Wisdom to folly', as nourishment to wind. Know then, that after Lucifer from Heaven Their multitude, and to his Son thus fpake. 130 135 At least our envious foe hath fail'd, who thought All like himself rebellious, by whose aid This inacceffible high ftrength, the feat He trufted to have feis'd, and into fraud been employ'd here, when he is fpeaking of things not reveal'd, fupprefs'd in night, to none communicable in Earth or Heaven, neither to Men nor Angels, as it is faid of the day of judgment, Mat. XXIV. 36. Of that day and bour knoweth no Man, no not the Angels of Heaven, but my Father only. 135. Into his place,] As the traitor Judas is faid likewife to go to his own place, Acts I. 25. 139. At leaft] I don't like taking liberties with the original text, or elfe I fhould choose to read At laft. - Thyer. VOL. II. 140 Drew 143. Drew many,] Fraud in common acceptation means no more than deceit, but often fignifies misfortune. Milton, who fo conftantly makes Latin or Greek of English, does it here, and extends the idea to the mifery, the punishment confequent upon the deceit, as well as the deceit itself. So that Satan is faid here, not only to have drawn many into fraud, not only that he Within the vifible diurnal fphere; Standing on earth, not rapt above the pole, 25 30 But and there will be no need to read with the Doctor, To hoarfe or low. bound. Bound here feems to be a fuppofes; and then all is good fenfe, participle as well as unfung. Half yet remains unfung; but this other half is not rapt fo much into the invifible world as the former, it is confin'd in narrower compafs, and bound within the vifible fphere of day. 24. More fafe I fing with mortal voice, unchang'd To hoarfe or mute,] Dr. Bentley reads with lofty voice. Why mortal voice? fays the Doctor. I anfwer, because Milton had faid in ver. 2. that he had follow'd Urania's voice divine. Again (fays the Doctor) if his voice had grown hoarfe, would it not have been ftill mortal? and what is a voice changed to mute? Both these questions are fatisfy'd by putting only a comma, as in the first editions, (not a colon, as the Doftor has done) after mute. The words unchang'd to boarfe or mute refer to I, and not to voice, as he Pearce. 25.though fall'n on evil days,] The repetition and turn of the words very beautiful, is though fall'n on evil days, On evil days though fall'n, and evil tongues; &c. A lively picture this in a few lines of the poet's wretched condition. In darkness, though is still understood; he was not become hoarse or mute though in darkness, though he was blind, and with dangers compass'd round, and folitude, obnoxious to the government, and having a world of enemies among the royal party, and therefore oblig'd to live very much in privacy and alone. And what ftrength of mind was it, that could not only fupport him under the weight of thefe misfortunes, but ena ble But drive far off the barbarous diffonance Of that wild rout that tore the Thracian bard In Rhodope, where woods and rocks had ears ble him to foar to fuch highths, as no human genius ever reached before? 31.- and fit audience find, though few. He had Horace in mind, Sat. I. X. 73. -neque te ut miretur turba, labores, Contentus paucis lectoribus. 33. Of Bacchus and his revelers,] It is not improbable that the poet intended this as an oblique fatir upon the diffoluteness of Charles the fecond and his court; from whom he feems to apprehend the fate of Orpheus, a famous poet of Thrace, who tho' he is faid to have charm'd woods and rocks with his divine fongs, yet was torn to pieces by the Bacchanalian women on Rhodope a mountain of Thrace, nor could the Mufe Calliope his mother defend him. So fail not thou, who thee im plores; nor was his wifh ineffectual, for the government fuffer'd him to live and die unmolested. 35 40 Adam 40.what enfued when Raphaël, &c.] Longinus has obferved, that there may be a loftinefs in fentiments, where there is no paffion, and brings inftances out of ancient The pathetic, as that great critic authors to fupport this his opinion. obferves, may animate and inflame the fublime, but is not effential to it. Accordingly, as he further remarks, we very often find that those who excel moft in ftirring up the paffions, very often want the talent of writing in the great and fublime manner, and fo on the contrary. Milton has shown himself a master in both these ways of writing. The feventh book, which we are now entring upon, is an instance of that fublime, which is not mixed and worked up with paffion. The author appears in a kind of compofed and fedate majefty; and tho' the fentiments do not give fo great an emotion, as those in the former book, they abound Adam by dire example to beware Apoftafy, by what befel in Heaven To those apoftates, left the like befall Charg'd not to touch the interdicted tree, If they transgress, and flight that fole command, Of all taftes elfe to please their appetite, 45 Though wand'ring. He with his conforted Eve 50 Of things fo high and ftrange, things to their thought with as magnificent ideas. The fixth book, like a troubled ocean, reprefents greatness in confufion; the feventh affects the imagination like the ocean in a calm, and fills the mind of the reader, without producing in it any thing like tumult or agitation. The critic above mention'd, among the rules which he lays down for fucceeding in the fublime way of writing, propofes to his reader, that he fhould imitate the moft celebrated authors who have gone before him, and been engaged in works of the fame nature; as in particular, that if he writes on a poetical fubject, he fhould confider how Homer would have spoken on fuch an occafion. By this means one great genius often catches the And flame from another, and writes in his fpirit, without copying fervily after him. There are a thoufand thining paffages in Virgil, which have been lighted up by Homer. Milton, tho' his own natural strength of genius was capable of furnishing out a perfect work, has doubtless very much raised and ennobled his conceptions, by fuch an imitation as that which Longinus has recommended. In this book, which gives us an account of the fix days works, the poet received very few affistances from Heathen writers, who were strangers to the wonders of creation. But as there are many glorious ftrokes of poetry upon this fubject in holy Writ, the author has numberlefs allufions to them through the whole And war fo near the peace of God in blifs Before his memory, as one whose drouth whole courfe of this book. The 47. If they tranfgrefs, &c.] We fhould obferve the connexion; Left 55 60 65 Whose the like befall to Adam or his race, if they tranfgrefs, &c. 50.- He with his conforted Eve] Conforted from Confort, Cum conforte tori, as Ovid says, Met. I. 319. 59.- Whence Adam foon repeal'd The doubts that in his heart arofe:] Dr. Bentley would read difpell'd: but if an alteration were neceffary, I should rather read repell'd, as in ver. 610. we have their counfels vain Thou haft repell d. But in the fame fenfe as a law is faid to be repeal'd, when an end is put to all the force and effect of it; fo, when doubts are at an end, they may be faid to be repeal'd. Pearce. 69. Pro |