ore all temples the upright heart and pure, ruct me, for Thou know'st; Thou from the first st present, and with mighty wings outspread Dovelike sat'st brooding on the vast abyss, And madest it pregnant: What in me is dark, Illumine; what is low, raise and support; That to the height of this great argument may assert eternal Providence, And justify the ways of God to Men. 20 25 Say first, for Heav'n hides nothing from thy view, Nor the deep tract of Hell; say first what cause Moved our grand parents, in that happy state, 30 widow of Milton was accustomed to affirm that he considered himself as inspired; and this report is confirmed by a passage in his Second Book on Church Government, already quoted in our preliminary observations. 24. 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.-E. B. 27. The poets attribute a kind of omniscience to the Muse, as it enables them to speak of things which could not otherwise be supposed to come to their knowledge. Thus Homer, Iliad ii. 485, and Virgil, Æn. vii. 645. de Milton's Muse, being the Holy Spirit, must of course be omniscient.-N. 30. Greatness, is an important requisite in the action or subject of an epic poem; and Milton here surpasses both Homer and Virgil. The anger of Achilles embroiled the kings of Greece, destroyed the heroes of Troy, engaged all the gods in factions. Æneas' settlement in Italy produced the Cæsars and gave birth to the Roman empire. Milton's subject donni` termine the fate merely of single persons, or of a nation, but ome species. The united powers of Hell are joined together for the de of mankind, which they effected in part and would have completed, not Omnipotence itself interposed. The principal actors are man in his greatest perfection, and woman in her highest beauty. Their enemies are the fallen angels; the Messiah their friend, and the Almighty their Protector. In tire tion From their Creator, and trangress his will 35 Had cast him out from Heav'n, with all his host Of rebel Angels; by whose aid aspiring To set himself in glory 'bove his peers, He trusted to have equall'd the Most High, 40 45 short, everything that is great in the whole circle of being, whether within the range of nature or beyond it, finds a place in this admirable poem.-A. "The sublimest of all subjects (says Cowper) was reserved for Milton; and, bringing to the contemplation of that subject, not only a genius equal to the best of the ancients, but a heart also deeply impregnated with the divine truths which lay before him, it is no wonder that he has produced a composition, on the whole, superior, to any that we have received from foriner ages. But he who addresses himself to the perusal of this work with a mind entirely unaccustomed rious and spiritual contemplation, unacquainted with the word of Go prejudiced against it, is ill qualified to appreciate the value of a poem built upon it, or to taste its beauties. 32. One restraint: one subject of restraint-the tree of knowledge of good and evil. 34. Serpent. Compare Gen. iii. 1 Tim. ii. 14. John viii. 44. 38. Aspiring: 1 Tim. iii. 6. This 39. In glory: a divine glory, such as God himself possessed. charge is brought against him, V. 725; it is also asserted in line 40; again in VI. 88, VII. 140. 46. Ruin is derived from ruo, and includes the idea of falling with violence and precipitation: combustion is more than flaming in the foregoing line; it is burning in a dreadful manner.-N. 48. Chains. Compare with Epistle of Jude v. 8. Also, Eschylus Prometh. 6. Who durst defy th' Omnipotent to arms. e times the space that measures day and night 20 mortal men, he with his horrid crew Lay vanquish'd, rolling in the fiery gulf, Both of lost happiness and lasting pain 55 Tormens him; round he throws his baleful eyes, That wss'd huge affliction and dismay, Mix'd via obdurate pride and steadfast hate: The dismal situation waste and wild: 60 A dungeon horrible on all sides round, As one great furnace flamed; yet from those flames མི Served only to discover sights of woe, Regions of sorrow, do ful shades, where peace 65 70 50. Nine times the space, &c. Propriety sometimes requires the use of circumlocution, as in this case. To have said nine days and nights would not have been proper when talking of a period before the creation of the sun, and consequently before time was portioned out my being in that manner.-CAMPBELL, Phil. Rhet. 52-3. The nine days' astonishment, in which he angels lay entranced after their dreadful overthrow and fall from heaven, before they could recover the use either of thought or speech, is a noble circumstance and very finely imagined. The division of hell into seas of fire, and into firm ground (227-8) 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.-A. 63. Darkness visible: 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 those objects cannot be disanctly seen. Compare with the Penseroso, 79, 80: "Where glowing embers through the room Teach light to counterfeit a gloom." R For those rebellious; here their pris'n ordained And thence in Heav'n call'd Satan, with bold words 75 80 72. Utter, has the same meaning as the word outer, which is applied to darkness in the Scriptures. Spenser uses utter in this sense. 74. Thrice as far as it is from the centre of the earth (which is the centre of the world, (universe,) according to Milton's system, IX. 103, and X. 671,) to the pole of the world; for it is the pole of the universe, far beyond the pole of the earth, which is here called the utmost pole. It is observable that Homer makes the 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. 577; and Milton thrice as far as if these three great poets had stretched their utmost genius, and vied with each other, in extending his idea of Hell farthest.-N 75. The language of the inspired writings (says Dugald Stewart) is on this as on other occasions, beautifully accommodated to the irresistible impressions of nature; availing itself of such popular and familiar words as upwards and downwards, above and below, in condescension to the frailty of the human mind, governed so much by sense and imagination, and so little by the abstractions of philosophy. Hence the expression of fallen angels, which, by recalling to us the eminence from which they fell, communicates, in a single word, a character of sublimity to the bottomless abyss.—WORKS, vol. iv. 288. 77. Fire. Compare with Mark ix. 45, 46. 81. Beelzebub. Compare with Mat. xii. 24. 2 Kings i. 2. The word means god of flies. Here he is made second to Satan. §2. Satan. Many other names are assigned, to this arch enemy of God and man, in the sacred scriptures. He is called the Devil, the Dragon, the Evil One, the Angel of the Bottomless Pit, the Prince of this World, the Prince of the power of the air, the God of this World, Apollyon, Abaddon, Belial, Beelzebub. Milton, it will be seen, applies some of these terms to other evil angels. Breaking the horrid silence thus began : If thou beest he; but O how fallen! how changed From him who, in the happy realms of light 85 Cloth'd with transcendent brightness didst outshine Myriads though bright! If he whom mutual league, And hazard in the glorious enterprise, Join'd with me once, now misery hath join'd 90 In equal ruin into what pit thou seest From what height fall'n, so much the stronger proved He with his thunder: and till then who knew The force of those dire arms? yet not for those 95 The term Satan denotes adversary; the term Devil denotes an accuser, See Kitto's Bib. Cycl. Upon the character of Satan as described by Milton, Hazlitt has penned an admirable criticism, which will be found at the end of Book I. 84. The confusion of mind felt by Satan is happily shown by the abrupt and halting manner in which he commences this speech. Fallen; see Isaiah xiv. 12. Changed: see Virg. Æn. ii. 274 : 93. "Hei mihi qualis erat! Quantum mutatus ab illo !" He with his thunder. There is an uncommon beauty in this expresSatan disdains to utter the name of God, though he cannot but acknowledge his superiority. So again, line 257.—N. sion. 94. Those: compare Æsch. Prometh. 991. 95–116. Amidst those impieties which this enraged spirit utters in various parts of the poem, the author has taken care to introduce none that is not big with absurdity, and incapable of shocking a religious reader; his words, as the poet himself describes them, bearing only a "semblance of worth, not substance." He is likewise with great art described as owning his adversary to be Almighty. Whatever perverse interpretation he puts on the justice, mercy, and other attributes of the Supreme Being, he frequently confesses his omnipotence, that being the perfection he was forced to allow, and the only consideration which could support his pride under the shame of his defeat.-A. Upon this important point Dr. Channing has made the following observations: "Some have doubted whether the moral effect of such delineations (as Milton has given) of the stormy and terrible workings of the soul is good; whether the interest felt in a spirit so transcendently evil as Satan favors our sympathies with virtue. But our interest fastens, in this and like cases, on what is not evil. We gaze on Satan with an awe not unmixed |