What shall be right: farthest from him is best; Can make a Heaven of Hell, a Hell of Heaven. which we have felt the duty of this delightful conformity; and if there be no such principle in our nature, by which we discover the duty of the conformity, it is surely very evident that there can be no such duty to be felt, any more than there can be colour to the blind, or melody to the deaf." 248. Whom reason hath equalled.] "Whom" is here used as a compound relative for "him, whom reason hath," &c. Reason, in the sense of what is just and right. 250 255 260 257. All but less.] There is no dignity to which the lost archangel does not think himself equal, though he must confess that he is less than God; but the difference is, that "thunder," mere brute force, as it were, has made him, pro tanto, his superior. 262. To reign is worth ambition.] Ambition, from am, round about, and itum, to go, means love of power, because, in Ancient Rome, candidates for any public office had to go about soliciting votes. "The highest honours and emoluments," says Isaac Taylor, for which there are inany competitors, and which are, therefore, watched and guarded by many eager, expectant eyes, are not, like the common goods of life, and which are the objects of industry, to be obtained in a straightforward course by whoever will take the trouble to seek them; but by such a going round about as shall escape the notice of others, until the aspirant has nearly attained his object." 263. Better to reign in Hell, &c.] This same idea has been traced to Prometheus in ÆSCHYLUS, but it seems to me rather to be imitated from Cæsar's famous declaration. "There is a story that as Cæsar was crossing the Alps he passed by a srall barbarian town But wherefore let we then our faithful friends, Thus answered. "Leader of those armies bright, He scarce had ceased when the superior Fiend Was moving toward the shore; his pond'rous shield, 265 270 275 280 been expended in determining whether the name ought to end with a b or an 7; with what result the curious reader will see in KITTO's Cyclopædia. 276. On the perilous edge of battle.] This is a Latinism, or rather the translation of the Latin word acies; primarily, the sharp edge of any thing, e. g. a sword; secondarily, an army in battle array; and hence, thirdly, a battle simply. 281. Astounded and amazed.] "Astounded" is probably connected with the verb to stun.-See RICHARDSON. They were stunned, or rendered insensible by the fall, and, when they recovered consciousness, very much "amazed" to find themselves where they were. 282. Height is the objective case, from being understood after fallen. This construction is rather a favourite one with Milton. We have it again Book III. 1. 14.: "Escaped the Stygian pool," and in many other places. "All words denoting measure or value, whether of time, space, or money, are capable of being put in the Ethereal temper, massy, large, and round, Behind him cast; the broad circumference Rivers, or mountains, on her spotty globe. objective, a preposition being under- 285. Ethereal temper.] The preposition" of " seems to be understood here; of ethereal temper: shield is in the nominative absolute. 286-291. The broad circumference.] The Tuscan artist is Galileo; Fesolé, or, as it is more commonly written, Fiesolé, is a town in Tuscany, near Florence, on a steep hill (to which the name is also applied) commanding a fine view of Valdarno that is, the valley of the Arno. Observe the beauty of the words, as mere words, Fesolé and Valdarno. Milton had travelled in these parts in early manhood, and his sympathy with Galileo would make him anxious to transmit his memory to everlasting fame. In the noblest of all his prose worksThe Liberty of Unlicensed Printingreferring to his stay in Florence, Milton says, "There it was that I found and visited the famous Galileo, grown old, a prisoner to the Inquisition, for thinking in astronomy otherwise than the Franciscan and Dominican licensers thought." I know not how it would look on canvas, but to the "mind's eye there cannot be a finer picture than this interview between The starry Galileo with his woes, and young Milton, "the most accomplished Englishman that ever visited the classical shores of Italy." Milton's contempt of priestcraft, and its natural concomitant, tyranny, which was beginning to appear before he set out on his 285 290 travels, was nothing lessened, we may be sure, from the converse he held with "the Tuscan artist," when he heard him recount the years of suffering he had endured for (such a crime!) "thinking in astronomy," which had been the study of his life, "otherwise" than a set of monks who were not bound to know that science, and who, in point of fact, knew little else-being, as Sallust says, dediti ventri atque somno, indocti, incultique. 291. Her spotty globe.] "Galileo's glass taught him to believe that the surface of this planet, far from being smooth and polished, as was generally taken for granted, really resembled our earth in its structure. He was able distinctly to trace on it the outlines of mountains and other inequalities, the summits of which reflected the rays of the sun before these reached the lower parts, and the sides of which, turned from his beams, lay buried in deep shadow.". BETHUNE'S Life of Galileo. - 292. Spear is in the objective, being under the regimen of "walked with." He walked with his spear (in comparison with which the loftiest pine, &c.), to enable him to support his uneasy steps, &c.-Compare TASSO'S Recovery of Jerusalem, book iii. stanza xi.— "Mast-great the spear was which the gallant bore, That in his warlike pride he made to shake, As winds tall cedars toss on mountains hoar," &c. 294. Ammiral.] "Amiralls, or Admiralls: much difference there is about the original of this word, whilst most He walked with, to support uneasy steps 295 300 High over-arched, imbower; or scattered sedge Afloat, when with fierce winds Orion armed 305 Hath vexed the Red-Sea coast, whose waves o'erthrew Busiris and his Memphian chivalry, While with perfidious hatred they pursued The sojourners of Goshen, who beheld From the safe shore their floating carcasses 310 And broken chariot wheels: so thick bestrown, probable their opinion, who make it of 303. In Vallombrosa, &c.] "Etruria" is the ancient name of the district in Italy corresponding to the modern Tuscany. Vallombrosa means the vale of shades, just as Valparaiso means the vale of paradise. Having mentioned Fiesolé and Valdarno, Milton loves to linger in the place, with what feelings the student will better judge after reading the following passage from a work called Rome in the 19th Century. The book is by a lady, but the sentiments are thoroughly manly, and such as Milton himself would have been pleased with. "We gazed with no common interest at the convent on its utmost summit, where our own Milton spent many weeks in retirement, and where he loved to meditate amidst the Etruscan ruins of its ancient city, "At evening on the top of Fesole." The long range of the snowy Apennines rose behind it, the glittering points of The deep which seemed to pierce the bright blue 304-311. Orion.] One of the constellations, represented by the figure of a man with a sword by his side. It was supposed by the ancients to be at tended with stormy weather. The con He called so loud, that all the hollow deep Warriors, the flower of Heaven, once yours, now lost, Eternal Spirits or have ye chosen this place Your wearied virtue, for the ease you find They heard, and were abashed, and up they sprung stellation of Orion set at the beginning of November, when storms were frequent. Busiris and his Memphian chivalry are here put for Pharaoh and his host, who perished when pursuing the "sojourners of Goshen." The facts are too well known to require further elucidation. 315 320 325 330 the expression of the sentiment, almost of the very image. They rise or fall, pause or hurry rapidly on, with exquisite art, but without the least trick or affectation, as the occasion seems to require."-HAZLITT'S Lectures on the English Poets. 325. Anon.] Probably in one (instant), i. e. immediately; or, at any rate, soon, by and bye. 328. Linked thunderbolts.] Alluding to the mode in which Jupiter was usually represented in ancient statues and medals, brandishing thunderbolts bound together, which he is ready to hurl at the object of his displeasure. The reader will see a representation of Jupiter with his "linked thunderbolts" on the title page of SMITH's Classical Dictionary (in one vol.). 314. He called so loud, that all the hollow deep of Hell resounded.] Observe the great preponderance of vowels and liquids. So far as language can represent sound, it is here effected in the most masterly manner. Only a poet with the fine musical ear of Milton could deliver himself of so many happy lines of this sort. The truth of the following criticism will force itself on any reader endowed with a moderately good musical ear at almost every page. "I imagine that there are more perfect examples in Milton of musical expression, or of an adaptation of the sound and movement of the verse to the meaning of the passage, than in all our other writers, whether of rhyme or blank verse, put together. * * * The sound of his lines is moulded into Dictionary. "The 331. And were abashed.] past participle and past tense of abase was anciently written abaisit, abayschid; whence the word abash appears to be formed, and is applied to the feelings of those who are abased, depressed, disgraced, humbled."- RICHARDSON'S |