God fitting on his throne fees Satan flying towards this world, then newly created; fhows him to the Son who fat at his right hand; foretels the fuccefs of Satan in perverting mankind; clears his own juftice and wisdom from all imputation, having created Man free and able enough to have withstood his tempter; yet declares his purpose of grace towards him, in regard he fell not of his own malice, as did Satan, but by him feduced. The Son of God renders praises to his Father for the manifeftation of his gracious purpose towards Man; but God again declares, that grace cannot be extended towards Man without the fatisfaction of divine juftice; Man hath offended the majefty of God by afpiring to Godhead, and therefore with all his progeny devoted to death muft die, unless fome one can be found fufficient to answer for his offenfe, and undergo his punishment. The Son of God freely offers himself a ransome for Man: the Father accepts him, ordains his incarnation, pronounces his exaltation above all names in Heaven and Earth; commands all the Angels to, adore him; they obey, and hymning to their harps in full quire, celebrate the Father and the Son. Mean while Satan alights upon the bare convex of this world's outermoft orb; where wand'ring he first finds a place, fince call'd. The Limbo of Vanity; what perfons and things fly up thither; thence comes to the gate of Heaven, defcrib'd afcending by stairs, and the waters above the firmament that flow about it: His paffage thence to the orb of the fun; he finds there Uriel the regent of that orb, but first changes himself into the fhape of a meaner Angel; and pretending a zealous defire to behold the new creation, and Man whom God had plac'd here, inquires of him the place of his habitation, and is directed; alights firft on mount Niphates. 183 AIL holy Light, ofspring of Heav'n first-born, HAIL May I express thee' unblam'd? fince God is light, Horace advises a poet to confider thoroughly the nature and force of his genius. Milton feems to have known perfectly well, wherein his ftrength lay, and has therefore chofen a fubject entirely conformable to thofe talents, of which he was master. As his genius was wonderfully turned to the fublime, his fubject is the nobleft that could have entered into the thoughts of man. Every thing that is truly great and aftonishing has a place in it. The whole fyftem of the intellectual world; the Chaos and the Creation; Heaven, Earth, and Hell, enter into the conftitution of his poem. Having in the first and fecond books reprefented the infernal world with all its horrors, the thread of his fable naturally leads him into the oppofite regions of blifs and glory. Addifon. Our 1. Hail boly Light, &c.] author's addrefs to Light, and lamentation of his own blindness may perhaps be cenfur'd as an excrefcence or digreffion not agreeable to the rules of epic poetry; but yet this is to charming part of the poem, that the moft critical And reader, I imagin, cannot wish it were omitted. One is even pleafed with a fault, if it be a fault, that is the occafion of fo many beauties, and acquaints us fo much with the circumftances and character of the author. Or may 2. Or of th' Eternal coeternal team May I exprefs thee' unblam'd?] I without blame call thee, the coeternal beam of the eternal God? The Ancients were very cautious and curious by what names they addrefs'd their deities, and Milton in imitation of them queftions whether he should addrefs the Light as the firft-born of Heaven, or as the coeternal beam of the eternal Father, or as a pure ethereal ftream whofe fountain is unknown; But as the fecond appellation feems to afcribe a proper eternity to Light, Milton very justly doubts whether he might ufe that without blame. 3. -fince God is light, And-in unapproached light Dwelt-From 1 john I..5. God is light, and in him is no darknefs at all. And 1. Tim. VI. 16. Who only bath immortality, dwelling N 4 And never but in unapproached light Dwelt from eternity, dwelt then in thee, 5 ΙΟ Efcap'd in the light, which no man can ap- 19. Where is the way where light proach unto. dwelleth? 11. The rifing world of waters dark and deep,] for the world was only in a state of fluidity, when the light was created; as Mofes fays, The Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters; and God Jaid Let there be light and there was of Milton, light, Gen. I. 2. 3. And this verse The rifing world of waters dark and deep, is plainly formed upon this of Spenfer, Faery Queen, B. 1. C. 1. St. 39. And through the world of waters wide and deep. efs infinite.] Void must not here be 12. Won from the void and formunderstood as emptiness, for Chaos is defcribed full of matter; but vid, as defitute of any form'd being, void as the earth was when fit created. What Mofes fays of that 15 Efcap'd the Stygian pool, though long detain'd I fung of Chaos and eternal Night, 20 To that is here applied to Chaos, without form and void. A fhort but noble defcription of Chaos, which is faid to be infinite, as it extended underneath, as Heaven above, infinitely. Richardfon. 16. Through utter and through middle darkness] Through Hell which is often called utter darkness, and through the great gulf between Hell and Heaven, the middle darkness. 17. With other notes than to th Orphéan lyre &c] Orpheus made a hymn to Night, which is fill extant; he alfo wrote of the creation out of Chaos. See Apoll. Rhodius I. 493. Orpheus was infpir'd by his mother Calliope only, Milton by the beav'nly Mufe; therefore he boafts he fung with other notes than Orpheus, tho' the fubjects were the fame. Richardjon. 19. Taught by the heav'nly Mufe To find thy piercing ray, and find no dawn; Ceafe I to wander, where the Mufes haunt 25. So thick a drop ferene hath quench'd their orbs, Or dim fuffufion veil'd.] Drop ferene or Gutta ferena. It was for merly thought that that fort of blindness was an incurable extinction or quenching of fight by a tranfparent, watry, cold humor diftilling upon the optic nerve, tho' making very little change in the eye to appearance, if any; 'tis now known to be moft commonly an obftruction in the capillary veffels of that nerve, and curable in fome cafes. A cataract for many ages, and till about thirty years ago, was thought to be a film exernally growing over the eye, intercepting or veiling the fight, beginning with dimnefs, and fo increafing till vifion was totally obftructed: but the difeafe is in the cryftallin humor lying between the outmost coat of the eye and the pupilla. The dimnefs which is at the beginning is called a fuffufion; and when the fight is loft, 'tis a cataract; and cur'd by couching, which is with a needle paffing through the external coat and driving down the difeas'd cryftallin, the lofs of which is fomewhat fupply'd by the ufe of a large convex glafs. When Milton was firk blind, he Ceafe I to wander,] Dr. Bentley would read Yet not for that, &c. there being as he fays no gradation in ceafing. Dr. Pearce prefers as coming nearer to the text, Yet not therefore, our poet and Fairfax frequently placing the tone on the last fyllable of therefore. But I cannot fee the neceffity for an alteration; Yet not the more ceafe I to wander may be allow'd, if not juftify'd by Et fi quid ceffare potes in Virgil, Ecl. VII. 10. We may underitand ceafe here in the sense of forbear; Yet not the more forbear 1 to wander: I do it as much as I did before I was blind. 29. Smit |