Given me to quell their pride, and in event Or stars of morning, dew-drops, which the sun 740 745 750 755 They came; and Satan to his royal seat, High on a hill far blazing, as a mount Raised on a mount, with pyramids and towers From diamond quarries hewn and rocks of gold; In imitation of that mount whereon 760 765 770 Of counterfeited truth thus held their ears: Thrones, dominations, princedoms, virtues, powers; If these magnific titles yet remain Not merely titular, since by decree Another now hath to himself engross'd 775 All power, and us eclipsed under the name Of King anointed, for whom all this haste Of midnight march, and hurried meeting here, This only to consult how we may best, 780 With what may be devised of honours new, 766. Mountain, &c. See Isa. xiv. 13. 785 Natives and sons of heaven, possess'd before Thus far his bold discourse without controul O argument blasphemous, false, and proud! 790 795 830 805 810 815 With regal sceptre, every soul in heaven Confess him rightful King? unjust, thou say'st, Flatly unjust, to bind with laws the free, 820 One over all with unsucceeded power. Shalt thou give law to God? shalt thou dispute With him the points of liberty, who made Thee what thou art, and form'd the powers of heaven Such as he pleased, and circumscribed their being? 825 Yet, by experience taught, we know how good, How provident he is; how far from thought To make us less, bent rather to exalt Our happy state, under one head more near 830 United. But to grant it thee unjust, That equal over equals monarch reign: Thyself, though great and glorious, dost thou count, Equal to him Begotten Son? by whom, As by his word, the mighty Father made All things, ev'n thee; and all the spirits of heaven 799. The meaning, I presume, is, much less can he, for this, (namely, because we are less in power and splendour, v. 796,) rightly assume to be our Lord. 835 By him created in their bright degrees; The Apostate, and, more haughty, thus replied: That we were form'd then, say'st thou? and the work Of secondary hands by task transferr'd 840 845 850 From Father to his Son? strange point and new! 855 Doctrine which we would know whence learn'd: who saw When this creation was? Remember'st thou Thy making, while the Maker gave thee being? We know no time when we were not as now; Know none before us; self-begot, self-raised 860 By our own quickening power, when fatal course He said; and, as the sound of waters deep, Forsaken of all good! I see thy fall Determined, and thy hapless crew, involved $48. While pardon, &c. Isa. lv. 6. 861. When fatal course. No compliment to fatalism, to put it into the mouth of the Devil.-NEWTON. 864. Our own puissance. Ps. xii. 4. 872. As the sound, &c. Rev. xix. 6. 265 870 875 880 885 That golden sceptre, which thou didst reject, When, who can uncreate thee, thou shalt know. So spake the seraph Abdiel, faithful found Among the faithless, faithful only he; To swerve from truth, or change his constant mind, 800 895 900 905 cates any reform, physical or moral, must expect bitter and malignant opposition from the mass of mankind, who dislike to give up their old ways of thinking and acting, either from pride of opinion, or from the fear that, by the change, their own selfish interests may in some way be injuriously affected. REMARKS ON BOOK VI. WE are now entering upon the sixth book of Paradise Lost, in which the poet describes the battle of the angels; having raised his reader's expectation, and prepared him for it by several passages in the preceding books. The author's imagination was so inflamed with this great scene of action, that wherever he speaks of it, he rises, if possible, above himself. Thus, where he mentions Satan in the beginning of his poem: -Him the almighty Power Hurl'd headlong flaming from the ethereal sky, With hideous ruin and combustion down Who durst defy th' Omnipotent to arms. It required great pregnancy of invention, and strength of imagination, to fill this battle with such circumstances as should raise and astonish the mind of the reader; and at the same time an exactness of judgment, to avoid every thing that might appear light or trivial. Those who look into Homer are surprised to find his battles still rising one above another, and improving in horror to the conclusion of the Iliad. Milton's fight of angels is wrought up with the same beauty. It is ushered in with such signs of wrath as are suitable to Omnipotence incensed. The first engagement is carried on under a cope of fire, occasioned by the flights of innumerable burning darts and arrows which are discharged from either host. The second onset is still more terrible, as it is filled with those artificial thunders, which seem to make the victory doubtful, and produce a kind of consternation even in the good angels. This is followed by the tearing up of mountains and promontories; till in the last place Messiah comes forth in the fulness of majesty and terror. The pomp of his appearance, amidst the roarings of his thunders, the flashes of his lightnings, and the noise of his chariot-wheels, is described with the utmost flights of human imagination. There is nothing in the first and last day's engagement which does not appear natural, and agreeable enough to the ideas most readers would conceive of a fight between two armies of angels. The second day's engagement is apt to startle an imagination which has not been raised and qualified for such a description, by the reading of the ancient poets, and of Homer in particular. It was certainly a very bold thought in our author, to ascribe the first use of artillery to the rebel angels. But as such a pernicious invention may be well supposed to have proceeded from such authors, so it enters very properly into the thoughts of that being, who is all along described as aspiring to the majesty of his Maker. Such engines were the only instruments he could have made use of to imitate those thunders, that in all poetry, both sacred and profane, are represented as the arms of the Almighty. The tearing up the hills was not altogether so daring a thought as the former. We are, in some measure, prepared for such an incident by the description of the giants' war, which we meet with among the ancient poets. Milton has taken every thing that is sublime in these several passages, and composes out of them the following great image: From their foundations loos'ning to and fro, |