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This first book proposes, first in brief, the whole subject, Man's difobedience, and the lofs thereupon of Paradife wherein he was placed: Then touches the prime cause of his fall, the Serpent, or rather Satan in the ferpent; who revolting from God, and drawing to his fide many legions of Angels, was by the command of God driven out of Heaven with all his crew into the great deep. Which action pass'd over, the poem haftes into the midst of things, prefenting Satan with his Angels now fallen into Hell, defcrib'd here, not in the center (for Heaven and Earth may be fuppos'd as yet not made, certainly not yet accurs'd) but in a place of utter darkness, fitlieft call'd Chaos: Here Satan with his Angels lying on the burning lake, thunder-struck and aftonish'd, after a certain fpace recovers, as from confufion, calls up him who next in order and dignity lay by him; they confer of their miferable fall. Satan awakens all his legions, who lay till then in the fame manner confounded; They rife, their numbers, array of battel, their chief leaders nam'd, according to the idols known afterwards in Canaan and the countries adjoining. To these Satan directs his fpeech, comforts them with hope yet of regaining Heaven, but tells them laftly of a new world and new kind of creature to be created, according to an antient prophecy or report in Heaven; for that Angels were long before this vifible creation, was the opinion of many ancient Fathers. To find out the truth of this prophecy, and what to determin thereon, he refers to a full council. What his affociates thence attempt. Pandemonium the palace of Satan rifes, fuddenly built out of the deep: The infernal peers there fit in council.

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PARADISE LOST.

BOOK I.

F Man's firft difobedience, and the fruit
Of that forbidden tree, whofe mortal taste

1. Of Man's firft difobedience, &c.] Milton has propofed the ful jet of his poem in the following verfes. Thefe lines are perhaps as plain, fimple, and unadorned as any of the whole poem, in which particular the author has conformed himself to the example of Homer and the precept of Horace. His invocation to a work, which turns in a great measure upon the creation of the world, is very properly made to the Mufe who infpired Mofes in thofe books from whence our author drew his fubject, and to the Holy Spirit who is therein reprefented as operating after a particular manner in the firft production of nature. This whole exordium rifes very happily into noble language and fentiment, as I think the tranfition to the fable is exquifitely beautiful and natural. Addijon.

Pefides the plainnefs and fimplicity of thefe lines, there is a farther beauty in the variety of the numbers, which of themselves charm every reader without any fublimity of thought or pomp of expreffion and this variety of the

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Brought

numbers confifts chiefly in the paufe being fo artfully varied, that it falls upon a different fyllable in almoft every line, as it may eafily be perceived by diftinguishing the verses thus:

Of Man's first difobedience, and the fruit

Of that forbidden tree, whose mortal tafte

Brought death into the world, and

all our woe,

With lofs of Eden, I till one greater Man

Reftore us, and regain the blissful feat,

Sing heav'nly Mufe, I

Mr. Pope, in a letter to Mr. Walsh containing fome critical obfervations on English verfification, remarks that in any smooth English verfe of ten fyllables, there is naturally a paufe at the fourth, fifth, or fixth fyllable, and upon the judicious change and management of thefe depends the variety of verfification. But Milton varies the paufe according to the fenfe, and varies it through all the ten fylB 2 'lables,

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and fix fuch feet conftitute an Iambic verfe: but the Ancients feldom made ufe of the pure Iambic, efpecially in works of any confiderable length, but oftner of the mix'd Iambic, that is with a proper intermixture of other measures; and of thefe perhaps Milton has exprefs'd as happy a variety as any poet whatever, or indeed as the nature of a verse will admit, that confifts only of five feet, and ten fyllables for the most part. Sometimes he gives us almoft pure Iambics, as in I. 314.

Hě call'd fo loud, that all the hōl

low deep. Öf H.11 refounded.

Sometimes he intermixes the Trochee or foot of one long and one fhort fyllable as in ver. 49.

,

Who durft defy th' Omnipotent to

arms.

Sometimes the Spondee or foot of two long fyllables

as in ver. 21.

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And fometimes there is variety of
these measures in the fame verfe,
and feldom or never the fame mea-
fures in two verfes together. And
thefe changes are not only rung for
the fake of the greater variety, but
are fo contriv'd as to make the
found more expreffive of the fense.
And this is another art of ver-
great
fification, the adapting of the very
founds, as well as words, to the
fubject matter, the file of found,
as Mr. Pope calls it: and in this
Milton is excellent as in all the

reft, and we shall give feveral in-
ftances of it in the course of these
So that he has abun-
remarks.
dantly exemplified in his own
practice the rules laid down by

Dove-like fatft brooding on the himself in his pref..ce, his verfifi

vaft abyfs.

cation having all the requifites of true mufical delight, which as he

Sometimes the Pyrrichius or foot fays confifts only in apt numbers, fit

B 3

quantity

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