Wanted, nor youthful dalliance as beseems 340 All beafts of th' earth, fince wild, and of all chafe In wood or wilderness, foreft or den; Sporting the lion ramp'd, and in his paw 350 Couch'd, could unty, but Alexander cut it Couch'd, and now fill'd with pasture grazing fat, Declin'd was hafting now with prone carreer 355 O Hell! what do mine eyes with grief behold! Into our room of blifs thus high advanc'd Creatures of other mold, earth-born perhaps, 360 Not 351. Couch'd] Let the reader and again ver. 156. obierve how artfully the word couch'd is placed, so as to make the found expreffive of the sense, Πατερι δε γιον και κηδία λυγία Λειπ'. and in feveral other places. And the English reader may fee fimilar inftances in our English Homer. Pope's Homer, B. 16. ver. 445. Chariots on chariots roll; the clashing spokes Shock; while the madding steeds brake fhort their yokes. And in the Temple of Fame, ver. 85. Amphion there the loud creating Strikes, and behold a fudden And it is obfervable that this paufe Not Spirits, yet to heav'nly Spirits bright 366 Your change approaches, when all these delights Will vanish and deliver ye to woe, More woe, the more your taste is now of joy; is ufually made upon the verb, to mark the action more ftrongly to the reader. 352. Or bedward ruminating ;] Chewing the cud before they go to rest. Hume. 354. To th' ocean iles,] The ilands in the western ocean; for that the fun fet in the fea, and rofe out of it again, was an ancient poetic notion, and is become part of the phrafeology of poetry. And in th' afcending feale of Heav'n. The balance of Heaven or Libra is one of the twelve figns, and when the fun is in that fign, as he is at the autumnal equinox, the days and nights are equal, as if weigh'd in a balance: Libra diei fomnique parcs ubi fecerit horas. Virg. Georg. I. 208. 370 Long and from hence our author feems to have borrow'd his metaphor of the fea es of Heaven, weighing night and day, the one afcending as the other finks. 357. Scarce thus at length fail'd Speech recover'd fad.] Tho' Satan came in queft of Adam and Eve, yet he is ftruck with such aftonishment at the fight of them, that it is a long time before he can recover his fpeech, and break forth into this foliloquy: and at the fame time this dumb admiration of Satan gives the poet the better opportunity of inlarging his defcription of them. This is very beautiful. 362. Little inferior;] For this there is the authority of Scripture. Thou hast made him a little lower than the Angels, Pfal. VIII. 5. Heb. 11. 7. 389.-yet Long to continue, and this high feat your Heaven you I feek, 375 And mutual amity so strait, so close, fense, yet fuch Like this fair Paradife, your it me, Which I as freely give; Hell fhall unfold, 380 And fend forth all her kings; there will be room, Your numerous ofspring; if no better place, 385 389-yet public reafon juft, &c.] Public reafon compels me, and that public reafon is honor and empire inlarg'd with revenge, by conquering this new world. And thus Satan is made to plead public reafon just, and neceffity to excufe bis de vilish deeds; the tyrant's plea, as the poet calls it, probably with a view to his own times, and particularly to the plea for fhip-money. And 395. Then from his lofty stand on that high tree &c.] The tree of life, higher than the reft, where he had been perching all this while from ver. 196. And then for the transformations which follow, what changes in Ovid's Metamorphofs. are fo natural, and yet fo furprizing as thefe le is well liken'd to the fierceft beafts, the lion and the tiger, and Adam and Eve in their And should I at your harmless innocence Melt, as I do, yet public reason just, By conqu'ring this new world, compels me now 390 395 To mark what of their ftate he more might learn 400 Then as a tiger, who by chance hath spy'd In fome purlieu two gentle fawns at play, Strait native innocence to two gentle did not do it for want of attention, fawns. and that it was not merely the effect of his blindness. See inftances of it in my note on III. 147. and we have another following here, ver. 405. Strait couches clofe, then rifing changes oft His couchant watch. Pearce. 410. Turn'a |