They light the nuptial torch, and bid invoke, Is it not a most beautiful and exact copy of Homer? ver. 491, &c. Here sacred pomp, and genial feast delight, To the soft flute, and cittern's silver sound. And in like manner the driving away of the sheep and oxen Rush sudden; hills of slaughter heap the ground, They rise, take horse, approach, and reach the war; The waving silver seem'd to blush with blood. The description of the shield of Achilles is certainly one of the finest peices of poetry in the whole Iliad, and our author has plainly shown his admiration and affection for it by borrowing so many scenes and images from it but I think we may say that they do not, like other copies, fall short of the originals, but generally exceed them, and receive this additional beauty, that they are most of them made representations of real histories and matters of fact. 661. To council in the city gates:] For there assemblies were anciently held, and the judges used to sit, Gen. xxxiv. 20; Deut. xvi. 18; xxi. 19; Zech. viii. 16. 665. Of middle age one rising,] Enoch said to be of middle age, because he was translated when he was but 365 years old; a middle age then. Gen. v. 23. Richardson. 688. Such were these giants, men of high renoun;] Gen. vi. 4. "There were giants in the earth in those days; and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bare children to them: the same became mighty men, which were of old, men of renown." 700. But be the sev’ntb from thee,] Jude 14. " And Enoch also the seventh from Adam," &c. 712. He look'd and saw the face of things quite chang'd ;] Milton, to keep np an agreeable variety in his visions, after having raised in the mind of his reader the several ideas of terror which are conformable to the description of war, passes on to those softer images of triumphs and festivals, in that vision of lewdness and luxury, which ushers in the flood. Addison. -preach'd 723. Conversion and repentance, as to souls In prison] This account of Noah's preaching is founded chiefly upon St. Peter, 2 Pet. ii. 5. 66 Noah, a preacher of righteousness," and 1 Pet. iii. 19, 20. By which also he went and preached unto the spirits in prison, which sometimes were disobedient, when once the long-suffering of God waited in the days of Noah:" As what follows of Noah's desisting when he found his preaching ineffectual, and removing into another country, is taken from Josephus, Antiq. lib. i. c. iii. 730. Measur'd by cubit, length, and breadth, and beightb.] The dimensions of the ark are given Gen. vi. 15. "The length of the ark shall be three hundred cubits, the breadth of t fifty cubits, and the heighth of it thirty cubits." A cubit is the measure from the elbow to the fingers ends, and is reckoned a foot and a half. 731. Smear'd round with pitch, and in the side a door &c.] Gen. vi, 14. "Thou shalt pitch it within and without with pitch; and the door of the ark shalt thou set in the side thereof :" ver. 16. "And take thou unto thee of all food that is eaten, and thou shalt gather it to thee; and it shall be for food for thee and for them." 735. Came sev'ns, and pairs,] Sevens of clean creatures, and pairs of unclean. For this and other particulars here mentioned, See Gen. vii. 738. Mean while the south-wind rose, &c.] As it is visible that the poet had his eye upon Ovid's account of the universal deluge, the reader may observe with how much judgment he he has avoided every thing that is redundant or puerile in the Latin poet. We do not see here the wolf swimming among the sheep, nor any of those wanton imaginations, which Sene ture. ca found fault with, as unbecoming the great catastrophe of naIf our poet has imitated that verse in which Ovid tells us that there was nothing but sea, and that this sea had no shore to it, he has not set the thought in such a light as to incur the censure which critics have passed upon it The latter part of that verse in Ovid is idle and superfluous, but just and beautiful in Milton: Jamque mare et tellus nullum discrimen habebant, Sea without shore. In Milton the former part of the description does not anticipate the latter. How much more great and solemn on this occasion is that which follows in our English poet, -and in their palaces Where luxury late reign'd, sea-monsters whelp'd And stabled than that in Ovid, where we are told that the sea calves lay in those places where the goats were used to browze. The sky's being overcharged with clouds, the descending of the rains, the rising of the seas, and the appearance of the rainbow, are such descriptions as every one must take notice of. The circumstance relating to Paradise is so finely imagined, and suitable to the opinions of many learned authors, that I cannot forbear giving it a place in this paper; -then shall this mount Of Paradise by might of waves be mov'd &c. The transition which the poet makes from the vision of the deluge, to the concern it occasioned in Adam, is exquisitely graceful, and copied after Virgil, though the first thought it introduces is rather in the spirit of Ovid, How didst thou grieve then, Adam, to behold &c. I have been the more particular in my quotations out of the eleventh book of Paradise Lost, because it is not generally reckoned among the most shining books of this poem; for which reason the reader might be apt to overlook those many passages in it which deserve our admiration. The eleventh and twelfth are indeed built upon that single circumstance of the removal of our first parents from Paradise; but though this is not in itself so great a subject as that in most of the foregoing books, it is extended and diversified with so many surprising incidents and pleasing episodes, that these two last books can by no means be looked upon as unequal parts of this divine poem. I must further add, that had not Milton represented our first parents as driven out of Paradise, his fall of man would not have been complete, and consequently his action would have been imperfect. Addison. 770. Let no man seek &c.] This monition was not impertinent at a time when the folly of casting nativities was still in use. Warburton. 798. Sball with their freedom lost all virtue lose] Milton every where shows his love of liberty, and he observes very rightly that the loss of liberty is soon followed by the loss of all virtue and religion. There are such sentiments in several parts of his prose works, as well as in Aristotle and other masters of politics. 824. -all the cataracts Of Heav'n set open on the earth shall pour Rain day and night; all fountains of the deep Broke up,] Gen. vii. 11. "The same day were all the fountains of the great deep broken up, and the windows of Heaven were opened." The windows of Heaven are translated the cataracts in the Syriac and Arabic versions, and in the Septuagint and Vulgar Latin, which Milton here follows, and the great deep is the vast abyss of waters contained within the bowels of the earth, and in the sea. 836. To teach thee that God attributes to place No santity, &c.] Milton omits no opportunity of lashing what he thought superstitious. These lines may serve as one instance, and I think he plainly here alludes to the manner of consecrating churches used by Archbishop Laud. See Hume's History, vol. vi. 840.-tbe dark bull on the flood,] A ship is said to bull when all her sails are taken down, and she floats to and fro. Richardson. 841. Which now abated; for the clouds were fled, Driv'n by a keen north wind,] The Scripture says only that "God made a wind to pass over the earth ;" it is most probable that it was a north-wind, as that is such a drying wind: but our poet follows Ovid in this as well as several other particulars, Met. i. 328. 843. Wrinkled the face of deluge, as decay'd;] This allusive comparison of the surface of the decreasing waters, wrinkled by the wind, to the wrinkles of a decaying old age, is very far fetched and extremely boyish; but the author makes us ample amends in the remaining part of this description of the abating of the flood. The circumstances of it are few, but selected with great judgment, and expressed with no less spirit and beauty. In this respect Milton greatly excels the Italians, who are generally too prolix in their descriptions, and think they have never said enough whilst any thing remains unsaid. When once enough is said to excite in the reader's mind a proper idea of what the poet is representing, whatever is added, however beautiful, serves only to teize the fancy instead of pleasing it, and rather cools than improves that glow of pleasure, which arises in the mind upon its first contemplation of any surprising scene of nature well painted out. Of this Milton was very sensible, and throughout his whole poem has scarcely ever been hurried by his imagination into any thing inconsistent with it. Thyer. 846.which made their flowing shrink] Their, I suppose, refers to wave before mentioned as a noun of multitude, of the plural number. It is not easy to account for the syntax otherwise. 847. From standing lake to tripping ebb,] Tripping from tripudiare, to dance, to step lightly upon the toes, a natural description of soft-ebbing, as vii. 30c, and so it follows, "that stole with soft foot," this bold personizing is perpetually used by the Greek, and consequently by the Latin poets, who al ways imitate them. Hor. Epod. xvi. 47. -montibus altis Levis crepante lympha desilit pede., Richardson. 848.-the deep, who had stop'd His sluices as the Heav'n bis windows shut.] Gen. viii. 2. The fountains also of the deep, and the windows of Heaven were stopped. For this and other particulars of the ark resting upon the mountains of Ararat, and of the raven, and of the dove, &c. see the same chapter. 860. An olive leaf be brings, pacific sign :] Sign of Peace, of God's mercy to mankind; the olive was sacred to Pallas, and borne by those that sued for peace, as being the emblem of it and plenty. |