"And I looked, and behold a whirlwind came out of the Itself instinct with Spirit, but convoy'd "Also out of the midst thereof came the likeness of four living creatures, and their appearance was as it were a wheel in the middle of a wheel; and when the living creatures went, the wheels went by them, for the spirit of the living creature was in the wheels. i. 5, 16, 19, 20. -four faces each Had wondrous; as with stars their bodies all And wings were set with eyes, with eyes the wheels. "And every one had four faces :" i. 6. "And their whole body, and their wings, and their wheels, were full of eyes round about:"x. 12. Of beril, and carreering fires between ; The beril is a precious stone of a sea green colour, and carreering fires, are lightnings darting out by fits, a metaphor taken from the running in tilts: "The appearance of the wheels and their work was like unto the colour of a beril; and the fire was bright, and out of the fire went forth lightning." 760. He in celestial panoply all arm'd Of radiant Urim,] All armed in complete heavenly armour of radiant light. Celestial panoply is an allusion to St. Paul's expression, Eph. vi. 11. Put on the panoply, the whole armour of God. 781. At his command &c.] We frequently read in the Scriptures of the hills and mountains trembling and moving at the presence or command of the Lord: but it is generally, if not always, mentioned as the effect or proof of his high displeasure. Here the poet lays hold of the same thought, and applies it as an instance of his great goodness, to renew the avonted face of Heaven. 788. In heav'nly Spirits could such perverseness devell ? -Tantæne animis cœlestibus iræ ? Virg. Æn. i. 1I. 842. That wish'd the mountains now might be again &c.] So Rev. vi. 16, which is very applicable here, as they had been overwhelmed with mountains. See ver. 655. What was so terrible before, they wished as a shelter now. 853. Yet kalf his strength he put not forth, &c] There is no question but Milton had heated his imagination with the fight of the Gods in Homer, before he entered upon this engagement of the Angels. Homer there gives us a scene of men, heroes and Gods, mixed together in battle. Mars animates the contending armies, and lifts up his voice in such a manner, that it is heard distinctly, amidst all the shouts and confusion of the fight. Jupiter at the same time thunders over their heads; while Neptune raises such a tempest, that the whole field of battle, and all the tops of the mountains shake about them. The poet tells us, that Pluto himself, whose habitation was in the very centre of the earth, was so affrighted at the shock, that he leaped from his throne, Homer afterwards describes Vulcan as pouring down a storm of fire upon the river Xanthus, and Minerva as throwing a rock at Mars, who he tells us covered seven acres in his fall. As Homer has introduced into his battle of the Gods every thing that great and terrible in nature, Milton has filled his fight of good and bad Angels with all the like circumstances of horror. The shouts of armies, the rattling of brazen chariots, the hurling of rocks and mountains, the earthquake, the fire, the thunder, are all of them employed to lift up the reader's imagination, and give him a suitable idea of so great an action. With what art has the poet represented the whole body of the earth trembling, even before it was created! All Heaven resounded, and had earth been then In how sublime and just a manner does he afterwards de- -Under his burning wheels The stedfast empyréan shook throughout, Notwithstanding the Messiah appears clothed with so much terror and majesty, the poet has still found means to make his readers conceive an idea of him, beyond what he himself was able to describe. Yet half his strength he put not forth, but check'd Not to destroy but root them out of Heav'n, In a word, Milton's genius, which was so great in itself, and so strengthened by all the helps of learning, appears in this book every way equal to his subject, which was the most sublime that could enter into the thoughts of a poet. As he knew all the arts of affecting the mind, he knew it was necessary to give it certain resting places, and opportunities of recovering itself from time to time: he has therefore with great address interspersed several speeches, reflections, similitudes, and the like reliefs to diversify his narration, and ease the attention of the reader, that he might come fresh to his great action, and by such a contrast of ideas have a more lively taste of the nobler par.s of his description. Addison. 856.and as a herd Of goats &c.] It may seem strange that our author, amidst so many sublime images, should intermix so low a comparison as this. But it is the practice of Homer; and we have some remarkable instances in the second book of the Iliad, where, in a pompous description of the Grecians going forth to battle, and amidst the glare of several noble similitudes, they are compared for their number to flies about a shepherd's cottage, when the milk moistens the pails; and after he has compared Agamemnon to Jove, and Mars, and Neptune, he compares him again to a bull. But we may observe, to the advantage of our author, that this low simile is not applied as Homer's similies are, to the persons he meant to honour, but to the contrary party; and the lower the comparison, the more it expresses their defeat. And there is the greater proprie ty in the similitude of goats particularly, because our Saviour represents the wicked under the same image, as the good are called the sheep, Mat. xxv. 33. 893. Thus measuring things in Heav'n by things on earth, &c.] He repeats the same kind of apology here in the conclusion, that he made in the beginning of his narration. See v. 573, &c. By likening spiritual to corporeal form, &c. and it is indeed the best defence that can be made for the bold fictions in this book, which though some cold readers may perhaps blame, yet the coldest, I conceive, cannot but admire. It is remarkable too with what art and beauty the poet, from the highth and sublimity of the rest of this book, descends here at the close of it, like the lark from her loftier notes in the clouds, to the most prosaic simplicity of language and numbers; a simplicity which not only gives it variety, but the greatest majesty, as Milton himself seems to have thought, by always choosing to give the speeches of God, and the Messiah in that style, though these I suppose are the parts of this poem, which Dryden censures as the flats which he "often met with for thirty or forty lines together. 909. Thy weaker ;] As St Peter calls the wife the weaker vessel. Pet. iii. 7. It may perhaps be agreeable to the reader to find here at the conclusion of this sixth book the commendations which Lerd Roscommon has bestowed upon it in his Essay on Translated Verse, and to which Mr.Addison refers in a note above. That truly noble critic and poet is there making his complaints of the barbarous bondage of rhime, and wishes that the English would shake off the yoke, having so good an example before them as the author of Paradise Lost. Of many faults rhime is perhaps the cause; In double rhimes our Thor and Woden spoke ; But now that Phoebus and the sacred Nine Why should not we their ancient rites restore, Have we forgot how Raphael's numerous prose Portentous sight! before the cloudy van And (arm'd with vengeance) God's victorious Son Grasping ten thousand thunders in his hand And in the Roman majesty appear, Which none know better, and none come so near. |