majestic language in which these reasons are assigned.-Dunster. 32 Ver. 222. On each hand the flames, Driven backward, &c. See the achievement of Britomart in Spenser, Faer. Qu. III. xi. 25. The circumstance of the fire, mixed with a most noisome smoke, which prevents her from entering into the house of Busyrane, is, I think, an obstacle which we meet with in The Seven Champions of Christendom.' And |