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Satan, I know thy strength, and thou know'st

mine;

Neither our own, but given: What folly then To boast what arms can do? fince thine no more Than Heaven permits, nor mine, though doubled

now

1009

To trample thee as mire: For proof look up,
And read thy lot in yon celestial fign;
Where thou art weigh'd, and fhown how light,
how weak,

his retreating, in the other of his fighting. And there is this further improvement, that, as in Homer and Virgil the fates are weighed to fatisfy Jupiter himself, it is here done to fatisfy only the contending parties; for Satan to read his own destiny. So that when Milton imitates a fine paffage, he does not imitate it fervilely, but makes it as I may fay an original of his own, by his manner of varying and improving it. NEWTON.

Triffino, in the twenty

Ver. 1005. Which Gabriel spying,] feventh book of his Italia Liberata, represents the Creator weighing, with his golden fcales, the fates of the contending parties, the Romans and the Goths; and, on the defcent of the one and the afcent of the other, he adds

"Il che vedendo gli angioli divini,

"Conobber chiara la fentenzia eterna,

"E totalmente abbandonaro i Goti." TODD.

Ver. 1008.

· fince thine no more

Than Heaven permits, nor mine,] Thine and mine refer to strength, v. 1006, not to arms, the fubftantive preceding. NEWTON.

Ver. 1010. To trample thee as mire:] See Ifaiah x. 6, to which Dr. Gillies refers. "To tread them down like the mire in the streets." And 1 Sam. xxii. 43. TODD.

I

Ver. 1012. Where thou art weigh'd, and shown how light, &c.] He does not make the afcending fcale the fign of victory as in

If thou refift. The Fiend look'd up, and knew His mounted scale aloft: Nor more; but fled Murmuring, and with him fled the shades of night.

1015

Homer and Virgil, but of lightnefs and weakness according to that of Belshazzar, Dan. v. 27. "Thou art weighed in the balances, and art found wanting." oftener imitates Scripture than Homer and Virgil, even where he is thought to imitate them moft. NEWTON.

So true it is, that Milton

Ver. 1014. but fled] As Apollo, in Tryphiodorus, upon feeing the ill fuccefs of the Trojans, retires into Lycia; fo Satan here betakes himself to flight, on viewing the lightness of his own fcale. Merrick's Tryphiodorus, Eng. Tranfl. 8vo. Ox. 1739, p. 110. TODD.

Ver. 1015. Murmuring,] As in Taffo, where Michael drives back the infernal fpirits to Hell, Gier. Lib: C. ix.

"Effi gemendo abbandonar' le belle

"Region' de la luce, &c." DUNSTER.

THE END OF THE FOURTH BOOK.

THE

FIFTH BOOK

OF

PARADISE LOST.

THE ARGUMENT.

Morning approached, Eve relates to Adam her troublesome dream; he likes it not, yet comforts her: They come forth to their day-labours: Their morning hymn at the door of their bower. God, to render man inexcufable, fends Raphael to admonifh him of his obedience, of his free eftate, of his enemy near at hand, who he is, and why his enemy, and whatever elfe may avail Adam to know. Raphael comes down to Paradife; his appearance defcribed; his coming difcerned by Adam afar off fitting at the door of his bower; he goes out to meet him, brings him to his lodge, entertains him with the choiceft fruits of Paradife got together by Eve; their difcourfe at table: Raphael performs his message, minds Adam of his state and of his enemy; relates, at Adam's request, who that enemy is, and how he came to be fo, beginning from his firft revolt in Heaven, and the occafion thereof; how he drew his legions after him to the parts of the north, and there incited them to rebel with him, perfuading all but only Abdiel a Seraph, who in argument diffuades and oppofes him, then forfakes him.

PARADISE LOST.

BOOK V.

Now Morn, her rofy steps in the eastern clime Advancing, fow'd the earth with orient pearl,

Ver. 1. Now Morn, her rofy fteps &c.] This is the morning of the day, after Satan's coming to the earth; and, as Homer calls the morning pedodánτvaos rofy-fingered, Milton here gives her rofy steps, and, in B. vi. 3, a rofy hand. The morn is first gray, then rofy, upon the nearer approach of the fun. And she is faid to fow the earth &c. by the fame fort of metaphor as Lucretius fays of the fun, Lib. ii. 211.

"lumine conferit arva." NEWTON.

Mr. Upton and Mr. Wakefield have noted the existence of this metaphor, in a piece of unknown poetry quoted by Aristotle in his Poeticks: ΣΠΕΙΡΩΝ Θεοκτίσαν ΦΛΟΓΑ. Mr. Thyer points out the propriety of Milton's expreffion, fow'd the earth with orient pearl, as more obfervable than that of Lucretius; fince the dewdrops have fomething of the shape and appearance of scattered feeds. He might have added Spenfer's expreffion of "pearly dew." Faer: Qu. iv. v. 45. And in an old Scottish poem, there occur, thefe lines:

"The fylver drops of dew hang on the bewis,
"Lyke orient pearle, &c."

See Anc. Scot. Poems, vol. ii. 260, Lond. 1786. The stars are called "the feed of pearle, fowne in the fpacious fields of the heavens, to bring forth light," in Partheneia Sacra, 8vo. 1633,

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