Had in her sober livery all things clad ; Silence accompanied; for beast and bird, &c.] This is the first evening in the poem; for the action of the preceding books lying out of the sphere of the sun, the time could not be computed. When Satan came first to the earth, and made that famous soliloquy at the beginning of this book, the sun was high in his meridian tower; and this is the evening of that day; and surely there never was a finer evening; words cannot furnish out a more lovely description. The greatest poets in all ages have as it were vied one with another in their descriptions of evening and night; but for the variety of numbers and pleasing images, I know of nothing parallel or comparable to this to be found among all the treasures of ancient or modern poetry. There is no need to point out the beauties of it; it must charm every body, who does but read it or hear it. I can recollect only one description fit to be mentioned after this, and that is of a fine moonshiny night by way of similitude in Homer, Iliad. viii. 555. where Mr. Pope has taken more than ordinary pains to make the translation excellent as the original. Ως δ' ότ' εν ουρανω αστρα φαεινήν αμφι σεληνην Φαίνετ' αριπρεπέα, ότε τ' επλετο νηνεμος αιθήρ, Εκ τ' εφάνον πασαι σκοπίαι, και πρώονες ακρού, Και ναπαι· ουρανόθεν δ' ας' ὑπεῤῥαγη activos aitng, Παντα δε τ' ειδεται αστρα γέγηθε δε τι Φρινα ποιμην. 600 As when the moon, refulgent lamp of night, O'er heav'n's clear azure spreads her sacred light, When not a breath disturbs the deep serene, And not a cloud o'ercasts the solemn scene; Around her throne the vivid planets roll, And stars unnumber'd gild the glow ing pole, O'er the dark trees a yellower verdure shed, And tip with silver every mountain's head; Then shine the vales, the rocks in prospect rise, A flood of glory bursts from all the skies: The conscious swains rejoicing in the sight, Eye the blue vault, and bless the use ful light. Milton's description, we see, leaves off, where Homer's begins; and though the quotation is somewhat long, yet I am persuaded the reader cannot but be pleased with it, as it is a sort of continuation of the same beautiful scene. 598. and twilight gray] Milton is very singular in the frequent and particular notice which he takes of the twilight, whenever he has occasion to speak of the evening. I do not remember to have met with the same in any other poet; and yet there is, to be sure, some. thing so agreeable in that soft and gentle light, and such a peculiar fragrance attends it in circumstance which adds great the summer months, that it is a beauty to his description. I have often thought that the weakness 605 They to their grassy couch, these to their nests of our poet's eyes, to which this 598. The same may be said of his descriptions of the early morning. As in Par. Lost, vii. 374. and Lycidas, 187. When the still morn went out with sandals gray. 611 El' rosignuol, che dolcemente a l'ombra Tutte le notte si lamenta e piagne. T. Warton. 604. Silence was pleas'd] Compare Comus, 557. that even Silence Was took ere she ware, &c. The conceit in both passages is unworthy of the poet. T. War ton. 609. And o'er the dark her But Shakespeare also is fond of silver mantle threw.] See Ode on the gray morning. The gray-ey'd morn smiles on the frowning night. Romeo and Juliet, ii. 3. and again iii. 5. And the morrow gray was a common expression with our early poets, as Chaucer, in his Knight's Tale, 1493. Sackville, Induct. st. 40. Dunster. 603. She all night long her amorous descant sung;] Perhaps be remembered Petrarch, Sonn. x. the Passion, 30. And in Buckhurst's Induction, st. iv. Loe, the night with mistie mantels spread. and st. xl. -Let the night's black inistie mantels rise. Bowle. 614. and the timely dew of Now falling with soft slumb'rous 615 Now falling with soft slumb'rous weight inclines 620 625 630 635 628. That mock our scant manuring,] Manuring is not here to be understood in the common sense, but as working with hands, as the French manœuvrer; it is, as immediately after, to lop, to rid away what is scattered. Richardson. 635. My author and disposer,] For whom and from whom I was formed, in our poet's own words, ver. 440. My author, the author of my being, out of whom I was made. Hume. Unargued I obey; so God ordains ; God is thy law, thou mine: to know no more All seasons and their change, all please alike. We have another view of our first parents in their evening discourses, which are full of pleasing images and sentiments suitable to their condition and characters. The speech of Eve in particular is dressed up in such a soft and natural turn of the words, as cannot be sufficiently admired. Addison. 640. All seasons and their change,] We should understand here the seasons of the day, and not of the year. So in viii. 69. we read 640 645 And we may farther observe, that Eve in the following charming lines mentions morning, evening, night, the times of the day, and not the seasons of the year. 641. Sweet is the breath of morn, &c.] Mr. Dryden in his preface to Juvenal has observed upon our author, that he could not find any elegant turns in him either on the words or on the thoughts. But Mr. Addison in one of the Tatlers (No. 114.) quotes this delightful passage in vindication of Milton, and re His seasons, hours, or days, or months, marks that the variety of images or years: and in ix. 200. he says, Adam and Eve partake the season prime for sweetest scents, that is, the morning. It was now an eternal spring, ver. 268. and we shall read in x. 677. of the changes made after the fall, -to bring in change Of seasons to each clime; else had in it is infinitely pleasing, and the recapitulation of each particular image, with a little varying of the expression, makes one of the finest turns of words he had ever seen. He farther observes, that though the sweetness of these verses has something in it of a pastoral, yet it excels the ordinary kind, as much as the scene of it is above an ordinary field or meadow. Of grateful evening mild; then silent night 648. With this her solemn bird,] The nightingale, most musical, most melancholy, as he says elsewhere. She is called the solemn nightingale, vii. 435. 660. Daughter of God and man, accomplish'd Eve,] Mr. Pope, in his excellent notes upon Homer, b. i. ver. 97. observes, that those appellations of praise and honour, with which the heroes in Homer so frequently salute each other, were agreeable to the style of the ancient times, as appears from several of the like nature in Scripture. Milton has not been wanting to give his poem this cast of antiquity, throughout which our first parents almost always accost each 650 655 660 other with some title, that expresses a respect to the dignity of human nature. 661. These have their course] I have presumed to make a small alteration here in the text, and read These, though in most other editions, and even in Milton's own, I find Those; because it is said before, ver. 657. But wherefore all night long shine these? and afterwards, ver. 674. These then, though unbeheld in deep of night, Shine not in vain ; both which passages evince that Those here is an error of the press. |