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himself, is conformable to the pride and intrepidity of his character. Zephon's rebuke, with the influence it had on Satan, is exquisitely graceful and moral. Addison.

829.-there sitting where ye durst not soar:] As sitting is frequently used in the Scriptures, and in other ancient writers, for a posture that implies a high rank of dignity and power; Satan by this expression intimates his great superiority over them, that he had the privilege to sit, as an angel of figure and authority, in an eminent part of Heaven, where they durst not soar, where they did not presume even Greenwood.

to come.

834. To whom thus Zepkor,] Zephon is very properly made to answer him, and not Ithuriel, that each of them may ap.

pear as actors upon this occasion. Ithuriel with his spear restored the Fiend to his own shape, and Zephon rebukes him. It would not have been so well, if the same person had done both.

845. Severe in youthful beauty, added grace] Virg. Æn. v, 344.

Gratior et pulchro veniens in corpore virtus.

848. Virtue in her shape how lovely; &c.] What is said here of seeing Virtue in her shape how lovely is manifestly borrowed from Plato and C.c. de Off. i. 5. as what follows, saw and pin'd his loss, is an imitation of Persius, Sat. iii. 33.

883to violate sleep,] Shakespear in Macbeth has a stronger expression, to murder sleep; both equally proper in the places where they are employed.

962.- -arreed] 'io decree, to award.

965.I drag thee] The present tense used for the future, to signify the immediate execution of the menace. A Latinism, and very emphatical. Quce prima pericula vito. Virg. Æn. iii. 367. Cui famula trador? Quim dominum voco Senec. Troad. 473. Richardson.

966. And seal thee so] This seems to allude to the chaining of the dragon, that old serpent, which is the Devil and Satan, mentioned in the Revelation, xx. 3.

971. Proud limitary Cherub,] Thou proud prescribing Angel that presumest to limit me, and appoint my prison, according to Mr. Hume. Or rather limitary, set to guard the bounds; a taunt insulting the good Angel as one employed

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in a little mean office, according to Mr. Richardson. For limitary (as Dr. Heylin remarks) is from limitaneus. Milites limitanei are soldiers in garrison upon the frontiers. So Dux limitaneus. Digest. And as Mr. Thyer farther observes, the word is intended as a scornful sneer upon what Gabriel had just said,

-if from this hour

Within these hollowed limits thou appear.

974. Ride on thy wings, &c.] This seems to allude to Ezekiel's vision, where four Cherubims are appointed to the four wheels: See chap. i. and x. and xi. 22.

977. While thus he spake, &c.] The conference between Gabriel and Satan abounds with sentinients proper for the occasion, and suitable to the persons of the two speakers. Satan clothing himself with terror, when he prepares for the combat, is truly sublime, and at least equal to Homer's description of Discord celebrated by Longinus, or to that of Fame in Virgil, who are both represented with their feet standing upon the earth, and their heads reaching above the clouds. Addison.

987. Like Teneriff or Atlas unremov'd:] Well may Satan be likened to the greatest mountains, and be said to stand as firm and immoveable as they, when Virgil has applied the same comparison to his hero, Æn. xii 701.

Like Eryx, or like Athos great he shows,

Dryden.

Or father Appennine, when white with snows, His head divine obscure in clouds he hides, And shakes the sounding forest on his sides. 991. •-nor only Paradise &c.] This representation of what must have happened, if Gabriel and Satan had encountered, is imagined in these few lines with a nobleness suitable to the occasion, and is an improvement upon a thought in Homer, where he represents the terrors which must have attended the conflicts of two such powers as jupiter and Neptune, Iliad. xv. 224.

Pepe.

And all the Gods that round old Saturn dwell, Had heard the thunders to the deeps of Hell. 996. Th' Eternal to prevent such korvid fray] The breaking off the combat between Cabricl and Satan, by the hanging out of the golden scales in Heaven, is a refinement upon

Homer's thought, who tells us that before the battle between Hector and Achilles, Jupiter weighed the event of it in a pair of scales. The reader may see the whole passage in the 22d Iliad. Virgil before the last decisive combat describes Jupiter in the same manner, as weighing the fates of Turnus and Æneas. Milton, though he fetched this beautiful circumstance from the Iliad and Æneid, does not only insert it as a poetical embellishment, like the authors above mentioned; but makes an artful use of it for the proper carrying on of his fable, and for the breaking off the combat between the two warriors who were upon the point of engaging. To this we may further add, that Milton is the more justified in this passage, as we find the same noble allegory in holy Writ, where a wicked prince, some few hours before he was assaulted and slain, is said to have been weighed in the scales and to have been found wanting. Addison.

998. Betwixt Astrea and the Scorpion sign,] Libra or the Scales is one of the twelve signs of the zodiac, as Astrea (or Virgo the Virgin) and Scorpio also are. This does as it were realize the fiction, and gives consequently a greater force to it.

999. Wherein all things created first be weigh'd, &c.] This of weighing the creation at first and of all events since gives us a sublime idea of Providence, and is conformable to the style of Scripture. Job. xxviii. 25.

1012. Where thou art weigh'd and shown how light, how weak,] He does not make the ascending scale the sign of victory as in Homer and Virgil, but of lightness and weakness according to that of Belshazzar, Dan. v. 27. Theù art weigh'd in the balances, and art found wanting. So true it is, that Milton oftener imitates Scripture than Homer andVirgil, even where he is thought to imitate them most.

BOOK V.

21.--we lose the prime,] THE prime of the day; as he

calls it elsewhere

-that sweet hour of prime,

and ix. 200.

The season prime for sweetest scents and airs.

ver. 170.

The word is used by Chaucer and Spenser, as in Faery Queen, book i. cant. 6. st. 13.

They all, as glad as birds of joyous prime.

26. Such whispring wak'd her,] We were told in the fore going book how the evil Spirit practised upon Eve as she lay asleep, in order to inspire her with thoughts of vanity, pride, and ambition. The author, who shows a wonderful art throughout his whole poem, in preparing the reader for the several occurrences that arise in it, founds upon the above-mentioned circumstance the first part of the fith book. Adam upon his awaking finds Eve still asleep, with an unusual discomposure in her looks. The posture in which he regards her, is described with a tenderness not to be expressed, as the whisper with which he awakens her, is the softest that ever was conveyed to a lover's ear. I cannot but take notice that Milton, in the conferences between Adam and Eve, had his eye very frequently upon the book of Canticles, in which there is a noble spirit of eastern poetry, and very often not unlike what we meet with in Homer, who is generally placed near the age of Solomon.

35.

-methought

Close at mine ear, &c.] Eve's dream is full of those high conceits ingend'ring pride, which we are told the Devil endeavoured to instil into her. Of this kind is that part of it

where she fancies herself awakened by Adam in the following beautiful lines,

Why sleep'st thou Eve? &c.

An injudicious poet would have made Adam talk through the whole work in such sentiments as these: but flattery and falshcod are not the courtship of Milton's Adam, and could not be heard by Eve in her state of innocence, excepting only in a dream produced on purpose to taint her ima gination. Other vain sentiments of the same kind in this relation of her dream will be obvious to every reader. Tho' the catastrophe of the poem is finely presaged on this occasion, the particulars of it are so artfully shadowed, that they do not anticipate the story which follows in the ninth book. I shail only add, that though the vision itself is founded upon truth, the circumstances of it are full of that wildness and inconsistency, which are natural to a dream. Addison.

53. Much fairer to my fancy than by day :] As the sensations are often more pleasing, and the images more lively, when we are asleep than when we are awake. And what can be the cause of this? Our author plainly thinks it may be effected by the agency of some spiritual being upon the sensory while we are asleep. Great as was Milton's genius, he was not so far advanced in philosophy as to reject all hypotheses concerning efficient causes of phaenomena in either the natural or moral world.

94.and thus Adam] Adam, conformable to his superior character for wisdom, instructs and comforts Eve upon this Occasion. Addison.

145.each morning duly paid

In various stile ;] As it is very well known that our author was no friend to set forms of prayer, it is no wonder that he ascribes extemporary effusions to our first parents; but even while he attributes strains unmeditated to them, he himself imitates the Psalmist.

153. These are thy glorious work:, &c.] The morning hymn is written in imitation of one of those Psalms, where in the overflowings of gratitude and praise the Psalmist calls not only upon the Angels, but upon the most conspicuous parts of the inanimate creation, to join with him in extolling their common Maker. Invocations of this nature fill the mind

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