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Than from the giant Angels: Thee that day 605
Thy thunders magnified; but to create
Is greater than created to destroy.

Who can impair thee, Mighty King, or bound
Thy empire! Easily the proud attempt
Of Spirits apoftate, and their counfels vain, 610

Ver. 605.

the giant Angels:] Dr. Bentley reads "the rebel Angels," thinking that the word giant infinuates as if this was as fabulous as that of Jove. But the word infinuates no fuch thing: It is ufed, not to exprefs the ftature and fize of the Angels, but that difpofition of mind, which is always afcribed to giants, namely, a proud, fierce, and afpiring, temper. And this the Hebrew word gibbor fignifies, which is rendered a giant in Scripture. PEARCE.

Dr. Pearce's conftruction of the word giant, as if it meant only fierce, proud, and afpiring, is, in my opinion, a little forced : Nor yet do I think that there is any reason to change it into rebel, as Dr. Bentley would have it. Milton, I doubt not, intended to allude to Hefiod's giant war; but I do not fee with Dr. Bentley, that therefore he muft infinuate that this relation is as fabulous as that. He probably defigned, by this expreffion, to hint his opinion, that the fictions of the Greek poets owed their rife to fome uncertain clouded tradition of this real event, and their giants were, if they had understood the story right, his fallen Angels. THYER.

I do not agree, that Dr. Pearce's conftruction of the word giant is forced. For thus, in Shakspear's K. Hen. viii. A. i. S. ii. Buckingham is called "a giant traitor," that is, as he is afterwards called," a traitor to the height," a most aspiring traitor. But Milton's reading may be alfo defended and explained by the expreffion, which almoft immediately follows; "the proud attempt

"Of Spirits apoftate,"

apoflate being the marginal reading in the Latin verfion of the Bible, for the term giants, Gen. vi, 4. TODD.

Thou haft repell'd; while impiously they thought
Thee to diminish, and from thee withdraw
The number of thy worshippers. Who seeks
To leffen thee, against his purpose serves
To manifeft the more thy might his evil 615
Thou useft, and from thence creat'st more good.
Witness this new-made world, another Heaven
From Heaven-gate not far, founded in view
On the clear hyaline, the glaffy fea;

Of amplitude almost immenfe, with stars 620
Numerous, and every star perhaps a world
Of destin'd habitation; but thou know'st-
Their seasons: among these the seat of Men,
Earth, with her nether ocean circumfus'd,
Their pleasant dwelling-place. Thrice happy
Men,

625

And fons of Men, whom God hath thus advanc'd!

Created in his image, there to dwell
And worship him; and in reward to rule

Ver. 619. On the clear hyaline,] This word is expreffed from the Greek van, and is immediately tranflated the glassy fea. For Milton, when he ufes Greek words, fometimes gives the English with them, as in fpeaking of the rivers of Hell, B. ii. 577, &c. And fo the galaxy he immediately tranflates that milky way. The glaffy fea is the fame as the crystalline ocean, v. 271. See Rev. iv. 6. NEWTON.

Ver. 624. Earth, with her nether ocean] To distinguish it from the cryftalline ocean, the waters above the firmament.

Ver, 628.

NEWTON.

and in reward to rule &c.] See

Over his works, on earth, in fea, or air,
And multiply a race of worshippers
Holy and juft: Thrice happy, if they know
Their happiness, and persevere upright!

630

So fung they, and the empyréan rung
With halleluiahs: Thus was fabbath kept.
And thy request think now fulfill'd, that afk'd 635
How first this world and face of things began,
And what before thy memory was done
From the beginning; that pofterity,

Inform'd by thee, might know: If else thou
feek'st

Aught, not surpaffing human measure, fay. 640

Pfalm viii. 6, 7, 8.

"Thou madeft him to have dominion over

the works of thy hands, &c."

Ver. 631.

GILLIES.

Thrice happy, if they know
Their happiness,] Virgil, Georg. ii. 458.

"O fortunatos nimium, fua fi bona norint! NEWTON.

THE END OF THE SEVENTH BOOK.

He also

Mr. Keightley, in his Mythology of Grecce, at. 2. pose 40, says "that our great Poet was, as any one who reads with attention the speech of the Angel (book VII. 469--505) will see, a materialist, and in him certainly materialism has proved compatible witte picty & purity of heart." obsones, with regard to the cosmology of Par. L., "one is apt to be struck with the definite material native of heaven and its inhabitints." See also what Milton says of Angels & Spirits, a their real eating & drinking a digesting nor seemingly

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Of Theologians; but wists keen dispatch of real hunger. b.v. 455. In his work, De Doctrina Christiana, cap. vii. p. 135, he states man to be (according to Scriptore & not heathen doctrine) "animal per se ac, aut separabile, aut ex duabus naturis inter se specie diversis atque distinctis, anima hampe proprie unum at individuum, non duplex et corpore, ut vulgo statuunt, conflatum atque compositum; sed totum hominem asse

quimam, et animam hominem," J.

Doctr. Christ. p. 136. "Separari autem spiritum hominis a corpore, ita ut alicubi seirsim integer et intelligens existat, nec in scriptura sacra usquam legitin, et nature ac rationi plane repugnet." So also. cap. xiii. p. 1992 "chors corporalis, quæ dicitur, est privatio vita tive extinctiv. Nam separatio anima et corporis, quemadmodum vulgo mors definisitir, nullo modo mors esse potest" de...

THE

EIGHTH BOOK

OF

PARADISE LOST.

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