And like a devilish engine back recoils
Upon himself horror and doubt distract
His troubled thoughts, and from the bottom stir
The Hell within him; for within him Hell
He brings, and round about him, nor from Hell
One ftep no more than from himself can fly
By change of place now confcience wakes defpair
That flumber'd, wakes the bitter memory
Of what he was, what is, and what must be 25
Worfe; of worfe deeds worfe fufferings muft enfue.
Sometimes tow'ards Eden, which now in his view
Lay pleafant, his griev'd look he fixes fad;
Sometimes tow'ards Heav'n and the full-blazing fun,
Which now fat high in his meridian tower :
Then much revolving, thus in fighs began.
O thou that with furpaffing glory crown'd, Look'st from thy fole dominion like the God Of this new world; at whose sight all the stars Hide their diminish'd heads; to thee I call, But with no friendly voice, and add thy name O Sun, to tell thee how I hate thy beams, That bring to my remembrance from what state I fell; how glorious once above thy sphere; Till pride and worse ambition threw me down 40 Warring in Heav'n against Heav'n's matchless king:
tower. The metaphor is ufed by from whence he fell, and breaks Virgil in his Culex, ver. 41. Igneus æthereas jam fol penetrâ
forth into a speech that is foftened
with feveral tranfient touches of
remorfe and felf-accufation: but at
length he confirms himself in im-
penitence, and in his defign of
drawing Man into his own ftate of
guilt and mifery. This conflict of
paffions is raised with a great deal
of art, as the opening of his fpeech
to the fun is very bold and noble.
This fpeech is, I think, the finest
that is afcribed to Satan in the
whole poem.
Addifon.
When Milton defign'd to have
made only a tragedy of the Para-
dife Loft, it was his intention to
have begun it with the firft ten
lines of the following speech,
which he fhow'd to his nephew
Edward Philips and others, as Phi-
lips informs us in his account of
Ah wherefore! he deferv'd no fuch return
From me, whom he created what I was
In that bright eminence, and with his good
Upbraided none; nor was his fervice hard.
What could be less than to afford him praise,
The easiest recompenfe, and pay him thanks,
How due! yet all his good prov'd ill in me,
And wrought but malice; lifted up fo high
I fdeind subjection, and thought one step higher 50
Would fet me hig'heft, and in a moment quit
The debt immenfe of endless gratitude,
inordinate defires that break forth into the moft execrable acts to accomplish their haughty defigns; which makes our author ftigmatize ambition as a worse fin than pride. Hume.
Dr. Bentley reads and curs'd ambition, because he thinks it hard to fay whether pride or ambition is worfe: but Milton feems to mean by pride the vice confider'd in itself, and only as it is the temper of the vice that carry'd him to aim at be proud man; and by ambition the ing equal with God: and was not this vice the worst of the two? I
obferve that Satan always lays the blame on his ambition, as in ver. 61 and 92.
So burdenfome ftill paying, ftill to owe,
Forgetful what from him I still receiv'd,
And understood not that a grateful mind
By owing owes not, but ftill pays, at once
Indebted and discharg'd; what burden then?
O had his pow'rful destiny ordain'd
Me fome inferior Angel, I had stood
Then happy; no unbounded hope had rais'd
Ambition. Yet why not? fome other Power
As great might have afpir'd, and me though mean
Drawn to his part; but other Pow'rs as great
Fell not, but stand unshaken, from within
Or from without, to all temptations arm'd.
Hadft thou the fame free will and pow'r to ftand?
Thou hadft: whom haft thou then or what to' accufe,
But Heav'n's free love dealt equally to all?
Be then his love accurs'd, fince love or hate,
To me alike, it deals eternal woe.
Nay curs'd be thou; fince against his thy will
Chose freely what it now so justly rues.
Me miferable! which way fhall I fly
Infinite wrath, and infinite despair?
Which way I fly is Hell; myself am Hell;
And in the lowest deep a lower deep
Still threatning to devour me opens wide,
To which the Hell I fuffer feems a Heaven.
O then at last relent: is there no place
Left for repentance, none for pardon left?
None left but by fubmiffion; and that word
Among the Spirits beneath, whom I seduc'd
With other promises and other vaunts
Than to submit, boafting I could fubdue
Th' Omnipotent. Ay me, they little know
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