Acknowledge him thy greater, found his praise 172. Acknowledge him thy greater,] It is not an improbable reading which Dr. Bentley propofes Acknowledge bim Creator, or as Mr. Thyer Acknowledge thy Creator: but I fuppofe the author made ufe of greater answering to great. Thou Sun, of this great world both eye and foul, Acknowledge him thy greater. So Ovid calls the fun the eye of the world, Mundi oculus, Met. IV. 228. And Pliny the foul, Nat. Hift. Lib. 1. c. 6. Hunc mundi effe to. tius animum. And the expreffion thy greater may be fitly parallel'd with thy fierceft IV. 927. and bis greater in Paradife Regain'd I. 279. up light. 176 Air, Eternumque adytis effert penetralibus ignem : and ufes the adverb æternum in the fame manner for continually. Georg. II. 400. glebaque verfis Eternum frangenda bidentibus. 175. Moor, that now meet'ft the orient fun, now fly'ft, &c.] The conftruction is, Thou Moon, that now meet'ft and now flyft the orient fun, together with the fix'd ftars, and ye five other wand'ring fires &c. He had before called upon the fun who governs the day, and now he invokes the moon, and the fix'd ftars, and the planets who govern the night, to praife their Maker. The moon fometimes meets and 173. In thy eternal courfe,] In fometimes flies the fun, approaches thy continual course. Thus Vir- to and recedes from him in her gil calls the fun, moon and ftars monthly course With the fix'd eternal fires, En. II. 154. Vos, ftars, fix'd in their orb that flies; æterni ignes; and the facred fire they are fix'd in their orb, but that was conftantly kept burning their orb flies, that is moves round eternal fire, Æn. II. 297. with the utmost rapidity; for Adam I i VOL. I. is Air, and ye Elements, the eldeft birth Of Nature's womb, that in quaternion run And nourish all things; let your ceafelefs change Ye Mifts and Exhalations that now rife From hill or steaming lake, dufky or gray, is made to fpeak according to appearances, and he mentions in another place, VIII. 19 and 21. their rolling Spaces incomprehenfible, and their fwift return diurnal. And ye five other wandring fires. Dr. Bentley reads four, Venus and the Sun and Moon being mention'd before, and only four more remaining, Mercury and Mars and Jupiter and Saturn. And we muft either fuppose that Milton did not confider the morning ftar as the planet Venus; or he must be supposed to include the earth, to make up the other five befides thofe he had mention'd; and he calls it elfewhere VIII. 129. The planet earth; tho' this be not agreeable to the fyftem, according to which he is fpeaking at prefent. Wand'ring fires in oppofition to fix'd ftars. That move in myftic dance not without fong, alluding to the doctrin of the An 180 185 Of Or wet the thirsty earth with falling fhowers, Igo 195 His praise ye Winds, that from four quarters blow, 181.-that in quaternion run &c.] That in a fourfold mixture and combination run a perpetual circle, one element continually changing into another, according to the doctrin of Heraclitus, borrow'd from Orpheus. Et cum quattuor fint genera corporum, viciffitudine eorum mundi continuata natura eft. Nam ex terra, aqua: ex aqua, oritur aer: ex aere, æther: deinde retrorfum viciffim ex æthere, aer: inde aqua: ex aqua, terra infima. Sic naturis his, ex quibus omnia conftant, furfus, deorfus, ultro, citro commeantibus, mundi partium Cicero de conjunctio continetur. Nat. Deor. II. 33. 197. ye living Souls; ] Soul is ufed here as it fometimes is in Scripture for other creatures befides Man. So Gen. I. 20. the moving creature that hath life, that is foul in the Hebrew, and in the Ye margin of the Bible; and ver. 30. every thing that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is life, that is a living foul. 198. That finging up to Heaven gate afcend,] We meet with the like hyperbole in Shakespear, Cymbeline, Act II. Hark, hark! the lark at Heav'n's gate fings; and again in his 29th fonnet, Like as the lark at break of day. From fullen earth fings hymns at and not unlike is that in Homer, Ye that in waters glide, and ye that walk The earth, and stately tread, or lowly creep; Witness if I be filent, morn or even, To hill, or valley, fountain, or fresh shade Made vocal by my fong, and taught his praise. 202. Witness if I be filent,] Dr. Bentley thinks that Milton had forgot that both Adam and Eve shar'd in this hymn, and therefore he reads if we be filent, and in the next verfe but one by our fong: But Milton rather imitates here the ancient chorus, where fometimes the plural, and fometimes the fingular number is used. The fame is practic'd by our poet in the fpeeches of the chorus in Sampfon Agoniftes, where the reader will fee in every page almoft that the number is thus varied. Dr. Bentley obferves, that the whole hymn naturally divides itself into parts interlocutory, and that he has prefumed to put it fo, tho' not warranted by any edition. But this is not Dr. Bentley's invention; for this hymn was fet to mufic fome years ago, and in that compofition the feveral parts of it were affign'd diftinctly to Adam and Eve. I think that fuch interlocutory parts are by no means fit for an heroic poem: but if the author fhould be fuppofed to have defign'd them, I fhould choose to divide this hymn very different from the Doctor's divifion. [The Doctor affigns the firft feven lines to Adam, those of the Angels to Eve, thofe of the Morning Star to 200 Hail to Adam, thofe of the Sun to Eve, thofe of the Moon to Adam, of the Air and Elements to Eve, of the Mifts and Exhalations to Adam, of the Winds and Pines to Eve, of the Fountains and Rills Adam, of the Creatures and Birds to Eve, of the Fishes and Beafts to Adam, and the four last lines to Eve. But on the contrary Dr. Pearce fays] The first feven and the four laft verfes of this hymn I would fuppofe spoken by Adam and Eve together: and as to the other verfes, I would have Adam fpeak all that the Doctor affigns to Eve, and Eve all that is now affign'd to Adam. In this method the mention of the fair Morning Star, the Moon, and Fountains and Rills will come to Eve's fhare, and they are circumftances which feem fitter for her to mention than her husband. 7 Hail univerfal Lord, be bounteous ftill O Jupiter give us good things, whether we pray for them or not, and remove from us evil things, even tho' we pray for them. And we learn from the firft book of Xenophon's memoirs of his master Socrates, that Socrates was wont to pray to the Gods only to give good things, as they knew beft what things were fo. EUX ETO de SPO TUS DEUS ATnas ayata διδοναι, ὡς τις θεός καλλιςα κα δοτας οποια αγαθα εςι. And to the fame purpose there is an excellent collect in our Liturgy, for the eighth Sunday after Trinity, We humbly beseech thee to put away from us all hurtful things, and to give us thofe things which be profitable for us. 209. So pray'd they innocent, and On to their morning's rural work they hafte &c.] Thefe verfes are thus pointed in the beft, that is in Milton's own editions: but the latter fentence begins very abruptly, On to their morning's work &c. Dr. Bentley therefore continuing the fentence reads thus, 205 Firm So pray'd they innocent; and to their thoughts Firm peace recov'ring foon and wonted calm, On to their morning's rural work they hafte &c. Dr. Pearce thinks the sentence fuf ficiently continued in the common reading, if recover'd be a participle of the ablative cafe; and conceives this to be the conftruction, Peace and calm being recover'd to their thoughts, they hafle &c. and accordingly points it thus, - and, to their thoughts Firm peace recover'd loon and wonted calm, On to their morning's rural work they hafte. But perhaps the abruptness of the line On to their morning's rural work they hafte was defign'd the better to exprefs the hafte they were in as they were later to day than ufual: Ór perhaps with an eafy alteration it may be read thus, Then to their morning's rural work. they hafte. Ii3 214. Their |