His inmost counsels from their destin'd aim. . 169. But see the angry victor too proud and obstinate ever to hath recall'd, &c.] Dr. Bentley acknowledge the Messiah for hath really made a very material their conqueror; as their rebelobjection to this and some other lion was raised on his account, passages of the poem, wherein they would never own his suthe good angels are represented, periority; they would rather as pursuing the rebel host with ascribe their defeat to the whole fire and thunderbolts down host of heaven than to him alone; through Chaos even to the gates or if they did indeed imagine of hell; as being contrary to their pursuers to be so many in the account, which the angel number, their fears multiplied Raphael gives to Adam in the them, and it serves admirably to sixth book. And it is certain express how much they were that there the good angels are terrified and confounded. In ordered to stand still only and book the sixth, 830, the noise of behold, and the Messiah alone his chariot is compared to the expels them out of heaven; and sound of a numerous host; and after he has expelled them, and perhaps they might think that a hell has closed upon them, vi. numerous host were really pur880. suing. In one place indeed we have Chaos speaking thus, ii. 996. --and hear'n gates bands But what a condition was Chaos Nine days they fell; confounded Chaos roar'd, Through his wild anarchy, so huge a Incumber'd him with ruin. Ruin upon ruin, rout on rout, are the speakers ; and they were Confusion worse confounded fall rout 170 175 180 His ministers of vengeance and pursuit 185 190 could not all be effected by a -wbere very desolation dwells. single hand : and what a sublime T. Warlon. idea must it give us of the ter .186. —our afflicted Powers,) rors of the Messiah, that he The word afflicted here is intendalone should be as formidable as ed to be understood in the Latin if the whole host of heaven sense, routed, ruined, utterly were pursuing! So that this broken. Richardson. seeming contradiction, upon ex 191. If not what resolution] amination, proves rather a beauty What reinforcement; to which than any blemish to the poem. is returned If not: a vicious syo 181. The seat of desolation,] tax: but the poet gave it If none. As in Comus, 428. Bentley. 195 Thus Satan talking to his nearest mate 200 193. With head up-lift above nounced as four syllables; and the wave, and eyes not Briareus, which is proThat sparkling blaz'd, his other. nounced as three. parts besides Et centum geminus Briareus. Prone on the flood,] Virg. Æn. vi. 287. Somewhat like those lines in And Briareus with all his bundred Virgil of two monstrous ser hands. Dryden. pents. Æn. ii. 206. 199. —or Typhon, whom the den Pectora quorum inter fluctus arrecta, By ancient Tarsus held,] jubæque Typhon is the same with TyphoSanguineæ exuperant undas; pars ëus. That the den of Typhoëus cætera pontum Pone legit. was in Cilicia, of which Tarsus was a celebrated city, we are 196. Lay floating many a rood,] told by Pindar and Pomponius A food is the fourth part of an Mela. I am much mistaken, if acre, so that the bulk of Satan Milton did not make use of Far. is expressed by the same sort of naby's note on Ovid, Met. v. 347. measure, as that of one of the to which I refer the reader. He giants in Virgil, Æn. vi. 596. took ancient Tarsus perhaps from Per tota porem cui jugera corpus Nonnus : Porrigitur. Ταρσος αειδομενη πρωτοττολις, , in Spenser. Faery Queen, b. i. which is quoted in Lloyd's Diccant. ii. st. 8. tionary. Jortin. That with bis largeness measured -θεων πολεμιος much land. Τυφως εκατοντακαρανος" του σοσι 198. Titanian, or Earth-born,] Κιλικιον θρεψεν πολυω- Pind. Py. i. 30. E. pubes. Æn. vi. 580. 200. that sea-beast 199. Briareos] So Milton Leviathan, ] writes it, hat it may be pro The best critics seem now to be Leviathan, which God of all his works 205 agreed, that the author of the Dr. Bentley reads nigh-founbook of Job by the leviathan der'd; but the common reading meant the crocodile; and Milton is better, because if (as the Doc. describes it in the same manner tor says) foundering is sinking partly as a fish and partly as a by a leaking in the ship, it beast, and attributes scales to it: would be of little use to the and yet by some things one pilot to fix his anchor on an would think that he took it island, the skiff would sink notrather for a whale, (as was the withstanding, if leaky. By nightgeneral opinion,) there being no founder'd Milton means overcrocodiles upon the coasts of taken by the night, and thence Norway, and what follows being - at a loss which way to sail. That related of the whale, but never, the poet speaks of what befel as I have heard, of the crocodile. the pilot by night, appears from 202. Created hugest, &c.] This ver. 207. while night invests the verse is found fault with as being sea. Milton, in his poem called too rough and absonous, but the Mask, uses the same phrase: that is not a fault but a beauty the two brothers having lost here, as it better expresses the their way in the wood, one of hugeness and unwieldiness of them says, the creature, and no doubt was -for certain designed by the author. Either some one, like us, night202. -th' stream :) founder'd, bere, &c. The Greek and Latin poets fre Pearce. quently turn substantives into 205. sea-men tell,] adjectives. So Juvenal xi. 94. Words well added to obviate the according to the best copies, incredibility of casting anchor in this manner. Hume. Qualis in oceano Auctu testudo pa That some fishes on the coast Littore ab oceano Gallis venientibus of Norway have been taken for Jortin. islands, I suppose Milton had learned from Olaus Magnus and 204.-night-founder'd skiff] other writers; and it is amply Some little boat, whose pilot confirmed by Pontoppidan's de. dares not proceed in his course scription of the Kraken in his for fear of the dark night; a account of rway, which are metaphor taken from a foundered authorities sufficient to justify a horse that can go no farther. poet, though perhaps not a pa. Hume. tural historian. ocean as taret : ver. 113. 210 With fixed anchor in his scaly rind Moors by his side under the lee, while night Invests the sea, and wished morn delays : So stretch'd out huge in length the Arch-Fiend lay Chain’d on the burning lake, nor ever thence Had ris'n or heav'd his head, but that the will And high permission of all-ruling heaven Left him at large to his own dark designs, That with reiterated crimes he might Heap on himself damnation, while he sought Evil to others, and enrag'd might see How all his malice serv'd but to bring forth Infinite goodness, grace and mercy shown On Man by him seduc'd, but on himself Treble confusion, wrath and vengeance pour’d. 215 220 207. Moors by his side under speaking of the moon, iv. 609. the lee,] Anchors by his side under wind. An instance this And o'er the dark her silver mantle threw among others of our author's affectation in the use of technical 209. So stretch'd out huge in terms. length the Arsch-Fiend lay] The 207. —while night length of this verse, consisting Invests the sea,] of so many monosyllables, and A much finer expression than pronounced so slowly, is excelumbris nor operit terras of Virgil, jently adapted to the subject that Æn. iv. 332. But our author it would describe. The tone is in this (as Mr. Thyer remarks) upon the first syllable in this alludes to the figurative de- line, the Arch-Fiend lay; wherescription of night used by as it was upon the last syllable the poets, particularly Spenser. of the word in ver. 156. th. ArchFaery Queen, b. i. cant. ii. st. 49. Fiend replied; a liberty that MilBy this the drooping day-light 'gan ton sometimes takes to proto fade, nounce the same word with a And yield his room to sad succeeding different accentin different places. night, We shall mark such word are to be pronounced with an The face of earth. accent different from the common Milton also in the same taste as use. |