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PARADISE LOST.

BOOK VII.

VOL. II.

B

THE ARGUMENT.

RAPHAEL at the request of Adam relates how and wherefore this world was first created ; that God, after the expelling of Satan and his angels out of heaven, declared his pleasure to create another world and other creatures to dwell therein; sends his Son with glory and attendance of angels to perform the work of creation in six days: the angels celebrate with hymns the performance thereof, and his reascension into heaven.

PARADISE LOST.

BOOK VII.

DESCEND from heav'n, Urania, by that name
If rightly, thou art call’d, whose voice divine
Following, above th’ Olympian hill I soar,
Above the flight of Pegaséan wing.
The meaniny, not the name I call: for thou
Nor of the Muses nine, nor on the top
Of old Olympus dwell'st, but heav'nly born,
Before the hills appear'd, or fountain flow'd,

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the top

1. Descend from heav'n, Ura- 491. Oxupersadis Mourai.

He nia,] Descende cælo, Hor. Od. calls it old, that is, famed of old iii. iv. 1. but here it is better and long celebrated, as he says applied, as now his subject leads old Euphrates, i. 420. and mount him from heaven to earth. The Casius old, ii. 593. word Urania in Greek signifies 5.

- for thou heavenly; and he invokes the Nor of the Muses nine, nor on heavenly Muse as he had done before, i. 6. and as he had said Of old Olympus dwell'st, but in the beginning that he intended heav'nly born, to soar above the Aonian mount, Tasso in his invocation has the so now he says very truly that same sentiment. Gier. Lib. cant. he had effected what he intended, i. st. 2. and soars above the Olympian hill,

O Musa, tu, che di caduchi allori above the flight of Pegaséan wing, Non circondi la fronte in Heliconia ; that is, his subject was more

Ma sù nel cielo infra i beati chori sublime than the loftiest Aights

Hai di stelle immortali aurea corona. of the heathen poets. The

Thyer. mountain Olympus is celebrated 8. Before the hills appear'd, or for the seat of the Muses, who fountain flow'd, &c.] From Prov. were therefore called Olym- viii. 24, 25, 30. When there were piades, as in Homer, Iliad. ii. no depths, I was brought forth;

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Thou with eternal Wisdom didst converse,
Wisdom thy sister, and with her didst play
In presence of th' almighty Father, pleas’d
With thy celestial song. Up led by thee
Into the heav'n of heav'ns I have presum'd,
An earthly guest, and drawn empyreal air,
Thy temp’ring; with like safety guided down
Return me to my native element :
Lest from this flying steed unrein'd, (as once

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when there were no fountains too pure and fine for him, but abounding with water: Before the the heavenly Muse temper'd and mountains were settled, before the qualified it so as to make him hills was I brought forth: Then capable of breathing in it: which was 1 by him as one brought up is a modest and beautiful way of with him; and I was duily his bespeaking his reader to make delight, rejoicing always before favourable allowances for any him, or playing according to the failings he may have been guilty Vulgar Latin (ludens corain eo of in treating of so sublime a omni tempore), to which Milton subject. alludes, when he says, and with 17. (as once her didst play, &c. And so he Bellerophon, &c.] quotes it likewise in his Tetra- Belleruphon was a beautiful and chordon, p. 222. vol. i. edit. 1738. valiant youth, son of Glaucus; “ God himself conceals not his who refusing the amorous appli

own recreations before the cations of Antea wife of Præteus “ world was built; I was, saith king of Argos, was by her false “ the eternal Wisdom, daily his suggestions, like those of Joseph's “delight, playing always before mistress to her husband, sent

into Lycia with letters desiring 14. and drawn empyreal air, his destruction ; where he was Thy temp'ring ;]

put on several enterprises full of Spenser, Faery Queen, b. i. hazard, in which however he cant. ii. st. 39.

came off conqueror : but at

tempting vain-gloriously to Thus fairly she attempered her feast,

mount up to heaven on the And pleas'd them all with meet satiety.

winged horse Pegasus, he fell Thyer.

and wander'd in the Aleian plains

till he died. Hume and Richard15. Thy temp'ring ;] This is said in allusion to the difficulty His story is related at large in of respiration on high moun- the sixth book of Homer's Iliad; tains. . This empyreal air was but it is to the latter part of it

« him."