Equal to God, and equally enjoying 306 310 A world from utter lofs, and haft been found With thee thy manhood also to this throne: I give thee; reign for ever, and affume Ver. 306. Equal to God, and equally enjoying God-like fruition,] This deferves notice, as an inftance of Milton's orthodoxy, with relation to the divinity of Thy merits;] and affume Imitated from Horace, Od. III. xxx. 14. "Sume fuperbiam quæfitam meritis;" but adapted to the Divine Perfon to whom it is fpoken. NEWTON. Ver. 319. under thee, as head fupreme, &c.] Here the fpeech begins to fwell into a confiderable degree of fublimity, and that of the pureft and moft perfect kind, in no ways inconfiftent with our most reverent ideas of the great Being who is the speaker, as he is pourtrayed to us in the Holy ScripDUNSTER. tures. 1 Thrones, Princedoms, Powers, Dominions, I reduce: 320 All knees to thee shall bow, of them that bide Ver. 321. All knees to thee fhall bow, &c.] See Philipp. ii. 10. NEWTON. Ver. 323. When thou, altended gloriously from Heaven, &c.] See St. Matt. xxv. 30, 31, 32. And for the fummoning ArchAngels, I Theff. iv. 16. "For the Lord himself fhall defcend from Heaven with a fhout, with the voice of the Archangel, and with the trump of God." HUME.. Ver. 327. the cited dead] Rev. xx. 11. “Aud I faw the dead, small and great, ftand before God.." HUME. Ver. 329. Such a peal fhall roufe their fleep.] 1 Cor. xv. 51. "We fhall not all fleep, but we fhall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump." TODD. Ver. 334. The world fhall burn, &c.] See II Pet. iii. 12, 13. NEWTON. New Heaven and Earth, wherein the just shall dwell, And, after all their tribulations long, 335 See golden days, fruitful of golden deeds, 345 Ver. 335. New Heaven and Earth,] Dr. Bentley reads Heavens; for (he fays) Heaven is the feat of God, Heavens are the visible ones, all not beyond the fixed ftars: But I find Milton almost always ufing the known Jewish phrafe of Heaven and Earth to exprefs the whole creation by. See instances in B. vii. 62, 167, 232, 256, 617, &c. PEARCE. And fee Rev. xxi. 1. "And I faw a new Heaven and a new Earth, for the firft Heaven and the first Earth were paffed away." NEWTON. Ver. 337. See golden days, &c.] Virgil, Ecl. iv. 9. -"toto furget gens aurea mundo." HUME. Ver. 341. God shall be all in all.] According to 1 Cor. xv. 28. HUME. Ibid. all ye Gods,] Pfalm xcvii. 7. "Worship him, all ye Gods," that is, all ye Angels: And so it tranflated by the feventy, and fo cited by St. Paul, Heb. i. "And let all the Angels of God worship him." NEWTON. Ver. 343. Adore the Son, &c.] John v. 23. NEWTON. Ver. 344. No fooner had the Almighty ceas'd, but all The multitude of Angels, &c.] Milton, though he has written his poem on the epick plan, ftill retains in many parts Loud as from numbers without number, fweet As from bleft voices, uttering joy, Heaven rung With jubilee, and loud Hofannas fill'd of it the dramatick form, which at one time he intended entirely to have given it. A Chorus of Angels was a material part of his first sketch; and was perhaps his firft inducement for inclining to make it a tragedy. Here the attendant Angels are a perfect Chorus; accordingly he terms them (ver. 217.) " the heavenly quire."-For the choral parts we may, befides this part of the book, particularly refer to Book vi. 882, B. vii. 182, 565, 601. We may also refer to the Angelick Chorus in Pur. Reg. B. i. 169, B. iv. 596. In the Adamo of Andreini there is a double chorus ; one of good Angels, the other of Demons. The great body of the fallen Angels, in this poem alfo, fometimes exhibit to us the form of a fecond Chorus. See B. i. 666, B. ii. 477, B. x. 505. But for the Divine Chorus, finging their angelick hymn, fee Ifaiah vi. 3. See alfo Job xxxviii. 7. And the note on ver. 365. DUNSTER. Ver. 345. The multitude of Angels, &c.] The conftruction is this; All the multitude of Angels uttering joy with a fhout loud as &c. Heaven rung &c. where the firft words are put in the ablative cafe abfolutely. PEARCE. I would make out the fyntax, by fupplying the verb shouted or received; fo that the full conftruction will be, The Angels Shouted with a fhout, or received, viz. what God had faid, with a fhout loud as from numbers without number, &c.—The ablative abfolute, in the first place, would be making the connection too remote, when the natural connection is with the word immediately preceding, viz. voices; fo that the conftruction is, voices uttering joy. And, fecondly, the fenfe is better, if we follow the natural connection, as uttering joy accounts fo well for the sweetness of the voices. I therefore think it is better to fuppose, that Milton, in imitation of his great model Homer, intended to vary his style, and make it more poetical, by an anomalous conftruction, but fuch as does not at all obfcure the fenfe. Ver. 348. LORD MON BODDO. and loud Hofannas fill'd The eternal regions:] Thus Dante reprefents, as The eternal regions: Lowly reverent Towards either throne they bow, and to the ground With folemn adoration down they caft 350 Their crowns inwove with amarant and gold; Immortal amarant, a flower which once In Paradise, faft by the tree of life, Began to bloom; but foon for man's offence 355 To Heaven remov'd, where first it grows, grew, there And flowers aloft fhading the fount of life, Rolls o'er Elyfian flowers her amber stream; Mr. Dunfter alfo remarks, the general fong of the choral Angels through all the orders and hierarchies, Parad. C. xxviii. 94. "Io fentiva ofannar di coro in coro "Al punto fiffo, &c." TODD. Ver. 351. down they caft Their crowns] So they are reprefented, Rev. iv. 10. Ver. 353. Immortal amarant,] A flower of a purple velvet colour, which, though gathered, keeps its beauty; and, when all other flowers fade, recovers its luftre by being fprinkled with a little water, as Pliny affirms, lib. 21, c. 11. Milton feems to have taken this hint from 1 Pet. i. 4. "To an inheritance incorruptible, undefiled, and that fudeth not away, papárter; and v. 4. “Ye fhall receive a crown of glory that fadeth not away, åμapárwwer :” Both relating to the name of his everlasting amarant, which he has finely fet near the tree of life. "Amarantus flos, fymbolum eft immortalitatis." Clem. Alex. HUME. Ver. 359. Rolls o'er Elyfian flowers her amber ftream;] Dr. Bentley reads "Rolls o'er relucent gems &c." because (he says) it is not well conceived that flowers grow at the bottom of a river. |