gift of me

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P P 1850

mis. Mina gally Weilses

Mr. Jerome De Wease

Mrs. Violet De Weese Tuthe

PARADISE LOST.

BOOK 1.

THE ARGUMENI.

This First Book proposes, first, in brief, the whole subject, Man' disobedience, and the loss thereupon of Paradise, wherein he was placed: then touches the prime cause of his fall, the Serpent, or rather Satan in the serpent; who revolting from God, and drawing to his side many legions of Angels, was, by the command of God, driven out of Heaven, with all his crew, into the great deep. Which action passed over, the poem hastens into the midst of things, presenting Satan with his Angels now fallen into Hell, described here, not in the centre (for Heaven and Earth may be supposed as yet not made, certainly not yet accursed) but in a place of utter darkness, fitliest called Chaos: here Satan with his Angels lying on the burning lake, thunderstruck and astonished, after a certain space recovers, as from confusion, calls up him who next in order and dignity dignity lay lay by by him; they confer of their miserable fall. Satan awakens all his legions, who lay till then in the same manner confounded: they rise, their numbers, array of battle, their chief leaders named, according to the idols known afterward in Canaan and the countries adjoining. To these Satan directs his speech, comforts the them with hope yet of regaining Heaven, but tells them lastly of a new world and new kind of creature to be created, according to an ancient prophecy or report in Heaven; .for that Angels were long before this visible creation, was the opinion of many ancient Fathers. To find out the truth of this prophecy, and what to determine thereon, he refers to a full council. What his associates thence attempt. Pandemonium, the palace of Satan, rises, suddenly built out of the deep: the infernal peers there sit in council.

OF man's first disobedience, and the fruit

Of that forbidden tree, whose mortal taste Brought death into the world, and all our woe, With loss of Eden, till one greater man Restore us, and regain the blissful seat,

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1. The fitness and exquisite beauty of this introduction to the poem cannot be too much admired. The classical taste and religious feelings of the author are both evidenced in it; the former by the simplicity with which the subject is stated and the invocation of the muse, and the latter by his addressing the Holy Spirit as the source of inspiration and light. Great admiration has been expressed by the different commentators on the skilful construction of the verse in these introductory lines, the pauses of which are so varied as to give a most musical effect to the whole passage. 4. It has been supposed that Milton intimated in this expression his idea of writing Paradise Regained, but it appears to have been suggested merely by the subject of his present contemp'ation.

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Fast by the oracle of God; I thence

Invoke thy aid to my advent'rous song,
That with no middle flight intends to soar
Above th' Aonian mount, while it pursues
Things unattempted yet, in prose or rhyme.
And chiefly Thou, O Sp'rit, that dost prefer
Before all temples th' upright heart and pure,
Instruct me, for Thou know'st: Thou from the first
Wast present, and with mighty wings outspread 20
Dove-like sat'st brooding on the vast abyss,
And mad'st it pregnant. What in me is dark

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Illumine, what is low raise and support;
That to the height of this great argument
I may assert eternal Providence,

And justify the ways of God to Men.

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Say first, for Heav'n hides nothing from thy view, Nor the deep tract of Hell; say first what cause Moved our grand parents, in that happy state, Favour'd of Heav'n so highly, to fall off From their Creator, and trangress his will For one restraint, lords of the world besides ? Who first seduced them to that foul revolt? Th' infernal Serpent: he it was whose guile, Stirr'd up with envy and revenge, deceived The mother of mankind, what time his pride Had cast him out from Heav'n, with all his host Of rebel Angels; by whose aid aspiring

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6. Bentley proposed the changing of this epithet into sacred, but his his opinion has been successfully confuted, it having been shewn that the former word is peculiarly applicable to Oreb or Sinai, which had been so awfully obscured at the giving of the law. 8. Moses; who, we are told, Exod. iii. 1. kept the flock of Jethro his father-in-law.

II

11. Siloa was a fountain flowing near the temple of Jerusalem. 15. Th' Aonian mount; the classical seat of the Muses. 16. It has been supposed that Milton took the idea of writing a poem on the loss of Paradise, from an Italian tragedy called Paradiso Perso, but little weight can be placed on this opinion when it is considered that both his genius and the most favourite of his studies led him continually to religious contemplation.