Distinct alike with multitude of eyes; One spirit in them ruled; and every eye Glared lightning, and shot forth pernicious fire Among the accursed, that wither'd all their strength, Yet half his strength he put not forth, but check'd Hell heard the unsufferable noise; hell saw Yawning received them whole, and on them closed; Half his strength he put not forth. 850 855 860 865 870 875 880 This fine thought is somewhat like that of the Psalmist, lxxviii. 38 :--" But he, being full of compassion, forgave their iniquity, and destroyed them not; yea, many a time turned he his anger away, and did not stir up all his wrath."-NEWTON. With terrours and with furies. See Job vi. 4: :- "The terrors of God do set themselves in array against me." And the fury of the Lord is a common expression in Scripture:-"They are full of the fury of the Lord," Isaiah li. 20.-NEWTON. Yawning received them. "Hell at last This is a fine imitation of Isaiah v. 14 :—“Therefore hell hath enlarged herself, and opened her mouth without measure: and their glory, and their multitude, and their pomp, and he that rejoiceth, shall descend into it."-TODD. • To meet him, See Rev. xii. 10.-STILLINGFleet. Eye-witnesses of his almighty acts, With jubilee advanced; and as they went, Thus, measuring things in heaven' by things on earth, Which would be all his solace and revenge, Thy weaker"; let it profit thee to have heard, Of disobedience: firm they might have stood, Worthiest to reign. 885 890 895 900 905 910 The angels here sing the same divine song which St. John heard them sing in his vision, Rev. iv. 11.-NEWTON. "Who into glory. See 1 Tim. iii. 16:-"Received up into glory;" and Heb. i. 3:-" Sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high."-GILLIES. ▾ Thus, measuring things in heaven. He repeats the same kind of apology here in the conclusion, that he made in the beginning of his narration. See b. v. 573, &c. And it is indeed the best defence that can be made for the bold fictions in this book, which, though some cold readers perhaps may blame, yet the coldest, I conceive, cannot but admire. It is remarkable too with what art and beauty the poet, from the height and sublimity of the rest of the book, descends here, at the close of it, like the lark from her loftiest notes in the clouds, to the most prosaic simplicity of language and numbers; a simplicity, which not only gives it variety, but the greatest majesty; as Milton himself seems to have thought, by always choosing to give the speeches of God and the Messiah in that style, though these I suppose are the parts of this poem which Dryden censures as the flats which he often met with for thirty or forty lines together.-NEWTON. "Thy weaker. As St. Peter calls the wife, "the weaker vessel," 1 Pet. iii. 7.-NEWTON. BOOK VII. INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. THE seventh book is nothing but delight;-all beauty, and hope, and smiles: it has little of the awful sublimity of the preceding books; and it has much less of that grand invention, which sometimes astonishes with a painful emotion, but which is the first power of a poet: at the same time, there is poetical invention in filling up the details. In every description Milton has seized the most picturesque feature, and found the most expressive and poetical words for it. On the mirror of his mind all creation was delineated in the clearest and most brilliant forms and colours; and he has reflected them with such harmony and enchantment of language, as has never been equalled. The globe, with all its rich contents, thus lies displayed before us, like a landscape under the freshness of the dewy light of the opening morning, when the shadows of night first fly away. Here is to be found everything which in descriptive poetry has the greatest spell: all majesty or grace of forms, animate or inanimate; all variety of mountains, and valleys, and forests, and plains, and seas, and lakes, and rivers; the vicissitudes of suns and of darkness; the flame and the snow; the murmur of the breeze; the roar of the tempest. One great business of poetry is to teach men to see, and feel, and think upon the beauties of the creation, and to have gratitude and devotion to their Maker: this can best be effected by a poet's eye and a poet's tongue. Poets can present things in lights which can warm the coldest hearts: he who can create himself, can best represent what is already created. ARGUMENT. RAPHAEL, at the request of Adam, relates how and wherefore this world was first created; that God, after the expelling of Satan and his angels out of heaven, declared his pleasure to create another world, and other creatures to dwell therein; sends his Son with glory, and attendance of angels, to perform the work of creation in six days; the angels celebrate with hymns the performance thereof, and his reascension into heaven. DESCEND from heaven, Urania', by that name The meaning, not the name I call; for thou Descend from heaven. "Descende cœlo," Hor. Od. iii. 4, 1. He invokes the heavenly Muse as he had done before, b. i. 6: and as he had said in the beginning that he "intended to soar above the Aonian mount," so now he says very truly that he had effected what he intended, and "soars above the Olympian hill, above the flight of Pegasean wing;" that is, his subject was more sublime than the loftiest flight of heathen poets.-NEWTON. b Urania. The word Urania, in Greek, signifies "heavenly."-NEWTON. Of Old Olympus dwell'st; but heavenly-born, Lest from this flying steed unrein'd (as once Half yet remains unsung, but narrower bound und Standing on earth, not rapt above the pole, Of that vile rout that tore the Thracian bard Before the hills appear'd. 10 15 20 25 30 35 From Prov. viii. 24, 25, and 30, where the phrase of Wisdom always "rejoicing" before God, is "playing," according to the Vulgate Latin; "ludens coram eo omni tempore."-NEWTON. Half yet remains unsung. Half of the episode, not of the whole work, is here meant. The episode has two principal parts, the war in heaven, and the new creation.-NEWTON. The repetition and turn of the words is very beautiful: a lively picture this, in a few lines, of the poet's wretched condition. Though he was blind," in darkness; and with dangers compass'd round, and solitude," obnoxious to the government, and having a world of enemies among the royal party, and therefore obliged to live very much in privacy and alone, he was not become hoarse or mute. And what strength of mind was it, that could not only support him under the weight of these misfortunes, but enable him to soar to such heights as no human genius ever reached before!-NEWTON. Of Bacchus and his revellers. It is not improbable that the poet intended this as an oblique satire upon the dissoluteness of Charles the Second and his Court; from whom he seems to apprehend the fate of Orpheus, who, though he is said to have charmed woods and rocks with his divine songs, was torn to pieces by the Bacchanalian women of Rhodope, a mountain of Thrace; nor could the Muse Calliope, his mother, defend him: "so fail not thou who thee implores." Nor was his wish ineffectual; for the government suffered him to live and die unmolested. -NEWTON. Both harp and voice; nor could the Muse defend Charged not to touch the interdicted tree, If they transgress, and slight that sole command, Of all tastes else to please their appetite, Though wandering. He, with his consorted Eve, Of things so high and strange; things, to their thought And war so near the peace of God and bliss, With such confusion: but the evil, soon What nearer might concern him; how this world Great things and full of wonder in our ears, Down from the empyrean, to forewarn Us timely of what might else have been our loss, Immortal thanks, and his admonishment Of what we are. But since thou hast vouchsafed Things above earthly thought, which yet concern'd Deign to descend now lower, and relate What may no less perhaps avail us known; |