Invisible, yet stay'd, (such privilege

Hath Omnipresence,) and the work ordain'd,
Authour and End of all things; and, from work
Now resting, bless'd and hallow'd the seventh day,
As resting on that day from all his work.
But not in silence holy kept: the harp
Had work, and rested not; the solemn pipe,
And dulcimer, all organs of sweet stop,
All sounds on fret by string or golden wire,
Temper'd soft tunings, intermix'd with voice
Choral or unison; of incense clouds,
Fuming from golden censers, hid the mount.
Creation and the six days' acts they sung.

Thy power! what thought can measure thee, or tongue

Great are thy works, Jehovah! infinite

Relate thee? Greater now in thy return

Than from the giant angels: thee that day

Thy thunders magnified; but to create

590

595

600

G05

Is greater than created to destroy.

Who can impair thee, Mighty King, or bound
Thy empire? easily the proud attempt
Of spirits apostate, and their counsels vain,

Thou hast repell'd; while impiously they thought
Thee to diminish, and from thee withdraw
The number of thy worshippers. Who seeks
To lessen thee, against his purpose serves

610

tells that the day is not too far spent for him to enter upon such a subject, are exquisite in their kind, v. 98.

The angel's encouraging our first parents in a modest pursuit after knowledge, and the causes which he assigns for the creation of the world, are very just and beautiful. The Messiah, by whom, as we are told in Scripture, the heavens were made, comes forth in the power of his Father, surrounded with a host of angels, and clothed with such a majesty as becomes his entering upon a work, which, according to our conceptions, appears the utmost exertion of Omnipotence. What a beautiful description has our author raised upon that hint in one of the prophets! "And behold there came four chariots out from between two mountains, and the mountains were mountains of brass :"

About his chariots numberless were pour'd, &c.

I have before taken notice of these chariots of God, and of these gates of heaven; and shall here only add, that Homer gives us the same idea of the latter, as opening of themselves; though he afterwards takes off from it by telling us that the Hours first of all removed those prodigious heaps of clouds which lay as a barrier before them.

I do not know anything in the whole poem more sublime than the description which follows ; where the Messiah is represented at the head of his angels as looking down into the chaos, calming its confusion, riding into the midst of it, and drawing the first outline

of the creation.

The thought of the golden compasses, v. 225, is conceived altogether in Homer's spirit; and is a very noble incident in this wonderful description. Homer, when he speaks of the gods, ascribes to them several arms and instruments, with the same greatness of imagination. Let the reader only peruse the description of Minerva's ægis, or buckler, in the fifth book; with her spear which would overturn whole squadrons, and her helmet that was sufficient to cover an army drawn out of a hundred cities. The golden compasses in the above-mentioned passage appear a very natural instrument in the hands of him, whom Plato somewhere calls the Divine Geometrician. As poetry delights in clothing abstracted ideas in

:

To manifest the more thy might his evil
Thou usest, and from thence createst more good.
Witness this new-made world, another heaven
From heaven-gate not far, founded in view
On the clear hyaline, the glassy sea;
Of amplitude almost immense, with stars
Numerous, and every star perhaps a world
Of destined habitation; but thou know'st
Their seasons among these the seat of men,
Earth with her nether ocean circumfused,
Their pleasant dwelling-place.

Thrice happy men,

And sons of men, whom God hath thus advanced!
Created in his image, there to dwell

And worship him; and in reward to rule
Over his works, on earth, in sea, or air,
And multiply a race of worshippers
Holy and just thrice happy, if they know
Their happiness, and persevere upright!

So sung they, and the empyrean rung
With halleluiahs: thus was sabbath kept.—
And thy request think now fulfill'd, that ask'd
How first this world and face of things began,
And what before thy memory was done
From the beginning; that posterity,

Inform'd by thee, might know: if else thou seek'st
Aught, not surpassing human measure, say.

allegories and sensible images, we find a magnificent description of the creation, formed after the same manner, in one of the prophets, wherein he describes the Almighty Architect as measuring the waters in the hollow of his hand, meting out the heavens with his span, comprehending the dust of the earth in a measure, weighing the mountains in scales, and the hills in a balance. Another of them, describing the Supreme Being in this great work of creation, represents him as laying the foundations of the earth, and stretching a line upon it; and in another place, as garnishing the heavens, stretching out the north over the empty place, and hanging the earth upon nothing. This last noble thought Milton has expressed in the following verse :—

And earth self-balanced on her centre hung.

The beauties of description in this book lie so very thick, that it is impossible to enumerate them in these remarks. The poet has employed on them the whole energy of our tongue the several great scenes of the creation rise up to view, one after another, in such a manner, that the reader seems present at this wonderful work, and to assist among the choirs of angels, who are the spectators of it. How glorious is the conclusion of the first day! v. 252, &e. We have the same elevation of thought in the third day, when the mountains were brought forth, and the deep was made: we have also the rising of the whole vegetable world described in this day's work, which is filled with all the graces that other poets have lavished on their description of the spring, and leads the reader's imagina tion into a theatre equally surprising and beautiful. The several glories of the heavens make their appearances on the fourth day.

One would wonder how the poet could be so concise in his description of the six days as to comprehend them within the bounds of an episode; and, at the same time, so par ticular, as to give us a lively idea of them. This is still more remarkable in his account of the fifth and sixth days, in which he has drawn out to our view the whole animal creation from the reptile to the behemoth. As the lion and the levinthan are two of the noblest productions in the world of living creatures, the reader will find a most exquisite spirit of

poetry in the account which our author gives us of them. The sixth day concludes with the formation of man; upon which, the angel takes occasion, as he did after the battle in heaven, to remind Adam of his obedience, which was the principal design of his visit.

The poet afterwards represents the Messiah returning into heaven and taking a survey of his great work. There is something inexpressibly sublime in this part of the poem, where the author describes the great period of time filled with so many glorious circumstances: when the heavens and earth were finished; when the Messiah ascended up in triumph through the everlasting gates; when he looked down with pleasure upon his new creation; when every part of nature seemed to rejoice in its existence; "when the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy."

The accounts which Raphael gives of the battle of angels and creation of the world, have in them those qualifications which the critics judge requisite to an episode: they are nearly related to the principal action, and have a just connexion with the fable.-ADDISON.

This criticism of Addison is so beautiful, so just, and so perfect, that I know not that I can find anything to add to it.

BOOK VIII.

INTRODUCTORY REMARKS.

No praise can be deemed too high for this eighth book of Paradise Lost. Milton speaks as the historian of idealism; never as a rhetorician: he has never any factitious warmth; what he relates he first sees: the richness of his imagination is united with extreme and surprising simplicity: he rejects all adornment. The imagination, which creates a whole series of characters and actions, resulting from each other, those actions at the same time springing from high minds and high passions,―performs the greatest and rarest work of genius: thus we are filled with the most delightful astonishment, when we read Milton's picture of the creation of Adam and Eve the beauty, the glow, the enthusiasm, the rapture running through all the senses, and all the veins; the unalloyed grandeur of the man, the celestial grace of the woman; the majesty of his movements, the delicacy of hers; the inconceivable happiness of thoughts and words with which their admiration of each other is expressed; the breaks, the turns of language, the inspired brilliance, and flow of the strains; yet the inimitable chastity and transparence of the whole style; -fill a sensitive reader with an unfeigned wonder and exaltation, which it would be vain to attempt adequately to record.

I need not say, that all the art and skill alone of all the poets of the earth would never have reached those thoughts, though natural and human, yet mixed with intellectual sublimity and exalted passion, which the poet ascribes to Adam and Eve; and in which his beautiful language could only be attained by following those thoughts in a congenial tone. This is the real secret of Milton's great superiority in the true language of poetry: it is miserable, when flat thoughts are covered by sounding or gaudy words.

The mind of him who undertakes to write poetry can only be worked into a due temperament by the force of a warm and pregnant imagination in that state he need not seek for phrases or ideas: these rise out of the ideal position to which his genius has transported him: they are not the result of slow reflection, or reasoning, or memory. Admit the circumstances, and nature points out the sentiments: but it is the great poet alone who can invent the circumstances; and of all men, Milton could invent them with the most fertility and splendour.

There is another consideration which makes Milton's invention deserving of the most unlimited praise: he was bound down by his awe of religion, and his search after truth and wisdom. When imagination may indulge itself in wanton flights, it may easily blaze by its erratic courses: here the poet had to keep within a prescribed track: he had therefore all his mighty powers at command; he threw his light where it was required.

Again I must say something of the argumentative parts of the poem as applied to this eighth book: these are as profound and excellent as those in the former books. They are not, as Dryden has hinted, flat and unprofitable; but the reverse. They are exalted, closely-argued, nakedly but vigorously expressed, sagacious, moral, instructive, comprehensive, deep in the knowledge of life, consolatory, and fortify. ing. Whoever supposes them unpoetical, has a narrow and mean conception of poetry; they are never out of place, but result from the leading characters of the poem; and are quite as essential to it, even as its grand, or beautiful, and breathing imagery.

I

ARGUMENT.

ADAM inquires concerning celestial motions; is doubtfully answered, and exhorted to search rather things more worthy of knowledge: Adam assents; and, still desirous to detain Raphael, relates to him what he remembered since his own creation; his placing in Paradise; his talk with God concerning solitude and fit society; his first meeting and nuptials with Eve; his discourse with the angel thereupon; who, after admonitions repeated, departs.

THE angel ended, and in Adam's ear

So charming left his voice, that he awhile

Thought him still speaking, still stood fix'd to hear;

Then, as new-waked, thus gratefully replied:

What thanks sufficient, or what recompense

Equal, have I to render thee, divine
Historian, who thus largely hast allay'd
The thirst I had of knowledge, and vouchsafed
This friendly condescension to relate

Things else by me unsearchable; now heard
With wonder, but delight, and, as is due,
With glory attributed to the high
Creator? Something yet of doubt remains,
Which only thy solution can resolve.
When I behold this goodly frame, this world,
Of heaven and earth consisting, and compute
Their magnitudes; this earth, a spot, a grain,
An atom, with the firmament compared
And all her number'd stars, that seem to roll
Spaces incomprehensible (for such
Their distance argues, and their swift return
Diurnal), merely to officiate light

Round this opacous earth, this punctual spot,
One day and night; in all their vast survey
Useless besides; reasoning I oft admire,

a The angel ended

This eighth book made a part of the seventh book in the first edition.

Milton has here imitated the graceful suspension in the narrative of Ulysses; see the cleventh book of the Odyssey and Pope, when translating the passage, ingeniously framed his version of Milton's own words :

He ceased; but left so charming in their ear

His voice, that listening still they seem'd to hear.

b When I behold, &c.

Milton, after having given so noble an idea of the creation of the new world, takes a proper occasion to show the two great systems, usually called the Ptolemaic and the Copernican one making the earth, the other the sun, to be the centre; and this he does by introducing Adam proposing very judiciously the difficulties that occur in the first, and which was the system most obvious to him. The reply of the angel touches on the expedients the Ptolemaics invented to solve those difficulties, and to patch up their system; and then intimates that perhaps the sun is the centre; and so opens that system, and withal the noble improvements of the new philosophy; not however determining for one or the other on the contrary, he exhorts our progenitor to apply his thoughts rather to what more nearly concerns him, and is within his reach.-RICHARDSON.