and Heavenly Beauty, as well as some modern Latin poems. But I conceive that Milton intended something more; for I have been informed by those who had opportunities of conversing with his widow, that she was wont to say that he did really look upon himself as inspired; and I think his works are not without a spirit of enthusiasm. In the beginning of the second book of the Reason of Church Government,' speaking of his design of writing a poem in the English language, he says, "It was not to be obtained by the invocation of Dame Memory and her siren daughters, but by devout prayer of that Eternal Spirit who can enrich with all utterance and knowledge; and sends out his seraphim with the hallowed fire of his altar, to touch and purify the lips of whom he pleases." p. 61, edit. 1738.— NEWTON. 2. 5 Ver. 21. Dove-like sat'st brooding. Alluding to Gen. i. "The spirit of God moved on the face of the waters ;" for the word that we translate moved, signifies properly brooded, as a bird doth upon her eggs; and Milton says like a dove, rather than any other bird, because the descent of the Holy Ghost is compared to a dove, Luke iii. 22. As Milton studied the Scriptures in the original language, his images and expressions are oftener copied from them than from our translations.-NEWTON. • Ver. 22. Illumine. What in me is dark He calls the Holy Ghost the illumining Spirit in his 'Prose Works,' vol. i. p. 273, edit. 1698. Compare Fairfax's 'Tasso,' b. viii. st. 76 : Illumine their dark souls with light divine.-TODD. 7 Ver. 24. That to the highth of this great argument. The height of the argument is precisely what distinguishes this poem of Milton from all others. In other works of imagination, the difficulty lies in giving sufficient elevation to the subject: here it lies in raising the imagination up to the grandeur of the subject, in adequate conception of its mightiness, and in finding language of such majesty as will not degrade it. A genius less gigantic and less holy than Milton's would have shrunk from the attempt. Milton not only does not lower, but he illumines the bright, and enlarges the great: he expands his wings, and "sails with supreme dominion" up to the heavens, parts the clouds, and communes with angels and unembodied spirits. Ver. 26. And justify the ways of God to men. Pope has thought fit to borrow this verse, with some little variation, 'Essay on Man,' ep. i. 16:-" But vindicate the ways of God to man." It is not easy to conceive any good reason for Pope's preferring vindicate; but Milton uses justify, as it is the Scripture word, “that thou mightest be justified in thy sayings." Rom. iii. 4.—And "the ways of God to men are justified in the many argumentative discourses throughout the poem, particularly in the conferences between God the Father and the Son.-NEwton. • Ver. 27. Say first, for Heaven hides nothing from thy view, The poets attribute a kind of omniscience to the Muse; and very rightly, as it enables them to speak of things which could not otherwise be supposed to come to their knowledge. Thus Homer, Il. ii. 485: Ὑμεῖς γὰρ θεαί ἐστε, πάρεστέ τε, ἴστε τε πάντα. And see Virgil, Æn. vii. 645. Milton's Muse being the Holy Spirit, must of course be omniscient: and the mention of heaven and hell is very proper in this place, as the scene of a great part of the poem is laid sometimes in hell and sometimes in heaven.-NEWTON. 10 Ver. 38. By whose aid, aspiring To set himself in glory above his peers. Here Dr. Bentley objects, that Satan's crime was not his aiming "above his peers:" he was in place high above them before, as the Doctor proves from b. v. 812: but, though this be true, Milton may be right here; for the force of the words seems not that Satan aspired to set himself above his peers, but that he aspired to set himself in glory; that is, in divine glory; in such glory as God and his Son were set in. Here was his crime; and this is what God charges him with in b. v. 725 : who intends to erect his throne Equal to ours. And in b. vi. 88, Milton says that the rebel angels hoped To win the Mount of God, and on his throne To set the envier of his state, the proud Aspirer. See also, to the same purpose, b. vii. 140, &c.-PEARCE. 11 Ver. 40. He trusted to have equal'd the Most High. See Isaiah, ch. xiv. 13.-STILLINGFLEET. 12 Ver. 50. Nine times the space that measures day and night The nine days' astonishment, in which the angels lay entranced after their dreadful overthrow and fall from heaven, before they could recover either the use of thought or speech, is a noble circumstance, and very finely imagined. The division of hell into seas of fire, and into firm ground impregnated with the same furious element, with that particular circumstance of the exclusion of hope from those infernal regions, are instances of the same great and fruitful invention.-ADDISON. 13 Ver. 62. No light. Yet from those flames So the Wisdom of Solomon, ch. xviii. 5, 6:—“ No power of the fire might give them light; only there appeared unto them a fire kindled of itself, very dreadful."-TODD. 14 Ver. 63. Darkness visible. Milton seems to have used these words to signify gloom: absolute darkness is, strictly speaking, invisible; but where there is a gloom only, there is so much light remaining, as serves to show that there are objects, and yet that those objects cannot be distinctly seen.- -PEARCE. Seneca has a like expression, speaking of the grotto of Pausilipo, epist. lvii. :-" Nihil illo carcere longius, nihil illis faucibus obscurius, quæ nobis præstant, non ut per tenebras videamus, sed ut ipsas." And, as Voltaire observes, Antonio de Solis, in his History of Mexico,' speaking of the place wherein Montezuma consulted his deities, says, "It was a large dark subterranean vault, where some dismal tapers afforded just light enough to see the obscurity." So Euripides, Bacchæ,' v. 510:— Ὡς ἂν σκότιον εἰσορᾷ κνέφας. There is much the same image in Spenser, but not so bold, 'Faer. Qu.' I. i. 14:— A little glooming light, much like a shade. Or, after all, Milton might take the hint from his own 'Il Penseroso :' -- Where glowing embers through the room 15 Ver. 66. That comes to all. Hope never comes, See Dante's Inferno,' ch. iii. 9: Lasciate ogni speranza, voi ch' intrate. 16 Ver. 74. As from the centre thrice to the utmost pcle. pole of the earth, Homer makes the Thrice as far as it is from the centre of the earth, which is the centre of the world, according to Milton's system, b. ix. 103, and b. x. 671, to the pole of the world; for it is the pole of the universe, far beyond the which is here called the utmost pole. seat of hell as far beneath the deepest pit of earth as the heaven is above the earth, Iliad, viii. 16. Virgil makes it twice as far, Æneid, vi. 578: and Milton thrice as far; as if these three great poets had stretched their utmost genius, and vied with each other, who should extend his idea of the depth of hell farthest. But Milton's whole description of hell as much exceeds theirs, as in this single circumstance of the depth of it. And how cool and unaffecting is the Τάρταρον ήερόεντα, the σιδήρειαί τε πύλαι καὶ χάλκεος οὐδὸς of Homer,—the “lugentes campi," the "ferrea turris," and "horrisono stridentes cardine portæ," of Virgil, in comparison with this description by Milton, concluding with that artful contrast, "O, how unlike the place from whence they fell!"-NEWTON. 66 17 Ver. 77. Tempestuous fire. Psalm xi. 6:- Upon the wicked the Lord will rain fire and brimstone, and an horrible tempest."-Dunster. 18 Ver. 81. To whom the arch-enemy. The thoughts in the first speech and description of Satan, who is one of the principal actors in this poem, are wonderfully proper to give us a full idea of him: his pride, envy, and revenge, obstinacy, despair, and impenitence, are all of them very artfully interwoven. In short, his first speech is a complication of all those passions, which discover themselves separately in several other of his speeches in the poem. The whole part of this great enemy of mankind is filled with such incidents as are very apt to raise and terrify the reader's imagination. Of this nature, in the book now be |
