Where all life dies, death lives, and nature breeds, Than fables yet have feign'd, or fear conceiv'd, Mean while the Adverfary' of God and Man, Satan with thoughts inflam'd of highest design, 630 Puts on swift wings, and tow'ards the Explores his folitary flight; fometimes gates of Hell He scours the right hand coast, sometimes the left, Now shaves with level wing the deep, then foars Up to the fiery concave tow'ring high. As when far off at sea a fleet descry'd 635 Hangs in the clouds, by equinoctial winds 640 Of Ternate and Tidore, whence merchants bring fimilitudes (as is the practice of Homer and Virgil too) after he has fhow'd the common refemblance, often takes the liberty of wand'ring into fome unrefembling circumftances; which have no other relation to the comparison, than that it gave him the hint, and as it were fet fire to the train of his imagination. But Dr. Bently asks, why a fleet when a firft rate man of war would do? And Dr. Pearce anfwers, Becaufe a fleet gives a nobler image than a fingle fhip. Befides Milton would have been inconfiftent with himself (fays Dr. Greenwood) and have funk greatly in his comparifon, if he had likened the appearance of Satan to a fingle fhip, tho' of the first rate; because he had faid before, I. 195. that extended long and large, he lay floting many a rood, and again ver. 292. that the tallest pine, for the maft of fome great ammiral, was no bigger than a wand in proportion to his fpear. This fleet is a fleet of Indiamen, becaufe coming from fo long a voyage it is the fitter to be compar'd to Satan in this expedition; and these exotic names (as Dr. Bentley call them) give a lefs vulgar caft to the fimi Far litude than places in our own channel and in our own feas would have done. This fleet is describ'd, by equinoctial winds, the trade-winds blowing about the equinoctial, close failing, and therefore more proper to be compared to a fingle perfon, from Bengala, a kingdom and city in the Eaft-Indies fubject to the great Mogul, or the iles of Ternate and Tidore, two of the Molucca ilands in the East Indian fea, whence merchants bring their spicy drugs, the most famous fpices are brought from thence by the Dutch into Europe: they on the trading flood, as the winds are call'd tradewinds, fo he calls the flood trading through the wide Ethiopian fea to the Cape of Good Hope, ply fremming nightly toward the pole, that is by night they fail northward, and yet (as Dr. Pearce fays) by day their fleet may be defery'd hanging in the clouds. So feem'd far off the flying Fiend: Dr. Bentley afks, whom Satan appear'd to far off, in this his folitary flight? But what a cold phlegmatic piece of criticifm is this? It may be anfwer'd, that he was feen by the Mufe, and would have feem'd fo to any one who had feen him. Poets Far off the flying Fiend: at last appear Hell bounds high reaching to the horrid roof, And thrice three-fold the gates; three folds were brass, Three iron, three of adamantin rock, Impenetrable, impal'd with circling fire, Yet unconfum'd. Before the gates there fat 646 On defcription of the houfe of Bufy rane, Faery Queen, B. 3. Cant. 11. St. 21. But in the porch that did them fore amate A flaming fire, ymixt with fmoaldry smoke, &c. 648. Before the gates there fas &c.] Here begins the famous allegory of Milton, which is a fort of paraphrafe on that text of the Apoftle St. James, I. 15. Ther when Luft bath conceived it bringeth forth Sin, and Sin when it is finished bringeth forth Death. The first part of the allegory fays only, that Satan's intended voyage was dangefolved however to venture. rous to his being, and that he re Richardfox. The flight of Satan to the gates of Hell is finely imaged. I have already declared my opinion of the allegory concerning Sin and Death, which is however a very finish'd piece in its kind, when it is not confider'd as a part of an epic poem. The genealogy of the feveral perfons is contrived with great delicacy; Sin is the daughter of Satan, and Death the ofspring of Sin. The incestuous mixture between On either fide a formidable fhape; The one feem'd woman to the wafte, and fair 650 But ended foul in many a scaly fold between Sin and Death produces those monsters and Hell-hounds, which from time to time enter into their mother, and tear the bowels of her who gave them birth. Thefe are the terrors of an evil confcience, and the proper fruits of Sin, which naturally_rife from the apprehenfions of Death. This laft beautiful moral is, I think, clearly intimated in the fpeech of Sin, where complaining of this her dreadful iffue, fhe adds, Before mine eyes, in oppofition fits Grim Death my fon and foe, who fets them on, And me his parent would full foon devour A of Death, the regal crown upon his head, his menace of Satan, his advancing to the combat, the outcry at his birth, are circumstances too noble to be paft over in filence, and extremely fuitable to this king of terrors. I need not mention the juftness of thought which is obferved in the generation of these feveral fymbolical perfons; that Sin was produced upon the first revolt of Satan, that Death appear'd foon after he was caft into Hell, and that the terrors of confcience were conceived at the gate of this place of torments. The defcription of the gates is very poetical, as the opening of them is full of Milton's fpirit. Addifon. But tho' Mr. Addison cenfures this famous allegory, as improper for an epic poem; yet Bishop Atterbury, whofe tafte in polite literature was never queftion'd, feems to be much more affected with this than any part of the poem, as I think we may collect from one of his letters to Mr. Pope. "I re turn you your Milton, fays He, "and I proteft to you, this "laft perufal of him has given me fuch new degrees, I will 66 not fay of pleasure, but of ad“miration and astonishment, that "I look upon the fublimity of “Homer 654 A cry of Hell hounds never ceafing bark'd 66 "Homer and the majefty of Virgil with fomewhat lefs reverence than I us'd to do. I challenge. you, with all your partiality, "to fhew me in the firft of, these "any thing equal to the allegory " of Sin and Death, either as to "the greatness and juftnefs of the "invention, or the heighth and beauty of the coloring. What I "looked upon as a rant of Bar"row's, I now begin to think a "ferious truth, and could almost "venture to set my hand to it, Hæc quicunque leget, tantum ceciniffe putabit Meonidem ranas, Virgilium cu lices, 649. On either fide a formidable fbape;] The figure of Death is pretty well fix'd and agreed upon by poets and painters: but the defcription of Sin feems to be an improvement upon that thought in Horace, De Art. Poet, 4. Definet in pifcem mulier formofa fuperne. But th' other half did woman's And alfo the image of Echidna, Yet did her face and former A fair young maiden, full of comely glee; But all her hinder parts did plain exprefs A monftrous dragon, full of fearful ugliness.. The addition of the Hell hounds about her middle is plainly copied from Scylla, as appears from the I had almoft following fimile. forgot that Hefiod's Echidna is defcribed half-woman and half-fer pent as well as Spenfer's. Theog. 298. Ήμισυ μεν νύμφην, ελικωπίδα, καλ Ήμισυ δ' αυτε πέλωρον όφιν, δένον τε 654. A cry of Hell hounds never ceafing bark'd.] Dr. Bentley And it is not improbable, that the but Milton's cry of Hell hounds is reads A crue of Hell bounds, &c. author might have in mind too of much the fame poetical stamp as Spenfer's defcription of Error in the mix'd fhape of a woman and a fer-vis, En. IV. 132. where what is Virgil's ruunt equites et odora can:m pent, FaeryQueen, B. 1. C.1. St. 14. Half like a ferpent horribly difplay'd, proper to the canes is faid of the is; as here what is proper to the Hell bounds is faid of the cry. We have |