Then when the dragon, put to second rout, He brings, and round about him, nor from hell By change of place: now conscience wakes despair Which now sat high in his meridian tower : 30 Then, much revolving, thus in sighs began:- d O thou, that, with surpassing glory crown'd, introduces his relation of Satan's adventures upon earth, by wishing that the same warning voice had been uttered now at Satan's first coming, which St. John, who in a vision saw the Apocalypse, or revelation of the most remarkable events which were to befal the Christian church to the end of the world, heard when the dragon was put to second rout, Rev. xii. 12. "Woe to the inhabitants of the earth and of the sea! for the devil is come down unto you, having great wrath."--NEWTON. b Yet not rejoicing in his speed. Satan was bold far off and fearless; and, as he drew nearer, was pleased with hoped success; but now he is come to earth to begin his dire attempt, he does not rejoice in it; his heart misgives him; horror and doubt distract him. This is all very natural.-NEWTON. c Sometimes towards heaven. All this passage is highly poetical and pathetic. do thou, that, with surpassing. One of those magnificent speeches to which no other name can be given, than that it is supereminently Miltonic. This is mainly argumentative sublimity; in which I think that he is even still greater than in his splendid and majestic imagery. The alternations of this dreadful speech strike and move the mind like the changes of the tempest in a dark night, when the thunder and lightning roar and flash, and then intermit, and then redouble again. Compare the opening speech in the Phoenissæ of Euripides; where Porson has remarked, that Milton had once intended to have written a tragedy, not an epic, and to have commenced it with this address to the Sun. It is only necessary to give the Look'st from thy sole dominion like the God As great might have aspired, and me, though mean, 35 40 45 50 55 60 Fell not, but stand unshaken, from within Or from without, to all temptations arm'd. Hadst thou the same free will and power to stand? Thou hadst whom hast thou then or what to accuse, Be then his love accursed; since love or hate, 65 Professor's authority :-"These verses, several years before the poem was begun, were shown to me, and some others, as designed for the very beginning of a tragedy upon this subject."-EDWARD PHILIPS. O, then at last relent: is there no place Would highth recall high thoughts, how soon unsay What feign'd submission swore! Ease would recant Where wounds of deadly hate have pierced so deep; By thee, and more than half perhaps will reign; As man ere long and this new world shall know. e This new world. Satan being now within prospect of Eden, and looking round upon the glories of the creation, is filled with sentiments different from those which he discovered whilst he was in hell. The place inspires him with thoughts more adapted to it. He reflects upon the happy condition from whence he fell, and breaks forth into a speech that is softened with several transient touches of remorse and self-accusation; but at length he confirms himself in impenitence, and in his design of drawing man into his own state of guilt and misery. This conflict of passions is roused with a great deal of art, as the opening of his speech to the Sun is very bold and noble. This speech is, I think, the finest that is ascribed to Satan in the whole poem.ADDISON. Each passion dimm'd his face. Each passion, ire, envy, and despair, dimm'd his countenance, which was thrice Which marr'd his borrow'd visage, and betray'd For heavenly minds from such distempers foul Each perturbation smoothed with outward calm, That practised falsehood under saintly show, As he supposed, all unobserved, unseen. Now nearer crowns with her enclosure green, Of stateliest view. Yet higher than their tops 120 125 130 135 140 145 On which the sun more glad impress'd his beams, Than in fair evening cloud, or humid bow, When God hath shower'd the earth; so lovely seem'd That landskip and of pure now purer air 150 Meets his approach, and to the heart inspires Vernal delight and joy 8, able to drive 155 changed with pale through the successive agitations of these three passions: for, that paleness is the proper hue of envy and despair, everybody knows; and we always reckon that sort of anger the most deadly and diabolical which is accompanied with a pale, livid countenance.-NEWTON. Vernal delight and joy. So in Milton's Tractate of Education: "In those vernal seasons of the year, when the air is calm and pleasant, it were an injury and sullenness against nature not to go out, and see her riches, and partake in her rejoicing with heaven and earth.”—TODD. Native perfumes, and whisper whence they stole h Of Araby the bless'd; with such delay Well pleased they slack their course, and many a league So entertain'd those odorous sweets the fiend Who came their bane; though with them better pleased That drove him, though enamour'd, from the spouse Of Tobit's son, and with a vengeance sent From Media post to Egypt, there fast bound. On the other side: which when the arch-felon saw, h Whisper whence they stole. 160 165 170 175 180 185 190 This expression of the air's stealing and dispersing the sweets of flowers, is very common in the best Italian poets.-NEWTON. i Sabaan odours. Wakefield says that Milton delineated this beautiful description from Diodorus Siculus, lib. iii. 46, where the aromatic plants in Sabea, or Arabia Felix, are described as yielding "inexpressible fragrance to the senses, not unenjoyed even by the navigator, though he sails by at a great distance from the shore: for, in the spring, when the wind blows off land, the odour from the aromatic trees and plants diffuses itself over all the neighbouring sea." Notes on Gray, p. 10.-TODD. j Asmodeus. This history of Asmodeus has by no means a good effect.-DUNSTER. |