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Of providence, foreknowledge, will, and fate;
Fix'd fate, free will, foreknowledge abfolute; 560
And found no end, in wandering mazes loft.
Of good and evil much they argued then,
Of happiness and final mifery,
Paffion and apathy, and glory and shame;
Vain wisdom all, and falfe philofophy!
Yet, with a pleafing forcery, could charm
Pain for a while or anguish, and excite
Fallacious hope, or arm the obdured breaft

Ver. 559.

foreknowledge, will, and fate;

565

Fix'd fate, free will, foreknowledge abfolute;] The turn of the words here is admirable, and very well expresses the wanderings and mazes of their difcourfe. And the turn of the words is greatly improved, and rendered ftill more beautiful, by the addition of an epithet to each of them. NEWTON.

R.T.

mares. (laberinti) May not Milton have had in view the Laberinti of Ochinus ? The studies of the fchoolmen and metaphyficians are here intended, and, in v. 564, the subjects of disputation among the heathen philofophers. GILLIES.

Ver. 568.

the obdured breaft] So it is in
Milton's own editions, and not obdurate, as in Bentley's, Fen-
ton's, and others. NEWTON.

This unufual word, occurring once more in Milton's poetry,
is formed from an adjective not uncommon perhaps in his time.
See The Young Gallant's Whirligigg, by Fr. Lenton, 4to. 1629.
P. 16.

"Nor are his creditors alone obdure,

"But even his copelmates whom he thought fo fure." Perhaps the participle is a common word in the Scottish lawphrafes. In Satans Invifible World difcovered, Edinburg. 1685, it is related of William Barton, who was tried for witchcraft, that he turned obdured, and would never to his dying hour acknowledge any thing," p. 162. TODD.

↑ Bernardin Ochin's Mazes had the following title," Prediche di M. Bernardino Ochino, Senese, nomate Laberinti del Libero over Servo Arbitrio, Prescienza, Predestinatime, & Libered Divina, & del modo per uscitna. Non mai per l'adietro stampate. In Basilea" without date. Dedicated to Queen Elizabeth.

Ochin was nominated Probendary of Canterbury by Cranmer in 1548. Archaologia, vol. xxi. p. 469. See also Bock, Historia Ancikinitanorum, 11.525. His 25 in Predestination wen translated by Ann Cook, otherward married to dicetas Bacon : a pronated by film Day

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1550.

With ftubborn patience, as with triple steel. Another part, in squadrons and grofs bands, 570 On bold adventure to discover wide

That difmal world, if any clime perhaps

575

Might yield them easier habitation, bend
Four ways
their flying march, along the banks
Of four infernal rivers, that difgorge
Into the burning lake their baleful streams;
Abhorred Styx, the flood of deadly hate;
Sad Acheron, of forrow, black and deep;
Cocytus, nam'd of lamentation loud
Heard on the rueful ftream; fierce Phlegethon,
Whofe waves of torrent fire inflame with rage.
Far off from thefe, a flow and filent ftream,

Ver. 569.

of Horace, Od. I. iii. 9.

579

with triple fteel.] An imitation

"Illi robur, et æs triplet

"Circa pectus erat." HUME.

Ver. 575. Of four infernal rivers,] Milton imitates the Greek writers, who enumerate the following rivers in hell; Styx, Acheron, Cocytus, Phlegethon, and Lethe. But the four firft here join their streams in one vaft lake, or the lake of fire as it is called in Scripture; (whence alfo the poet's "fiery waves," B. i. 184;) while the last rolls far off from the reft, as in Dante, Inferno C. xiv. 136, where the rivers of hell are defcribed, with Lethe rolling at a distance. Milton has added, to his claffical explanations of the names and properties of the infernal rivers, new circumstances of horrour. Befides their junction in one flaming flood, he defcribes a frozen continent distinct from the region of fire; and with great propriety: Because hither the damned are brought, at certain revolutions, "from beds of raging fire to starve in ice," v. 600.-Dante has called Phlegethon, from its fiery waves, "la riviera del fangue;" and Acheron, as Milton calls it," la trifta riviera." Topp.

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Her watery labyrinth, whereof who drinks,
Forthwith his former ftate and being forgets, 585
Forgets both joy and grief, pleasure and pain.
Beyond this flood a frozen continent

Lies dark and wild, beat with perpetual ftorms
Of whirlwind and dire hail, which on firm land
Thaws not, but gathers heap, and ruin seems 590
Of ancient pile; or elfe deep fnow and ice,
A gulf profound, as that Serbonian bog
Betwixt Damiata and mount Cafius old,
Where armies whole have funk: The parching air
Burns frore, and cold performs the effect of fire.

Ver. 589.

dire hail,] Horace, Od. I. ii. 1.

"Jam fatis terris nivis atque diræ

"Grandinis &c." NEWTON.

Ver. 592.

that Serbonian bog

Betwixt Damiata &c.] Serbonis was a lake of 200 furlongs in length, and 1000 in compafs, between the ancient. mountain Cafius and Damiata a city of Egypt on one of the more eastern mouths of the Nile. It was furrounded on all fides by hills of loofe fand, which, carried into the water by high winds, fo thickened the lake, as not to be diftinguished from part of the continent; where whole armies have been fwallowed up. Read Herodotus, lib. iii, and Lucan, Pharfal. viii. 539, &c. HUME.

Ver. 595. Burns frore,] parching air burns with froft.

Frore an old word for frofty. The

So, in Virgil, Georg. i. 93,

"Boreæ penetrabile frigus adurat:"

and in Ecclus xlii. 20, 21. "When the cold north-wind bloweth it devoureth the mountains, and burneth the wilderness, and con fumeth the grafs as fire." NEWTON.

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Thither by harpy-footed furies hal'd,
At certain revolutions, all the damn'd

596

Are brought; and feel by turns the bitter change Of fierce extremes, extremes by change more fierce,

From beds of raging fire, to starve in ice 600 Their foft ethereal warmth, and there to pine Immoveable, infix'd, and frozen round, Periods of time, thence hurried back to fire.

Ver. 596.

harpy-footed furies] Compare Efchylus, Sept. ad Theb. 776. xapies Epirus. DUNSTER. Ver. 603. thence hurried back to fire.] This circunftance of the damned's fuffering the extremes of heat and cold by turns, feems to be founded upon Job xxiv. 19, not as it is in the English tranflation, but in the vulgar Latin verfion, which Milton often ufed: "Ad nimium calorem tranfeat ab aquis nivium; Let him pafs to exceffive heat from waters of fnow." And fo Jerome and other commentators understand it. The fame punishments after death, are mentioned by Shakspeare, Meaf, for Meaf. A. iii. S. i.

"and the delighted spirit

To bathe in fiery floods, or to reside

In thrilling regions of thick-ribbed ice." NEWTON.

This circumftance of the damned's feeling the fierce extremes,

is alfo in Dante, Inf. C. iii. 86.

alto

"I' vegno, per menarvi all' altra riva

"Nelle tenebre eterne, in caldo e 'n gielo."

See alfo the Purgatorio, C. iii. 31. So, in Songes and Sonnets, by Lord Surrey, and others, 1587, fol. 83.

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They ferry over this Lethean found
Both to and fro, their forrow to augment,

605

And wish and struggle, as they pass, to reach
The tempting ftream, with one fmall drop to lofe
In fweet forgetfulness all pain and woe,
All in one moment, and fo near the brink;
But Fate withstands, and to oppofe the attempt 610
Medufa with Gorgonian terrour guards
The ford, and of itself the water flies
All taste of living wight, as once it fled
The lip of Tantalus. Thus roving on

614

In confus'd march forlorn, the adventurous bands
With fhuddering horrour pale, and eyes aghast,
View'd firft their lamentable lot, and found
No reft: Through many a dark and dreary vale
They pafs'd, and many a region dolorous,

"Then caft in frosen pits

"To frese there certain hours."

And, in Heywood's Hierarchie of Angels, 1635, p. 345. "And fuffer, as they finn'd, in wrath, in paines

"Of frofts, of fires, of furies, whips, and chains."

In the preceding quotation from Surrey's "Songes and Sonnets," there is evidently a fneer at the monks; from whofe legendary hell, according to Mr. Warton, the punishment by cold derives its origin. TODD.

Ver. 615. In confus'd march forlorn,] Perhaps with the accent on the first fyllable of confus'd; as in Waller, At Penshurst: "Into fair figures, from a cónfus'd heap." TODD.

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No reft] See Matt. xii. 43, and Luke xi. 24. "He walketh through dry places, (i. e. defert places, d'avuday Tow,) feeking reft, and findeth none." DUNSTER.

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