His ministers of vengeance and pursuit

Back to the gates of heaven: the sulphurous hail,
Shot after us in storm, o'erblown hath laid
The fiery surge, that from the precipice

Of heaven received us falling; and the thunder,
Wing'd with red lightning and impetuous rage
Perhaps hath spent his shafts, and ceases now
To bellow through the vast and boundless deep 2.
Let us not slip the occasion, whether scorn
Or satiate fury yield it from our foe.
Seest thou yon dreary plain forlorn and wild,
The seat of desolation, void of light,
Save what the glimmering of these livid flames
Casts pale and dreadful? thither let us tend
From off the tossing of these fiery waves;
There rest, if any rest can harbour there;
And, reassembling our afflicted powers,
Consult how we may henceforth most offend
Our enemy; our own loss how repair;
How overcome this dire calamity;
What reinforcement we may gain from hope;
If not, what resolution, from despair a.

Thus Satan, talking to his nearest mate,
With head uplift above the wave, and eyes
That sparkling blazed; his other parts besides
Prone on the flood, extended long and large,
Lay floating many a rood; in bulk as huge
As whom the fables name of monstrous size,
Titanian, or Earth-born, that warr'd on Jove",
Briareos, or Typhon, whom the den

By ancient Tarsus held; or that sea-beast
Leviathan, which God of all his works
Created hugest that swim the ocean stream:

Him, haply, slumbering on the Norway foam,

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.

To bellow through the vast and boundless deep.

A truly magnificent line.

a 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.

b 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.

The pilot of some small night-founder'd skiff,
Deeming some island, oft, as seamen tell,
With fixed anchor in his scaly rind

Moors by his side under the lee, while night
Invests the sea, and wished morn delays.

So stretch'd out huge in length the arch-fiend lay,
Chain'd on the burning lake; nor ever thence
Had risen or heaved his head, but that the will e
And high permission of all-ruling Heaven
Left him at large to his own dark designs;
That with reiterated crimes he might
Heap on himself damnation, while he sought
Evil to others; and enraged might see
How all his malice served but to bring forth
Infinite goodness, grace, and mercy shown
On man by him seduced: but on himself
Treble confusion, wrath, and vengeance pour'd.
Forthwith upright he rears from off the pool
His mighty stature; on each hand the flames,
Driven backward, slope their pointing spires, and, roll'd

The pilot of some small night-foundered skiff.

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Some little boat, whose pilot dares not proceed in his course for fear of the dark night: a metaphor taken from a foundered horse that can go no farther; or nightfoundered, in danger of sinking at night, from the term, foundering at sea. I prefer the former, as being Milton's aim.-HUME.

Surely Hume is wrong; the whole of his imagery is beautiful.

d Invests the sea.

A phrase often used by 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 KvavóπETλos is given to the night by Museus. Statius has a similar expression to that of Milton, Theb. v. 15:

-ingenti tellurem proximus umbra

This is a material part of the poem; and the management of it is admirable. The poet has nowhere 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.

f 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 there are many instances in this achievement parallel to those in the adventure of the Black Castle, and the Enchanted Fountain :

Therewith resolved to prove her utmost might,

Her ample shield she threw before her face,
And her sword's point directing forward right

Assayl'd the flame; the which eftesoones gave place,

In billows, leave in the midst a horrid vale.
Then with expanded wings he steers his flight
Aloft, incumbent on the dusky air

That felt unusual weight 8, till on dry land
He lights; if it were land, that ever burn'd
With solid, as the lake with liquid fire;
And such appear'd in hue, as when the force
Of subterranean wind transports a hill
Torn from Pelorus h, or the shatter'd side
Of thundering Etna, whose combustible
And fuel'd entrails thence conceiving fire,
Sublimed with mineral fury, aid the winds,
And leave a singed bottom all involved

With stench and smoke: such resting found the sole
Of unblest feet. Him follow'd his next mate;

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Both glorying to have 'scaped the Stygian flood,

As gods, and by their own recover'd strength,
Not by the sufferance of supernal Power.

Is this the region, this the soil, the clime,

Said then the lost archangel, this the seat,

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That we must change for heaven? this mournful gloom
For that celestial light? Be it so, since he,
Who now is Sovran, can dispose and bid

245

What shall be right: farthest from him is best,

Whom reason hath equal'd, force hath made supreme
Above his equals. Farewell, happy fields,
Where joy for ever dwells i! Hail, horrours; hail,
Infernal world! and thou, profoundest hell,

And did itselfe divide with equall space,

That through she passed; as a thonder-bolt
Perceth the yielding ayre, &c.

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Milton, who tempered and exalted the extravagance of romance with the dignity of Homer, has here given us a noble image, which, like Spenser's, seems to have had its foundation in some description which he had met with in books of chivalry.-T. WARTON. g Incumbent on the dusky air

That felt unusual weight.

This conceit of the air's feeling unusual weight is borrowed from Spenser's description of the old dragon, Faer. Qu. 1. xi. 18:

The superiority of Milton in nerve and compression is striking. Spenser breaks his descriptions into too many parts, by which he distracts his pictures; and I must advocate the dignity of blank verse over the diffuseness of Spenser's stanza.

Here again Milton brings in his learned allusions and illustrations: the picture is highly poetical and sublime.

i Farewell, happy fields,

Where joy for ever dwells.

The pathos in this passage is exquisite.

Receive thy new possessour; one who brings
A mind not to be changed by place or time.
The mind is its own place, and in itself
Can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven.
What matter where, if I be still the same,
And what I should be; all but less than he
Whom thunder hath made greater? Here at least
We shall be free; the Almighty hath not built
Here for his envy; will not drive us hence:
Here we may reign secure; and in my choice
To reign is worth ambition, though in hell:
Better to reign in hell than serve in heaven.
But wherefore let we then our faithful friends,
The associates and copartners of our loss,
Lie thus astonish'd on the oblivious pool;
And call them not to share with us their part
In this unhappy mansion; or once more
With rallied arms to try what may be yet
Regain'd in heaven, or what more lost in hell?

So Satan spake, and him Beëlzebub
Thus answer'd: Leader of those armies bright,
Which but the Omnipotent none could have foil'd,
If once they hear that voice, their liveliest pledge
Of hope in fears and dangers, heard so oft
In worst extremes, and on the perilous edge
Of battel when it raged, in all assaults
Their surest signal, they will soon resume
New courage, and revive, though now they lie
Groveling and prostrate on yon lake of fire,
As we erewhile, astounded and amazed :

No wonder, fallen such a pernicious highth.

He scarce had ceased, when the superior fiend

Was moving toward the shore; his ponderous shield,
Ethereal temper, massy, large, and round,
Behind him cast; the broad circumference

Hung on his shoulders, like the moon, whose orb

The mind is its own place, &c.

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285

These are some of the extravagances of the Stoics, and could not be better ridiculed than they are here, by being put in the mouth of Satan in his present situation.-THYER. Shakspeare says in Hamlet,

There is nothing either good or bad, but
Thinking makes it so.

Better to reign in hell than serve in heaven.

Dr. Newton observes that this answer to Mercury in Eschylus. "Locusts," 1627, p. 37.

TODD.

line is a very fine improvement upon Prometheus's Prom. Vinct. 965, 967. Compare also P. Fletcher's

The broad circumference

Hung on his shoulders, like the moon.

See the shield of Radegund. Faer. Qu. v. v. 3. Here Milton shines in all his majestic splendour: his mighty imagination almost excels itself. There is indescribable magic in this picture.

Through optic glass the Tuscan artist views
At evening, from the top of Fesolé,
Or in Valdarno m, to descry new lands,
Rivers or mountains in her spotty globe.
His spear, to equal which the tallest pine,
Hewn on Norwegian hills" to be the mast
Of some great ammiral, were but a wand,
He walk'd with to support uneasy steps
Over the burning marle; not like those steps
On heaven's azure: and the torrid clime
Smote on him sore besides, vaulted with fire.
Nathless he so endured, till on the beach
Of that inflamed sea he stood, and call'd
His legions, angel forms, who lay intranced,
Thick as autumnal leaves that strow the brooks
In Vallombrosa, where the Etrurian shades
High overarch'd imbower; or scatter'd sedge
Afloat, when with fierce winds Orion arm'd P

Hath vex'd the Red-sea coast 9, whose waves o'erthrew

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There is a spell sometimes even in the poet's selection of proper names: their very sound has a charm.

Norwegian hills.

The hills of Norway, barren and rocky, but abounding in vast woods, from whence are brought masts of the largest size. -HUME.

The annotators leave unnoticed the marvellous grandeur of this description, while they babble on petty technicalities. The "walking over the burning marle" is astonishing and tremendous.

• Thick as autumnal leaves.

Here we see the impression of scenery made upon Milton's mind in his youth, when he was at Florence. This is a favourite passage with all readers of descriptive poetry. The account of Vallombrosa may be found in the volumes of numerous travellers.

P With fierce winds Orion arm'd.

Orion is a constellation represented in the figure of an armed man, and supposed to be attended with stormy weather:-" Assurgens fluctu nimbosus Orion." Virg. En. i. 539.-NEWTON.

Here the poet again introduces his learned historical allusions with a magnificent picture.

Hath vex'd the Red-sea coast.

The Red-sea abounds so much with sedge, that in the Hebrew Scriptures it is called the "Sedgy Sea." And Milton says "Hath vex'd the Red-sea coast," particularly because the wind usually drives the sedge in great quantities towards the shore.-NEWTON.

Busiris.

Pharaoh is called by some writers Busiris.

• Perfidious hatred.

Because Pharaoh, after leave given to the Israelites to depart, followed after them as fugitives.-HUME.

From the safe shore.

Much has been said of the long similitudes of Homer, Virgil, and Milton, wherein they fetch a compass, as it were, to draw in new images, besides those in which the