The fignal to afcend, fit ling'ring here By our delay? no, let us rather choose, The way feems difficult and fteep to fcale With upright wing against a against a higher foe. 60 65 70 Let 56.-fit ling'ring here] Dr. Bentley reads ftay ling'ring here, because we have before fand in arms: but ftand does not always fignify the pofture; fee an inftance of this in John I. 26. To ftand in arms is no more than to be in arms. So in XI. 1. it is faid of Adam and Eve that they food repentant, that is were repentant; for a little before it is faid that they proftrate fell. That fit is right here, may appear from ver. 164, 420, 475. Pearce. Sit ling'ring to anfwer fit contriving before. While they fit contriving, thall the reft fit ling'ring? 69.Mix'd withTariarean fulphur,] Mix'd Let fuch bethink them, if the fleepy drench 75 80 Fear to be worse destroy'd: what can be worfe 85 The vaffals of his anger, when the scourge Calls us to penance? More deftroy'd than thus Than miserable to have eternal being: 90 95 90. The vaffals of his anger,] The Devils are the vaffals of the Almighty, thence Mammon fays, II. 252. Our state of Splendid valjalage. And the vaffals of anger is an expreffion confirm'd by Spenfer in his Tears of the Mufes, Ah, wretched world, and all that are therein, The vaffals of God's wrath, and flaves of fin. But yet when I remember St. Paul's words, Rom. IX. 22. The vessels of wrath fitted to destruction,Ensun ofyns, I fufpect that Milton here, as perpetually, kept clofe to the Scripture ftile, and leave it to the reader's choice, vaffals or vesels. Bentley. 91. Inexorably.] In the firft editions it is Inexorably, in others Inexorable: and it may be either, And cannot ceafe to be, we are at worst He ended frowning, and his look denounc'd bable at firft view: but the Angels Their vifages and ftature as of and of the two chief, Michael and likeft Gods they feem'd: and of two others we read, 366. VI. rofe 100 105 A and therefore the prefent reading To lefs than Gods may be juftified. 109. Belial, in act more graceful and humane;] Belial is defcribed in the first book as the idol of the lewd and luxurious. He is in the fecond book, pursuant to that defcription, characterized as timorous and flothful; and if we look into the fixth book, we find him celebrated in the battel of Angels for nothing but that fcoffing Speech which he makes to Satan, on their fuppofed advantage over the enemy. As his appearance is uniform and of a piece in thefe three feveral views, we find his fentiments in the infernal affembly every way conformable to his charafter. Such are his apprehenfions of a fecond battel, his horrors of annihilation, his preferring to be But to be Gods, or Angels Demi- miferable rather than not to be. I Two potent Thrones, that to be and in another place a manifeft di- IX. 937. Gods: VOL. I. need not obferve, that the contrast H of 110 A fairer perfon loft not Heav'n; he seem'd I thould be much for open war, O Peers, 120 125 |