B.IX.

Venial discourse unblam'd. I now muft change
Those notes to tragick; foul distruft, and breach
Difloyal on the part of man, revolt,

And difobedience; on the part of heav'n
Now alienated, diftance and diftafte,
Anger and juft rebuke, and judgment giv❜n,
That brought into this world a world of wo,
Sin, and her fhadow Death, and Mifery
Death's harbinger: Sad tafk, yet argument
Not lefs, but more heroick than the wrath
Of ftern Achilles on his foe purfu'd

L. I. No more of talk, &c.] These prologues or prefaces of Milton to fome of his books, fpeaking of his own person, lamenting his blindness, and preferring his fubject to those of Homer and Virgil, and the greatest poets before him, are condemned by fome criticks: and it must be allowed, that we find no fuch di greffion in the Iliad or Æneid: it is a liberty that can be taken only by fuch a genius as Milton; and I queftion whether it would have fucceeded in any hands but his. As Monfieur Voltaire says upon the occafion, "I cannot but own, that an author is generally guilty of an unpardonable felf-love, when he lays afide his fubject, to defcant upon his own perfon; but that hunian frailty is to be forgiven in Milton; nay, I am pleased with it.'

L. 15. Achilles. Lat. Gr. i. e. without a lip; which was burnt when he was an infant; or, free from pain; because he was made invulnerable, by being dipped all over in the river Styx, except the heel, by which his mother held him. The fon of Peleus king

Thrice fugitive about Troy wall; or rage
Of Turnus for Lavinia difefpous'd;
Or Neptune's ire, or Juno's, that fo long
Perplex'd the Greek, and Cytherea's fon;
If answerable flyle I can obtain

Of my celeftial patronefs, who deigns
Her nightly vifitation unimplor'd,

And dictates to me flumb'ring, or infpires
Easy my unpremeditated verse:

Since first this fubject for heroick fong

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Pleas'd me, long choofing, and beginning late;
Not fedulous by nature to indite

Wars, hitherto the only argument

Heroick deem'd, chief maft'ry to diffect

With long and tedious havock fabled knights

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In battles feign'd; the better fortitude

Of patience and heroick martyrdom

of Theffaly, and Thetis goddess of the fea; the most valiant of all the Grecian heroes that went to the fiege of Troy. After many heroic actions, he was flain by Paris, being shot in the heel.

L. 16. Troy,] from Tros, one of its kings, who enlarged it. An ancient city of Phrygia in the Leffer Afia, three miles from the Agean fea, on the river Xanthus, near mount Ida. It was founded by Dardanus, A. M. 2574. Troy had only feven kings, viz. Teucer, Dardanus, Erythonius, Tros, Ilus, Laomedon, and Priamus, under whom it was burnt and razed by the Grecians, after a fiege of ten years, about A. M. 2766, 432 years before the building of Rome, 317 years after its first founding, and 1183 before Christ. There were no monuments of it to be seen in Strabo's time, and he lived in the reign of Tiberius the emperor. The Trojans made divers colonies upon the Mediterranean fea.

L. 17. Turnus.] Rutil. An ancient king of the Rutilians, who were old inhabitants of Italy, long before the Latins. He was a brave champion; but at last engaging with Æneas, for the fake of Lavinia, was flain by him in a duel, as Livy, Florus, Juftin, and Virgil relate, which many learned authors have confuted fince.

L. 18. Neptune.] Lat. Gr. i. e. a washer; or from Nephtin, Heb. and Egypt. i. e. maritime. Hence Naphtuhim, a colony of the Egyptians defcended from Mizraim, who settled upon the coafts of the Mediterranean fea, Gen. x. 13. whence the Greeks feigned this fable of Neptune the god of the fea.

Unfung; or to defcribe races and games,
Or tilting furniture, emblazon'd fhields,
Impreffes quaint, caparifons, and fteeds;
Bafes, and tinfel trappings, gorgeous knights
At jouft and tourneament; then, marshall'd feast
Serv'd up in hall, with fewers, and seneshals;
The skill of artifice or office mean,

Not that which justly gives heroick name
To perfon or to poem. Me of these
Nor fkill'd nor ftudious, higher argument
Remains, fufficient of itfelf to raise

That name, unless an age too late, or cold
Climate, or years, damp my intended wing
Deprefs'd; and much they may, if all be mine,
Not hers who brings it nightly to my ear.
The fun was funk, and after him the star
Of Hefperus, whofe office is to bring

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Twilight upon

the earth, fhort arbiter

'Twixt day and night; and now from end to end
Night's hemifphere had veil'd th' horizon round,
When Satan, who late fled before the threats
Of Gabriel out of Eden, now improv'd
In meditated fraud and malice, bent

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On man's deftruction, maugre what might hap
Of heavier on himself, fearless return'd.
By night he fled, and at midnight return'd
From compaffing the earth, cautious of day,
Since Uriel, regent of the fun, defcry'd
His entrance, and forewarn'd the Cherubim
That kept their watch; thence full of anguifh driv'n,

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L. 34. Tilting.] Sax. O. Eng. The running of armed men on horfeback one against another with fpears; a diverfion much practifed among the ancients, and first used at the old Nemean games in Greece.

L. 37. Tourneament.] Fr. Ital. i. e. a turning round; a concourfe; a military diverfion. Turning, juftling, and fighting on horfeback.