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PARADISE LOST-THE REBEL ANGELS.

No. II.

Having already noticed the character of Satan, as it is represented by Milton, we now turn to the other principal personages, in the rebel host, who are more prominently brought before the view of the readers of Paradise Lost. We first see them in the debate in the Stygian Council, or as, in obedience to the summons of their leader, they are wonding their way to the place where it is held. The Poet has given them the names of certain false deities afterwards worshipped by men, and invested them with the peculiar qualities with which these names are associated in the historic page. With sur

prising art, and great learning, he has connected them with numerous Scriptural and classical facts and allusions, and has thus deepened immensely the reader's interest in them, by throwing an air of strong probability over the fable; while, at the same time, their characters are individualized, and as definitely distinguished, as are those of Brutus and Mark Antony in the drama.

The Pandemonian Council having met, Satan proposes the subject of debate" by what best way, whether of open war, or covert guile," an attempt should be made to recover their lost inheritance. Moloch is the first to speak. The ancient Persians worshipped Arimanius, the Evil Principle, and, according to Layard, their example is followed by the Yezidis, at this day. We have no disposition to chime in with them, and become devil-worshippers; nor, much as we would eschew doing him injustice, can we bring ourselves to feel a very profound respect for the character of Moloch, even keeping out of view, for the present, his diabolical qualities. The Poet has described him as "the strongest and the fiercest spirit that fought in heaven," and strength and ferocity are doubtless qualities to be feared, not despised. An enraged lion exhibits them in perfection, and the lion has been dubbed, "king of the brutes." Still these are not the qualities which excite the highest admiration, and Moloch displays few others by which it is likely to be won. He is the father of the warrior-tribethe Alexanders, the Cæsars, and Napoleons-who delight in butchery and horrid devastation. For an angel, even though fallen, his mind is of rather a narrow and unintellectual caste. When, hoping to divert the current of their agonized thoughts, during the absence of their leader on his sad and fatal errand to this world, some of his compeers "sat on a hill retired, and reasoned high of Providence, foreknowledge, will, and fate, fixed fate, free will, foreknowledge absolute," we can hardly conceive of Moloch joining the band. The topics were too abstruse and too theoretical to suit his taste or capacity. A certain rough mental vigour he indeed has, and unbounded decision. He deals in no half measures, intrigues, or countermining. The moment Satan has stated the question in debate" open war, or covert guile ?" -Moloch starts up, and, through the hollow caverns of hell, is he heard proclaiming in a voice of thunder

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My sentence is for open war: of wiles

More unexpert, I boast not; them let those
Contrive who need, or when they need, not now."

But large broad views of a subject he is not capable of taking; and lofty and refined metaphysical thought is foreign to his nature. He would not even make a good general. He is too impetuous, reckless, fierytempered for a leader. Daring, but indiscreet-like a certain human personage whose name is known in connection with the recent history of the East-he would plunge into the midst of a column of angelic foes, and give battle fearlessly in all directions, without once thinking of the fatal consequences of his headlong rashness. Physical force is, indeed, his element-his only hope and confidence. His speech smells rankly of catapultae, Balistae, and Arietes,-engines of death and destruction, in the roughest, brute-force, form.

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let us rather choose,

Armed with hell flames and fury, all at once,

O'er heaven's high towers to force resistless sway,
Turning our tortures into horrid arms
Against the torturer!"

He must have been in a very fever of mad excitement, when, by the discharge of the Satanic artillery, disgorging chained thunder-bolts, and globes of iron hail, the elect angels were thrown into confusion, and heaven itself was alternately illumined by strange fires, and obscured by smoke!

In whatever circumstances he appears throughout the whole poem, his character is finely sustained. In the war of the angels, he engages in single combat with Gabriel; for he whose trust was to be deemed equal in strength with the Eternal, could ill brook being matched with a less powerful foe. But from first to last of the fight, his speech and conduct are those of a fierce, demoniacal bully. To compare small things with great, Goliath of Gath is his counterpart. When "down cloven to the waist," by the sword of his antagonist, he "with shattered arms, and uncouth pain, fled bellowing," the same rough, impetuous temperament is observable which, on other occasions, renders him incapable of moderating the expression of his feelings, and ever hurries him to extremes. In the sight of an American Indian chief, such a

character would not have found favour.

We have said that he cannot take a broad view of a subject. His speech contains some very powerful passages-mighty decision is itself power-but few of them will bear the scrutiny of debate, because they are founded on one-sided statements. Once resolved on war with heaven, he speaks as if the legions of hell had nought to do but to begin, and "shoot his own invented torments" at the throne of the Almighty. A poet has said, "Easy is the downward path to Avernus; but to get up-there's the difficulty!" To Moloch, on the contrary, there appears no difficulty at all. To ascend, he argues, is a quality inseparable from spiritual natures; and this idea, the finest in his speech, is brought out with great force and beauty of expression :

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The reasoning involved in the question is not devoid of plausibility; but it leaves the point of the expediency of "open war" in a great measure untouched. When, in winding up the consultation, Satan asks,

Who shall tempt with wandering feet,
The dark, unbottomed, infinite abyss,
And through the palpable obscure find out
His uncouth way?

it is then that the infinite difficulties and perils of the journey in quest of man's new-made world vividly appear, and Moloch is as mute, and as reluctant to undertake it as any of his compeers. All the other objections, however, which he can imagine to be brought against his counsel, he gets rid of with equal ease, because his reckless and devilishly vengeful spirit blinds him to their full force, or prevents him from seeing them at all. The "Conqueror" had already done his worst; no farther provocation on the part of the rebels could bring down upon them severer tortures than those which they already felt; or, if they must drink the dregs of a still more bitter cup, the issue must be annihilation-happier far than miserable to have eternal being. On the other hand, by their systematic aggressions, they might hope to at least disturb heaven, and with perpetual inroads alarm the throne of God-" which if not victory, is yet revenge." Such is the line of argument pursued by Moloch, and to which Belial rises to reply.

The character of Belial it is impossible to mistake; save in the hellish depravity common to both, it is in every point the reverse of that of Moloch. His manner is graceful and accomplished. He is acute, plausible, and eloquent. He sees at a glance the vulnerable points in the speech of Moloch, and with admirable directness, and the clearness and force of demonstration, shows that his counsel is vain. He has much more intellectual refinement and delicacy than the "horrid king;" and takes a broader and juster view of a case, the decision of which involves not a principle of goodness. His reply displays all the art of the most consummate rhetorician, or perhaps we should say sophist. Many of the lines flow in as smooth majesty as a mighty river, when not a single obstacle opposes its course; and yet they have all its resistless force and grandeur when-vexed and maddened by rocks shooting athwart its bed-it foams, and thunders, and bounds over them. He fails not to expose the impracticability and folly of Moloch's project; but he does this with such deference and winningness of address, that we can almost imagine that spirit to be the first to applaud, in spite of his impetuosity, and to wonder how views so very obvious and just, should not have occurred to himself. He, as we have noticed, had advised attempting to take heaven by storm, and

to pollute the throne of the Almighty with the black horrors of hell. Belial reminds his compeers, that "He who sitteth in the heavens would laugh; the Lord would have them in derision." Were all the smoke and fires of the bottomless pit belched forth against His throne, they could not for a moment stain its eternal and incorruptible purity! Moloch's assertion that, whatever the result of the war, the future condition of the rebel host could not be worse than the present, Belial meets by appealing with inimitable effect to their own experience. When the blast of the terrible One swept them from heaven, hell itself seemed a refuge from its fury. And, with eloquence befitting angelic tongue, he asks:

"What if the breath that kindled those grim fires,

Awak'd, should blow them into sevenfold rage,
And plunge us in the flames?

What if all

Her stores were opened, and this firmament
Of hell should spout her cataracts of fire,
Impendent horrors, threatening hideous fall
One day upon our heads; while we perhaps,
Designing or exhorting glorious war,
Caught in a fiery tempest shall be hurled
Each on his rock transfix'd, the sport and prey
Of wracking whirlwinds; or for ever sunk
Under yon boiling ocean, wrapt in chains?
This would be worse.

No discerning reader can fail to see the exquisite irony in the line "Designing or exhorting glorious war."

Such may be called the fair side of Belial's character. In every other view it is hateful as that of Moloch, and, at the same time, contemptible. His grossness, his bestiality, his love of ignoble easequalities so opposed to his own pure and heavenward tendencies-the Poet notes with feelings of reprobation and disgust. The brute spirit advises peace, not because he is behind in hate, but because he shrinks from the increased torture which he apprehends will be the consequence of renewed aggression, and exertion for any purpose adds to his pain. Not all the eloquence of hell would rouse him to a deed of daring, or win him over to an undertaking requiring continued effort; to lounge eternally on one of the couches" of the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone," and hold idle disputation, he would infinitely prefer to following the counsel of Moloch, were it for no other reason than that giving in to it would disturb his sloth. He is the perfect type of the lewd, the voluptuous, the belly-gods, "whose eyes stand out with fatness," whose hearts are grease, whose manly energies are exhausted by the indulgence of unhallowed appetites, who drain off the remnant of mind that low vice has left them in inventing schemes to give zest and piquancy to their jaded lusts, and whose motto is,

"If we live a life of pleasure,

'Tis no matter how nor where."

If he lays down just principles, and reasons justly from them, it is only because the truth serves his purpose for the time better than falsehood. He is the prince of sophists; and since the rise of philo

sophy in ancient Greece, down to the present, a vast succession of followers he has had in all callings and professions! Moloch had started the idea of annihilation, as a thing rather to be courted than feared, in the dismal circumstances in which he and his companions were placed. Belial recoils from it with horror, and sublimely asks,

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A question put with matchless energy and beauty! Yet it springs not from love of intellectual being, or of soaring discursive contemplation, but is a mere rhetorical flourish to give force to his dissuasives from war, and cover the indolent craven spirit by which they are prompted. Moloch, however, is right. Were there no alternative, no choice, between the endurance of eternal misery and annihilation, reason could not hesitate which to prefer. The idea of annihilation, indeed, is itself very terrible; it is as the arrows of the Almighty drinking up the spirit of him who contemplates it; and even were it preceded by suffering from no other cause,-the last expiring thought of a mind parting with being would be an inexpressible pang. Still, between the everlasting endurance of "the fierceness of the wrath of Almighty God," and entire insensibility to pain as to pleasure, there is no comparison. Yet, alas for those amongst men who desire no other alternative, nor cherish any other hope than that of annihilation!

In replying to the vulnerable points of Moloch's speech, Belial's resources of argument and eloquence are exhausted. The real subject of debate, the true question under consideration, he does not properly touch. He, indeed, strongly dissuades from war; but he does not propose any positive device, nor offer any suggestion for carrying out the revengeful and diabolical aims of the "princes of hell." True to his timorous and slothful nature, he simply enforces the expediency of submitting to their torments as they best could; and the grounds on which he labours to show the policy of his recommendation are as nugatory as those which he had so successfully rebutted in the counsel of Moloch.

Of the character of Mammon little needs be said; for, if we may judge from the number and unbounded devotion of his followers, it must be well and generally appreciated. The Poet represents him

as

The least erected spirit that fell

From heaven for e'en in heaven his looks and thoughts

Were always downward bent, admiring more
The riches of heaven's pavement, trodden gold,

Than aught divine or holy, else enjoyed

In beatific vision."

In heaven he had been much employed in rearing palaces for the Thrones, and Dominions, Principalities, and Powers, on whom it

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