At length from us may find, Who overcomes A generation, whom his choice regard He spake; and, to confirm his words, outflew There stood a hill not far, whose grisly top 650 655 660 665 670 Belch'd fire and rolling smoke; the rest entire The work of sulphur. Thither, wing'd with speed, A numerous brigad hasten'd; as when bands 675 Of pioneers, with spade and pickaxe arm'd, Or cast a rampart. Mammon led them on; From heaven; for ev'n in heaven his looks and thoughts The riches of heaven's pavement, trodden gold, * There went a fame in heaven. 680 There is something wonderfully beautiful, and very apt to affect the reader's imagination, in this ancient prophecy or report in heaven concerning the creation of man. Nothing could show more the dignity of the species than this tradition, which ran of them before their existence: they are represented to have been the talk of heaven before they were created. Virgil, in compliment to the Roman commonwealth, makes the heroes of it appear in their state of pre-existence; but Milton does a far greater honour to mankind in general, as he gives us a glimpse of them even before they are in being.-ADDISON. "The sudden blaze Far round illumined hell. Another true Miltonic picture. * Mammon led them on. This name is Syriac, and signifies riches. "Ye cannot serve God and Mammon," Matth. vi. 24. Mammon is by some supposed to be the God of riches, and is accordingly personified by Milton, and had been before by Spenser; whose description of Mammon and his cave, Milton seems to have had his eye upon in several places.-NEWION. Than aught divine or holy else enjoy'd Severing each kind, and scumm'd the bullion dross : 685 690 695 700 705 A various mould, and from the boiling cells By strange conveyance fill'd each hollow nook: To many a row of pipes the sound-board breathes. With golden architrave: nor did there want Their kings, when Egypt with Assyria strove 710 715 720 There were 360,000 men employed for near twenty years upon one of the Pyramids, according to Diodorus Siculus, lib. i., and Pliny, lib. xxxvi. 12.-NEWTON. As in an organ. This simile is as exact as it is new: and we may observe, that Milton frequently fetches his images from music, more than any other English poet; as he was very fond of it, and was himself a performer upon the organ and other instruments.-NEWTON. "Rose, like an exhalation. Peck supposes that this hint is taken from some of the moving scenes and machines invented by Inigo Jones, for Charles the First's masques. Stood fix'd her stately highth: and straight the doors, To have built in heaven high towers; nor did he 'scape By all his engines; but was headlong sent With his industrious crew to build in hell. Meanwhile the winged heralds, by command Of sovran power, with awful ceremony And trumpet's sound, throughout the host proclaim At Pandæmonium, the high capital Of Satan and his peers: their summons call'd By place or choice the worthiest; they anon With hundreds and with thousands trooping came And how he fell 725 730 735 740 745 750 755 760 765 From heaven, &c. Alluding to Homer, Il. i. 590, &c. It is worth observing how Milton lengthens out the time of Vulcan's fall. He not only says with Homer, that it was all day long; but we are led through the parts of the day, from morn to noon, from noon to evening, and this a summer's day. See also Odyss. vii. 288.-NEWTON, ཨིན་ལྷགt༠FË 580. To mortal combat, or career with lance') Now less than smallest dwarfs, in narrow room Or dreams he sees, while over-head the moon To mortal combat, or career with lance. 770 775 780 Milton has carefully distinguished the two different methods of combat in the champ clos.-CALLANDER. As bees. An imitation of Homer, who compares the Grecians crowding to a swarm of bees, Il. ii. 87. There are such similes also in Virg. Æn. i. 430, vi. 707. But Milton carries the similitude farther than either of his great masters; and mentions the bees "conferring their state affairs," as he is going to give an account of the consultations of the devils.-NEWTON. If we look into the conduct of Homer, Virgil, and Milton; as the great fable is the soul of each poem, so, to give their works an agreeable variety, their episodes are as so many short fables, and their similes so many short episodes; to which you may add, if you please, that their metaphors are so many short similes. If the reader considers the comparisons in the first book of Milton,-of the sun in an eclipse,-of the sleeping leviathan,-of the bees swarming about their hive,-of the fairy dance,in the view wherein I have here placed them, he will easily discover the great beauties that are in each of those passages.-ADDISON. They among fresh dews and flowers. It is not necessary to enlarge upon the poetry of this beautiful passage. b Now less than smallest dwarfs. As soon as the infernal palace is finished, we are told, the multitude and rabble of spirits immediately shrunk themselves into a small compass, that there might be room for such a numberless assembly in this capacious hall: but it is the poet's refinement upon this thought which I most admire, and which is indeed very noble in itself; for he tells us, that notwithstanding the vulgar, among the fallen spirits, contracted their forms, those of the first rank and dignity still preserved their natural dimensions.-ADDISON. • Whose midnight revels. Olaus Magnus, treating of the night-dances of the fairies and ghosts, relates that travellers in the night, and such as watch the flocks and herds, are wont to be compassed about with many strange apparitions of this kind. See b. 111. ch. x. Engl. ed. fol. 1658.-ToDr. From Apollonius Rhodius, one of his favourite authors, Argonaut. iv. 1479.-TODD. Sits arbitress, and nearer to the earth' Wheels her pale course they, on their mirth and dance At once with joy and fear his heart rebounds. Reduced their shapes immense, and were at large, After short silence then, * Sits arbitress. Witness, spectatress. So Horace, Epod. v. 49: O, rebus meis Non infideles arbitræ Nox et Diana-HEYLIN. Nearer to the earth. 785 790 295 This is said in allusion to the superstitious notion of witches and faeries having great power over the moon. Virg. Eclog. viii. 69. :— Carmina vel cœlo possunt deducere lunam.-NEWTON. Intent. They, on their mirth and dance One of those picturesque pastoral passages with which Milton's early poetry so abounds. Secret conclave sat An evident allusion to the conclaves of the cardinals on the death of a pope. D |