599. pact. serried files,] The Italian word serrato, close, com Thyer. 620. To whom thus Belial] Whoever remembers the character of Belial in the first and second books, and Mr. Addison's remarks upon it, will easily see the propriety of making Belial reply to Satan upon this occasion, and in this sportive manner, rather than Beelzebub or Mo.och, or any of the evil Angels. 643. From their foundations, &c.] There is nothing in the first and last day's engagement which does not appear natural, and agreeable to the ideas which most readers would conceive of a fight between two armies of Angels. The second day's engagement is apt to startle an imagination which has not been raised and qualified for such a description, by the reading of the ancient poets, and of Homer in particular. It was certainly a very bold thought in our author, to ascribe the first use of artillery to the rebel Angels. But as such a pernicious invention may be well supposed to have proceeded from such authors, so it entered very properly into the thoughts of that being, who is all along described as aspiring to the majesty of his Maker. Such engines were the only instruments he could have made use of to imitate those thunders, that in all poetry are represented as the arms of the Almighty. The tearing up the hills was not altogether so daring a thought as the former. We are in some measure prepared for such an incident by the description of the giants war, which we meet with among the ancient poets. What still made the circumstance the more proper for the poet's use is the opinion of many learned men, that the fable of the giants war, which makes so great a noise in antiquity, and gave birth to the sublimest description in Hesiod's works, was an allegory founded upon this very tradition of a fight between the good and the bad Angels. It may perhaps be worth while to consider with what judgment Milton in this narration has avoided every thing that is mean and trivial in the descriptions of the Latin and Greek poets, and at the same time improved every great hint which e met with in their works upon this subje&. Homer in that passage which Longinus has celebrated for its sublimity, nd which Virgil and Ovid have copied after him, tells us that the giants threw Ossa upon Olympus, and Pelion upon Ossa. He adds an epithet to Pelion, which very much swells the idea, by bringing up to the reader's imagination all the woods that grew upon it. There is further a great beauty in singling out by name these three remarkable mountains, so well known to the Greeks. This last is such a beauty, as the scene of Milton's war could not possibly furnish him with. Claudian, in his fragment upon the giants war, has given full scope to that wildness of imagination which was natural to him. He tells us that the giants tore up whole islands by the roots, and threw them at the Gods He describes one of them in particular taking up Lemnos in his arms, and whirling it to the skies, with all Vulcan's shop in the midst of it. Another tears up mount Ida, with the river Enipeus, which ran down the sides of it; but the poet, not content to describe him with this mountain upon his shoulders, tells us that the river flowed down his back, as he held it up in that posture. It was visible to every judicious reader, that such ideas savour more of burlesque, than of the sublime. They proceed from a wantonness of imagination, and rather divert the mind than astonish it Milton has taken every thing that is sublime in these several passages, and composes out of them the following great image. From their foundations loos'ning to and fro They pluck'd the seated hills with all their load, We have the full Majesty of Homer in this short description, improved by the imagination of Claudian, without its puerilities. I need not point out the description of the fallen Angels seeing the promontories hanging over their heads in such a dreadful manner, with the other numberless beauties in this book, which are so conspicuous that they cannot escape the notice of the most ordinary reader. There are indeed so many wonderful strokes of poetry in this book, and such a variety of sublime ideas, that it would have been impossible to have given them a place within the bounds of this paper. Besides that I find it in a great measure done to my hand at the end of my Lord Rescommon's Essay on translated poetry. I shall refer my reader thither for some of the master strokes in the sixth book of Paradise Lost, which will be found at the conclusion of the notes on this book. Addison. 648. When coming towards them so dread they saw] Does not this verse express the very motion of the mountains, and is there not the same kind of beauty in the numbers, that the poet recommends in his excellent Essay on Criticism? When Ajax strives some rock's vast weight to throw, 661.-now gross by sinning grown.] What a fine moral does Milton here inculcate, and indeed quite through this book, by showing that all the weakness and pain of the rebel Angels was the natural consequence of their sinning! And I believe one may observe in general of our Author, that he is scarcely ever so far hurried on by the fire of his Muse, as to forget the main end of all good writing, the recommendation of virtue and religion. 666. That under ground they fought in dismal shade ;] It was a memorable saying of one of the Spartans at Thermopylæ, who being told that the multitude of Persian arrows would obscure the sun, why then says he, we shall fight in the shade. But what was a shade of arrows to a shade of mountains, hurled to and fro, and encountering in mid air! 669. and how all Heaven Had gone to wrack- -] It is remarked by the critics in praise of Homer's battles, that they rise in horror one above another to the end of the Iliad. The same may be said of Milton's battles. In the first day's engagement, when they fought under a cope of fire with burning arrows, it was said -all Heaven Resounded, and had earth been then, all Earth But now, when they fought with mountains and promontories, it is said All Heaven had gone to wrack, had not the almighty Father interposed, and sent forth his Son in the fulness of the divine glory and majesty to expel the rebel Angels out of Heaven. 674. advis'd:] Is here a participle adverbial, and very elegant; it means advisedly. 679 Th' assessor of his throne] So the Son is called in some of the Fathers, Dei assessor. 691. -which yet bath wrought Insensibly.] This word does not seem well to consist with that alteration, which the Angel had just before said that sin had wrought in the fallen Angels. But probably the author meant that the manner in which sin wrought was insensible, not the effects. 695. War wearied hath perform'd what war can do,] And indeed within the compass of this one book we have all the variety of battles that can well be conceived. We have a single combat and a general engagement. The first day's fight is with darts and swords, in imitation of the Ancients; the second day's fight is with artillery, in imitation of the Moderns; but the images in both are raised proportionably to the superior nature of the beings here described. And when the poet has briefly comprised all that has any foundation in fact and reality, he has recourse to the fictions of the poets in their descriptions of the giants war with the Gods. And when war bath thus performed what war can do, he rises still higher, and the Son of God is sent forth in the majesty of the almighty Father, agreeably to Scripture; so much doth the sublimity of holy Writ transcend all that is true, and all that is feigned in description. 710. Go then thou Mightiest &c.] The following lines in that glorious commission, which is given the Messiah to extirpate the host of rebel Angels, are drawn from a sublime passage in the Psalms. The reader will easily discover many other strokes of the same nature. Addison. The Psalm here meant is the xlvth, ver 3. and 4. Gird thy sword upon thy thigb, O most mighty, with thy glory and thy majesty and in thy majesty ride prosperously, &c. : 732. Thou shalt be all in all, &c.] We may still observe that Milton generally makes the divine persons talk in the style and language of the Scripture. This passage is manifestly taken from 1. Cor. xv. 24. and 28. 745. So said, he o'er his scepter bowing, rose &c.] The description of the Messiah's going out against the rebel Angels is a scene of the same sort with Hesiod's Jupiter against the Titans. They are both of them the most undoubted in stances of the true sublime. There is a greater profusion of poetical images in that of the latter; but then the superior character of a Christian Messiah, which Milton has with great judgment and majesty supported in this part of his work, gives an air of religious grandeur, which throws the advantage on the side of the English poet. 748. And the third sacred morn &c.] Milton, by continuing the war for three days, and reserving the victory upon the third for the Messiah alone, plainly alludes to the circumstances of his death and resurrection. Our Saviour's extreme sufferings on the one hand, and his heroic behaviour on the other, made the contest seem to be more equal and doubtful upon the first day; and on the second Satan triumphed in the advantages he thought he had gained, when Christ lay buried in the earth, and was to outward appearance in an irrecoverable state of corruption: but as the poet represents the almighty Father speaking to his Son, ver. 699, Two days are therefore past, the third is thine; Of ending this great war, since none but Thou Which he most gloriously did, when the third sacred morn began to shine, by vanquishing with his own almighty arm the powers of Hell, and rising again from the grave: and thus as St. Paul says, Rom. i. 4. "He was declared to be the Son of God with power, according to the Spirit of holiness, by the resurrec tion from the dead." Greenwood. 749. forth rush'd with whirlwind sound &c.] Milton has raised his description in this book with many images taken out of the poetical parts of Scripture. The Messiah's chariot is formed upon a vísion of Ezekiel, who as Grotius observes, has very much in him of Homer's spirit in the poetical parts of his prophecy. Addison. The whole description indeed is drawn almost word for word from Ezekiel, as the reader will see by comparing them together. --forth rush'd with whirlwind sound The chariot of paternal Deity, Flashing thick flames, |