Death is the penalty imposed; beware, Here finish'd he, and all that he had made Resounded (thou remember'st, for thou heard'st), The glorious train ascending: he through heaven, 545 550 555 560 565 570 575 A broad and ample road, whose dust is gold, And pavement stars, as stars to thee appear, Which nightly, as a circling zone, thou seest 580 Powder'd with stars. And now on earth the seventh Evening arose in Eden, for the sun Was set, and twilight from the east came on, Forerunning night; when at the holy mount Of heaven's high-seated top, the imperial throne Of Godhead, fix'd for ever firm and sure, 585 Invisible, yet stay'd, (such privilege Hath Omnipresence) and the work ordain'd, 59C Authour and End of all things; and, from work Now resting, bless'd and hallow'd the seventh day, As resting on that day from all his work, But not in silence holy kept: the harp Had work, and rested not; the solemn pipe, 595 And dulcimer, all organs of sweet stop, All sounds on fret by string or golden wire, Great are thy works, Jehovah! infinite Thy power! what thought can measure thee, or tongue Thy thunders magnified; but to create Is greater than created to destroy. 600 Than from the giant angels: thee that day 605 Who can impair thee, Mighty King, or bound Of spirits apostate, and their counsels vain, 610 Thou hast repell'd; while impiously they thought Thee to diminish, and from thee withdraw The number of thy worshippers. Who seeks 615 Thou usest, and from thence creat'st more good. 620 Their pleasant dwelling-place. Thrice happy men, 625 And sons of men, whom God hath thus advanced! And worship him; and in reward to rule So sung they, and the empyréan rung 630 And thy request think now fulfill'd, that ask'd 635 Inform'd by thee, might know: if else thou seek'st 597. Fret. On the finger-board of a bassviol, are divisions athwart, by which the sound is regulated and variod: these divisions are called frets. 640 598. Temper'd, &c.: Produced soft sounds. 619. The hyaline, or glassy sea, is the same as the Crystalline ocean, vii. 271. REMARKS ON BOOK VIII. No praise can be deemed too high for this eighth book of Paradise Lost. Milton speaks as the historian of idealism; never as a rhetorician he has never any factitious warmth; what he relates he first sees: the richness of his imagination is united with extreme and surprising simplicity he rejects all adornment. The imagination which creates a whole series of characters and actions, resulting from each other,—those actions at the same time springing from high minds and high passions,performs the greatest and rarest work of genius: thus we are filled with the most delightful astonishment, when we read Milton's picture of the creation of Adam and Eve: the beauty, the glow, the enthusiasm, the rapture running through all the senses, and all the veins; the unalloyed grandeur of the man, the celestial grace of the woman; the majesty of his movements, the delicacy of hers; the inconceivable happiness of thoughts and words with which their admiration of each other is expressed; the breaks, the turns of language, the inspired brilliance, and flow of the strains; yet the inimitable chastity and transparence of the whole style; -fill a sensitive reader with an unfeigned wonder and exaltation, which it would be vain to attempt adequately to record. I need not say, that all the art and skill alone of all the poets of the earth would never have reached those thoughts, though natural and human, yet mixed with intellectual sublimity and exalted passion, which the poet ascribes to Adam and Eve; and in which his beautiful language could only be attained by following those thoughts in a congenial tone. This is the real secret of Milton's great superiority in the true language of poetry: it is miserable, when flat thoughts are covered by sounding or gaudy words. The mind of him who undertakes to write poetry can only be worked into a due temperament by the force of a warm and pregnant imagination in that state he need not seek for phrases or ideas: these rise out of the ideal position to which his genius has transported him: they are not the result of slow reflection, or reasoning, or memory: admit the circumstances, and nature points out the sentiments: but it is the great poet alone who can invent the circumstances; and of all men, Milton could invent them with the most fertility and splendour. There is another consideration which makes Milton's invention deserving of the most unlimited praise: he was bound down by his awe of religion, and his search after truth and wisdom. When imagination may indulge itself in wanton flights, it may easily blaze by its erratic courses: here the poet had to keep within a prescribed track: he had therefore all his mighty powers at command; he threw his light where it was required. Again I must say something of the argumentative parts of the poem as applied to this eighth book: these are as profound and excellent as those in the former books: they are not, as Dryden has hinted, flat and unprofitable; but the reverse: they are exalted, closely-argued, nakedly but vigorously expressed, sagacious, moral, instructive, comprehensive, deep in the knowledge of life, consolatory, and fortifying. Whoever supposes them unpoetical, has a narrow and mean conception of poetry: they are never out of place, but result from the leading characters of the poem; and are quite as essential to it, even as its grand, or beautiful, and breathing imagery. SIR EGERTON BRYDGES. BOOK VIII. THE ARGUMENT. ADAM inquires concerning celestial motions; is doubtfully answered, and exhorted to search rather things more worthy of knowledge: Adam assents; and, still desirous to detain Raphael, relates to him what he remembered since his own creation; his placing in Paradise; his talk with God concerning solitude and fit society; his first meeting and nuptials with Eve; his discourse with the angel thereupon; who, after admonitions repeated, departs. THE angel ended, and in Adam's ear So charming left his voice, that he awhile Thought him still speaking, still stood fix'd to hear; What thanks sufficient, or what recompense Equal, have I to render thee, divine Things else by me unsearchable; now heard When I behold this goodly frame, this world, Round this opacous earth, this punctual spot, 3. Stood: Remained, continued; not his attitude, but his great attention being described. 15. When I behold, &c. Milton, after having given so noble an idea of the creation of this new world, takes a proper occasion to show the two great systes, usually called the Ptolemaic and Copernican, the former making the earth, the latter the sun the centre; and this he does by introducing Adam proposing very judiciously the difficul ties that occur in the first, and which was the system most obvious to him.RICHARDSON. 23. Punctual spot, from the Latin pun.. tum, "a point;" that is, a spot no bigy than a point. So many nobler bodies to create, For aught appears, and on their orbs impose So spake our sire, and by his countenance seem'd And grace that won who saw to wish her stay, Of what was high: such pleasure she reserved, Chose rather; he, she knew, would intermix Grateful digressions, and solve high dispute Not words alone pleased her. O! when meet now A pomp of winning Graces waited still, To ask or search, I blame thee not; for heaven 37. Incorporeal speed: Speed such as spirits might use. 40. What a lovely picture has the poet here drawn of Eve! As it did not become her to bear a part in the conver sation, she modestly sits at a distance, but yet within view. She stays as long as the angel and her husband are discoursing of things which it might concern her and her duty to know; but when they enter upon abstruser points, then she decently retires. She rises to ge forth with lowliness, but yet with ma jesty and grace. What modesty and what dignity is here!-NEWTON, 71. It imports not: It matters not, whether heaven move or earth; whether the Ptolemaic or the Copernican system be true. This knowledge we may still attain; the rest,-other more curious |