Proud limitary cherub, but ere then Far heavier load thyself expect to feel From my prevailing arm, though heaven's King 971. Proud limitary Cherub.] Thou proud prescribing angel that presumest to limit me and appoint my prison, according to Mr. Hume. Or rather limitary, set to guard the bounds; a taunt insulting the good angel as one employed on a little mean office, according to Mr. Richardson. For limitary (as Dr. Heylin remarks) is from limitaneus. Milites limitanci are soldiers in garrison upon the frontiers. So Dux limitaneus. Digest. And as Mr. Thyer farther observes, the word is intended as a scornful sneer upon what Gabriel had just said, 975 980 and Satan abounds with sentiments proper for the occasion, and suitable to the persons of the two speakers. Satan clothing himself with terror, when he prepares for the combat, is truly sublime, and at least equal to Homer's description of Discord celebrated by Longinus, or to that of Fame in Virgil, who are both represented with their feet standing upon the earth, and their heads reaching above the clouds. Addison. 980. With ported spears,] With their spears borne pointed towards him. A military term. Hume. 980. -as thick as when a field &c.] It is familiar with the poets to compare an army with their spears and swords to a field of standing corn. Homer has a simile much of the same nature, comparing the motion of the army after Agamemnon's speech to the waving of the ears of corn. Iliad. ii. 147. Ως δ' ότε κινησει Ζέφυρος βαθυ ληϊον ελθων, Λαβρος επαιγίζων, επί τ' ημύει αστα χυισσινό 's say was' ayoen zıvnen. Of Ceres ripe for harvest waving bends Her bearded grove of ears, which way the wind His stature reach'd the sky, and on his crest 986. dilated stood, &c.] Our author is indebted, I fancy, for this nervous expression to the following description of Tasso's Argantes addressing himself to fight with Tancred, Gier. Lib. cant. xix. st. 12. Ma disteso e eretto il fero Argante. Disteso in Italian is exactly the same with dilated in English, and expresses very strongly the attitude of an eager and undaunted combatant, where fury not only seems to erect and enlarge his stature, but expands as it were his whole frame, and extends every limb. I do not remember to have ever before met with the word dilated applied in the same manner in our language. Like Teneriff or Atlas unremov'd: So Satan in Tasso, cant. iv. st. 6. Ne pur Calpe s'inalza, d'l magno Atlante, Ch' anzi lui non paresse un picciol colle. 985 Sat horror plum'd; nor wanted in his grasp What seem'd both spear and shield: now dreadful deeds Might have ensu'd, nor only Paradise In this commotion, but the starry cope Of heav'n perhaps, or all the elements At least had gone to wrack, disturb'd and torn to that noble description in the 989. Sat horror plum'd;] Horror is personified, and is made the plume of his helmet; and how much nobler an idea is this than the horses' tails and sphinxes and dragons and other terrible animals on the helmets of the ancient heroes, or even than the Chimæra vomiting flames on the crest of Turnus, En. vii. 785. Cui triplici crinita jubâ galea alta A triple pile of plumes his crest On which with belching flames Chimæra burn'd! Dryden. 989. Other and better explications than Dr. Newton's might be offered. But, I believe, we have no precise or determinate conception of what Milton means. And we detract from the sublimity of the passage in endeavouring to explain it, and to give a distinct signification. Here is a nameless terrible grace, resulting from a mixture of ideas, and a confusion of imagery. T. Warton. VOL. I. 991 995 989. —nor wanted in his grasp &c.] This is said to signify that he wanted not arms, though he was but just raised out of the form of a toad. He was represented as in arms, ii. 812. when he was upon the point of engaging with Death; and we must suppose that his power, as an angel, was such, that he could assume them upon occasion whenever he pleased. 991. -nor only Paradise &c.] This representation of what must have happened, if Gabriel and Satan had encountered, is imagined in these few lines with a nobleness suitable to the occasion, and is an improvement upon a thought in Homer, where he represents the terrors which must have attended the conflict of two such powers as Jupiter and Neptune, Iliad. xv. 224. μαλα γαρ κι μάχης επύθοντο και άλλοι, Οίπερ νερτέροι εισι θεοι, Κρονος αμφις And all the Gods that round old Had heard the thunders to the deeps 996. Th' Eternal to prevent such horrid fray] The breaking off the combat between Gabriel U Hung forth in heav'n his golden scales, yet seen and Satan, by the hanging out of the golden scales in heaven, is a refinement upon Homer's thought, who tells us that before the battle between Hector and Achilles, Jupiter weighed the event of it in a pair of scales. The reader may see the whole passage in the twenty-second Iliad. Virgil before the last decisive combat describes Jupiter in the same manner, as weighing the fates of Turnus and Æneas. Milton, though he fetched this beautiful circumstance from the Iliad and Æneid, does not only insert it as a poetical embellishment, like the authors above mentioned; but makes an artful use of it for the proper carrying on of his fable, and for the breaking off the combat between the two warriors who were upon the point of engaging. To this we may further add, that Milton is the more justified in this passage, as we find the same noble allegory in holy writ, where a wicked prince, some few hours before he was assaulted and slain, is said to have been weighed in the scales, and to have been found wanting. Addison. 997. his golden scales,] So they are in Homer χρυσεια τα Marra, both where he weighs the destinies of the Greeks and Trojans in book the eighth, and the fates of Hector and Achilles in book the twenty-second. And this figure of weighing the destinies of men appeared so beau tiful to succeeding poets, that Eschylus (as we are informed by Plutarch in his treatise of hearing the poets) wrote a tragedy upon this foundation, which he entitled xoraria or the weighing of souls. 998. Betwixt Astrea and the Scorpion sign,] Libra or the Scales is one of the twelve signs of the zodiac, as Astrea (or Virgo the Virgin) and Scorpio also are. This does as it were realize the fiction, and gives consequently a greater force to it. Richardson. This allusion to the sign Libra in the heavens is a beauty that is not in Homer or Virgil, and gives this passage a manifest advantage over both their descriptions. 999. Wherein all things created first he weigh'd, &c.] This of weighing the creation at first and of all events since gives us a sublime idea of Providence, and is conformable to the style of Scripture, Job xxviii. 25. To make the weight for the winds, and he weigheth the waters by measure. chap. xxxvii. 16. Dost thou know the balancing of the clouds? Isaiah xl. 12. Who weighed the mountains in scales, and the hills in a balance? And then for weighing particular events since, see 1 Sam. ii. 3. By him actions are weighed. Prov. xvi. 2. The Lord weigheth the spirits. I do not recollect an instance of weighing battles particularly, but there is The pendulous round earth with balanc'd air foundation enough for that in Homer and Virgil as we have seen; and then for weighing kingdoms we see an instance in Belshazzar, and it is said expressly, Dan. v. 26, 27. God hath numbered thy kingdom, and finished it, thou art weighed in the balances. So finely hath Milton improved upon the fictions of the poets by the eternal truths of holy Scripture. 1003. The sequel each of parting and of fight;] Dr. Bentley reads The signal each &c. To understand which of these two readings suits the place best, let us consider the poet's thought, which was this: God put in the golden scales two weights: in the one scale he put the weight, which was the sequel (that is represented the consequence) of Satan's parting from them; in the other scale he put the weight, which was the sequel of Satan's fighting; neither of the scales had any thing in it immediately relating to Gabriel: and therefore Dr. Bentley mistakes (I think) when he says, that the ascending weight, Satan's, was the signal to him of defeat; the descending, Gabriel's, the signal to him of victory: they were both signals (if signals) to Satan only, for he only was weighed, ver. 1012; or rather they shewed him what would be the consequence both of his fighting and of his retreating. The scale in 1000 which lay the weight, that was the sequel of his fighting, by ascending shewed him that he was light in arms, and could not obtain victory; whereas the other scale, in which was the sequel of his parting or retreating, having descended, it was a sign that his going off quietly would be his wisest and weightiest attempt. The reader will excuse my having been so long in this note, when he considers that Dr. Bentley, and probably many others have misunderstood Milton's thought about the scales, judging of it by what they read of Jupiter's scales in Homer and Virgil; the account of which is very different from this of Milton; for in them the fates of the two combatants are weighed one against the other, and the descent of one of the scales foreshewed the death of him whose fate lay in that scale, quo vergat pondere lethum: whereas in Milton nothing is weighed but what relates to Satan only, and in the two scales are weighed the two different events of his retreating and his fighting. From what has been said it may appear pretty plainly, that Milton by sequel meant the consequence or event, as it is expressed in ver. 1001, and then there will be no occasion for Dr. Bentley's signal; both because it is a very improper word in this place, and because a signal of parting and of |