I saw, when at his word the formless mass, Thus said, he turn'd; and Satan, bowing low kAnd this ethereal quintessence. The four elements hasted to their quarters, but this fifth esse 1 On Niphates' top. The poet lands Satan on this mountain, says Hume, because in which the most judicious describers of Paradise place it.—1 Satan after having long wandered upon the surface, or utm covers at last a wide gap in it, which led into the creation, an through which the angels pass to and fro into the lower mankind. His sitting upon the brink of this passage, and face of nature that appeared to him new and fresh in all its b trating this circumstance, fills the mind of the reader with as as any that arises in the whole poem. He looks down into t with the eye, or as Milton calls it in his first book, with the all the wonders in this immense amphitheatre that lies betw and takes in at one view the whole round of the creation. His flight between the several worlds that shined on every BOOK IV. INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. I BELIEVE that this book of the poem is a general favourite with readers: there are parts of it beautiful; but it appears to me far less grand than the books which precede it it has, I think, not only less sublimity, but less poetical invention. It required less imagination to describe the garden of Eden than Pandaemonium or Chaos. Adam and Eve are the one noble, the other lovely ;-but still they are human beings, with human passions. Some criticisms might be made both on the described scenery, and on the occupations of our first parents. The gardener's skill and labours do not seem very necessary or natural at the first spring of the earth's creation. The bard seems for the moment so far to have forgot himself as to attempt rivality with the picturesque inventions of mere human poets: there is not that compression and massy strength, which is the usual quality of Miltonic painting. Grandeur was Milton's element, not beauty or tenderness! Invention will only be found where the natural strength lies, not where it is sought by labour and art. Where Milton drew a giant, he invented ;-where he drew beauty, he borrowed. It has often been observed, that Satan is the hero of "Paradise Lost," not Adam; and this is true! Neither Adam nor Eve take a part sufficiently active and important. ARGUMENT. SATAN, now in prospect of Eden, and nigh the place where he must now attempt the bold enterprise which he undertook alone against God and man, falls into many doubts with himself, and many passions, fear, envy, and despair; but at length confirms himself in evil, journeys on to Paradise, whose outward prospect and situation is described, overleaps the bounds; sits in the shape of a cormorant on the Tree of Life, as the highest in the garden, to look about him.. The garden described; Satan's first sight of Adam and Eve: his wonder at their excellent form and happy state, but with resolution to work their fall: overhears their discourse; thence gathers that the Tree of Knowledge was forbidden them to eat of, under penalty of death; and thereon intends to found his temptation, by seducing them to transgress: then leaves them awhile, to know farther of their state by some other means. Meanwhile, Uriel, descending on a sunbeam, warns Gabriel, who had in charge the gate of Paradise, that some evil spirit had escaped the deep, and passed at noon by his sphere in the shape of a good angel down to Paradise, discovered afterwards by his furious gestures in the mount. Gabriel promises to find him ere morning. Night coming on, Adam and Eve discourse of going to their rest: their bower described; their evening worship. Gabriel, drawing forth his bands of night-watch to walk the rounds of Paradise, appoints two strong angels to Adam's bower, lest the evil spirit should be there doing some harm to Adam or Eve sleeping; there they find him at the car of Eve, tempting her in a dream, and bring him, though unwilling, to Gabriel; by whom questioned, he scornfully answers, prepares resistance, but, hindered by a sign from heaven, flies out of Paradise. O, FOR that warning voice a, which he who saw a0, for that warning voice. The poet opens this book with a wish, in the manner of Shakspeare: "O, for a Muse of fire!" Prol. to Hen. V.; "O, for a falconer's voice!" Rom. and Juliet, a. ii. s. 2. And, in order to raise the horror and attention of his reader, he introduces his relation of Then when the dragon, put to second rout, By change of place: now conscience wakes despair C Sometimes towards heaven and the full blazing sun, Then, much revolving, thus in sighs began O thou, that, with surpassing d glory crown'd, Satan's adventures upon earth, by wishing that the same warning voice had been uttered now at Satan's first coming, which St. John, who in a vision saw the Apocalypse, or revelation of the most remarkable events which were to befal the christian church to the end of the world, heard when the dragon was put to second rout, Rev. xii. 12. "Woe to the inhabitants of the earth and of the sea! for the devil is come down unto you, having great wrath."-NEWTON. b. Yet not rejoicing in his speed. Satan was bold far off and fearless; and, as he drew nearer, was pleased with hoped success: but now he is come to earth to begin his dire attempt, he does not rejoice in it; his heart misgives him; horror and doubt distract him. This is all very natural.—NEWTON, e Sometimes towards heaven. All this passage is highly poetical and pathetic. 40 thou, that, with surpassing. One of those magnificent speeches to which no other name can be given, than that it is supereminently Miltonic. This is mainly argumentative sublimity; in which I think that he is even still greater than in his splendid and majestic imagery. The alternations of this dreadful speech strike and move the mind like the changes of the tempest in a dark night, when the thunder and lightning roar and flash, and then intermit, and then redouble again. Compare the opening speech in the Phonisse of Euripides; where Porson has remarked, that Milton had once intended to have written a tragedy, not an epic, and to have commenced it with this address to the Sun. It is only necessary to give the Professor's Look'st from thy sole dominion like the God As great might have aspired, and me, though mean, Hadst thou the same free will and power to stand? Be then his love accursed; since love or hate, To me alike, it deals eternal woe: Nay, cursed be thou; since against his thy will To which the hell I suffer seems a heaven. anthority:-" These verses, several years before the poem was begun, were shown to me, and some others, as designed for the very beginning of a tragedy upon this subject." -EDWARD PHILIPS. |