But drive far off the barbarous diffonance Of that wild rout that tore the Thracian bard 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 implores; nor was his with ineffectual, for the government fuffer'd him to live and die unmolested. 35 40 Adam 40.-what ensued 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 fhown himself a master in both these ways of writing. The seventh book, which we are now entring upon, is an inftance 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 To those apoftates, left the like befall 45 Charg'd not to touch the interdicted tree, If they tranfgrefs, and flight that fole command, Of all taftes elfe to please their appetite, Though wand'ring. He with his conforted Eve 50 Of things fo high and strange, things to their thought with as magnificent ideas. The fixth And flame from another, and writes in his fpirit, without copying fervily after him. There are a thoufand fhining paffages in Virgil, which have been lighted up by Homer. Milton, tho' his own natural ftrength of genius was capable of furnishing out a perfect work, has doubtless very much raifed 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 bliss whole course of this book. The 47. If they tranfgrefs, &c.] We fhould obferve the connexion; Left 55 60 65 Whofe 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 fhould 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. Whofe liquid murmur heard new thirft excites, 1 Great things, and full of wonder in our ears, 70 Far differing from this world, thou haft reveal'd, Divine interpreter, by favor fent Down from the empyréan to forewarn 76 Us timely' of what might else have been our loss, Of what we are. But fince thou haft vouchfaf'd 80 69. Proceeded thus &c.] The conftruction is, And led on with defire to know &c proceeded thus to ask his heav'nly gueft. 70. Great things, &c.] Adam's fpeech to the Angel, wherein he defires an account of what had paffed within the regions of nature before the creation, is very great and folemn. The following lines, in which he tells him, that the day is not too far fpent for him to enter upon fuch a fubject, are exquifite in their kind. And the great light of day yet wants to run Much of his race &c. Addifon. Things above earthly thought, which yet concern'd Deign to defcend now lower, and relate In Chaos, and the work begun, how foon interfus'd denotes the air not only furrounding the earth, but flowing into and fpun out betweeen all bodies; and is a fuller and finer notation of its liquid and spiritual texture, leaving no Vacuum in nature than that of Ovid, Nec circumfufo pendebat in aere tellus. Met. I. 12. Hume. 92. fo late to build] It is a queftion that has been often asked, Why God did not create the world fooner? but the fame queftion might 85 90 95 Of And that can never be a juft exception against this time, which holds equally against all time. It must be refolved into the good will and pleafure of almighty God; but there is a farther reafon according to Milton's hypothefis, which is that God, after the expelling of Satan and his Angels out of Heaven, declar'd his pleasure to fupply their place by creating another world, and other creatures to dwell therein. 94. Abfolv'd,] Finish'd, com be asked, if the world had been pleted, perfected, from Abfolutus created at any time, for ftill there (Latin.) were infinite ages before that time. Richardfon. 98. And |