May I express thee unblamed? since God is light",
And never but in unapproached light
Dwelt from eternity; dwelt then in thee,
Bright effluence of bright essence increate.
Or hear'st thou rather pure ethereal stream,
Whose fountain who shall tell? before the sun,
Before the heavens thou wert, and at the voice
Of God, as with a mantle, didst invest
The rising world of waters dark and deep,
Won from the void and formless infinite.
Thee I revisit now with bolder wing,

Escaped the Stygian pool, though long detain'd
In that obscure sojourn; while in my flight
Through utter and through middle darkness borne,
With other notes than to the Orphean lyre,

I sung of Chaos and eternal Night;

d

Taught by the heavenly Muse to venture down
The dark descent, and up to reascend,
Though hard and rare: thee I revisit safe,
And feel thy sovran vital lamp; but thou
Revisit'st not these eyes, that roll in vain
To find thy piercing ray, and find no dawn;
So thick a drop serene hath quench'd their orbs,
Or dim suffusion veil'd. Yet not the more
Cease I to wander where the Muses haunt
Clear spring, or shady grove, or sunny hill,
Smit with the love of sacred song; but chief
Thee, Sion, and the flowery brooks beneath',
That wash thy hallow'd feet, and warbling flow,
Nightly I visit; nor sometimes forget

than as an essential part of the poem. The same observation might be applied to that beautiful digression upon hypocrisy in the same book.-ADDISON.

Ibid. Our author's address to Light, and lamentation of his own blindness, may perhaps be censured as an excrescence or digression not agreeable to the rules of epic poetry; but yet this is so charming a part of the poem, that the most critical reader, I imagine, cannot wish it were omitted. One is even pleased with a fault that is the occasion of so many beauties, and acquaints us so much with the circumstances and character of the author.-NEWTON. b Since God is light.

See 1 John i. 5; and 1 Tim. vi. 16.-NEWTON.

e Whose fountain who shall tell ?

As in Job xxxviii. 19. "Where is the way where light dwelleth?"-Hume.

d Through utter and through middle darkness.

Through hell, which is often called utter darkness; and through the great gulf between hell and heaven, the middle darkness.-NEWTON.

So Virgil, Georg. ii. 475:

Kedron and Siloah.

e Smit with the love of sacred song.

Dulces ante omnia Musæ,

Quarum sacra fero ingenti percussus amore.-NEWTON.

The flowery brooks beneath.

He still was pleased to study the beauties of the ancient poets, but his highest delight was in the songs of Sion, in the holy Scriptures; and in these he meditated day and night. This is the sense of the passage stripped of its poetical ornaments.-NEWTON.

Those other two equal'd with me in fate,
So were I equal'd with them in renown,
Blind Thamyris and blind Mæonides 3,
And Tiresias and Phineus, prophets old:
Then feed on thoughts, that voluntary move
Harmonious numbers; as the wakeful bird
Sings darkling, and in shadiest covert hid
Tunes her nocturnal note. Thus with the year
Seasons return, but not to me returns ↳

Day, or the sweet approach of even or morn,
Or sight of vernal bloom, or summer's rose,
Or flocks, or herds, or human face divine;
But cloud instead, and ever-during dark
Surrounds me, from the cheerful ways of men
Cut off, and for the book of knowledge fair
Presented with a universal blank

Of nature's works, to me expunged and rased,
And wisdom at one entrance quite shut out.
So much the rather thou, celestial Light,

Shine inward, and the mind through all her powers
Irradiate; there plant eyes, all mist from thence
Purge and disperse, that I may see and tell
Of things invisible to mortal sight.

Now had the Almighty Father from above,
From the pure empyrean where he sits

High throned above all highth, bent down his eye,
His own works and their works at once to view.
About him all the sanctities of heaven

Stood thick as stars, and from his sight received
Beatitude past utterance'; on his right
The radiant image of his glory sat,
His only Son on earth he first beheld

Our two first parents, yet the only two

63

Blind Thamyris and blind Mæonides.

Mæonides is Homer. Thamyris was a Thracian, and invented the Doric mood or measure. Tiresias and Phineus, the one a Theban, the other a king of Arcadia, famous blind prophets and poets of antiquity.-NEWTON.

h Seasons return, but not to me returns.

This beautiful turn of the words is copied from the beginning of the third act of Guarini's "Pastor Fido," where Mirtillo addresses the Spring

Tu torni ben, ma teco

Non tornano, &c.

Tu torni ben, tu torni,

:

Ma teco altro non torna, &c.-NEWTON.

And from his sight received

Beatitude past utterance.

Milton here alludes to the beatific vision, in which divines suppose the happiness of the saints to consist.-THYER.

Sandys, in his Paraphrase on Job, has a similar passage:

Againe when all the radiant sonnes of light
Before his throne appear'd, whose only sight
Beatitude infused.-TODD.

Of mankind, in the happy garden placed,
Reaping immortal fruits of joy and love,
Uninterrupted joy, unrival'd love,
In blissful solitude: he then survey'd
Hell and the gulf between, and Satan there
Coasting the wall of heaven on this side night
In the dun air sublime, and ready now

To stoop with wearied wings, and willing feet,
On the bare outside of this world, that seem'd
Firm land imbosom'd without firmament J,
Uncertain which, in ocean or in air.
Him God beholding from his prospect high,
Wherein past, present, future, he beholds,
Thus to his only Son foreseeing spake :—

Only-begotten Son, seest thou what rage
Transports our adversary? whom no bounds
Prescribed, no bars of hell, nor all the chains
Heap'd on him there, nor yet the main abyss
Wide interrupt, can hold; so bent he seems
On desperate revenge, that shall redound
Upon his own rebellious head. And now,
Through all restraint broke loose, he wings his way
Not far off heaven, in the precincts of light,

Directly towards the new-created world,
And man there placed; with purpose to assay
If him by force he can destroy, or, worse,

By some false guile pervert; and shall pervert :
For man will hearken to his glozing lies,
And easily transgress the sole command,
Sole pledge of his obedience: so will fall,
He and his faithless progeny. Whose fault?
Whose but his own? Ingrate, he had of me
All he could have: I made him just and right,
Sufficient to have stood, though free to fall.

Such I created all the ethereal powers

And spirits, both them who stood and them who fail'd :

Freely they stood who stood, and fell who fell.

Not free, what proof could they have given sincere

Of true allegiance, constant faith, or love?

1 Firm land imbosom'd without firmament.

The universe appeared to Satan to be a solid globe, encompassed on all sides, but uncer tain whether with water or air, but without firmament, without any sphere or fixed stars over it, as over the earth. The sphere, or fixed stars, was itself comprehended in it, and

made a part of it.-NEWTON.

kOnly-begotten Son.

into

1

I will make one general observation on this and all the speeches in the poem, put the mouth of God the Father; which is, that nothing can be more unjust than Pope's criticism on Milton, accusing him of making "God turn school-divine," unless he meant by school-divinity the doctrine of St. Paul, St. Peter, St. John, &c. : for Milton has copied them with the greatest exactness; and, bating a word or two (fully implied however in those writers), has kept to their very expressions.-STILLINGfleet.

Where only, what they needs must do, appear'd,
Not what they would: what praise could they receive?
What pleasure I from such obedience paid?
When will and reason, (reason also is choice)
Useless and vain, of freedom both despoil'd,
Made passive both, had served necessity,
Not me. They therefore, as to right belong'd,
So were created, nor can justly accuse
Their Maker, or their making, or their fate;
As if predestination over-ruled

Their will, disposed by absolute decree

Or high foreknowledge: they themselves decreed
Their own revolt, not I: if I foreknew,

Foreknowledge had no influence on their fault,
Which had no less proved certain unforeknown.
So without least impulse or shadow of fate,
Or aught by me immutably foreseen,
They trespass, authors to themselves in all,

Both what they judge and what they choose; for so
I form'd them free, and free they must remain,

Till they enthrall themselves; I else must change
Their nature, and revoke the high decree,
Unchangeable, eternal, which ordain'd

Their freedom: they themselves ordain'd their fall.
The first sort by their own suggestion fell,
Self-tempted, self-depraved: man falls deceived
By the other first: man therefore shall find grace,
The other none in mercy and justice both,

Through heaven and earth, so shall my glory excel ;
But mercy first and last shall brightest shine.

Thus while God spake ', ambrosial fragrance fill'd
All heaven, and in the blessed spirits elect
Sense of new joy ineffable diffused.
Beyond compare the Son of God was seen
Most glorious; in him all his Father shone
Substantially express'd ; and in his face
Divine compassion visibly appear'd,

m

Love without end, and without measure grace;
Which uttering, thus he to his Father spake :-
0 Father, gracious was that word which closed

Thus while God spake.

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120

123

130

135

140

Milton here shows that he was no servile imitator of the ancients. It is very well known that his master, Homer, and all who followed him, where they are representing the Deity speaking, describe a scene of terror and awful consternation. The heavens, seas, and earth tremble," &c.; and this, to be sure, was consistent enough with their natural notions of the Supreme Being: but it would not have been so agreeable to the mild, merciful, and benevolent idea of the Deity upon the christian scheme; and therefore our author has very judiciously made the words of the Almighty diffusing fragrance and delight to all around him.-THYER. Substantially express'd.

See Heb. i. 3.-HUME.

Thy sovran sentence, that man should find grace;
For which both heaven and earth shall high extol
Thy praises, with the innumerable sound

Of hymns and sacred songs, wherewith thy throne
Encompass'd shall resound thee ever bless'd.
For should man finally be lost? should man,
Thy creature late so loved, thy youngest son,
Fall circumvented thus by fraud, though join'd
With his own folly? that be from thee far",
That far be from thee, Father, who art judge
Of all things made, and judgest only right.
Or shall the adversary thus obtain
His end, and frustrate thine? shall he fulfil
His malice, and thy goodness bring to naught;
Or proud return, though to his heavier doom,
Yet with revenge accomplish'd, and to hell
Draw after him the whole race of mankind,
By him corrupted? or wilt thou thyself
Abolish thy creation, and unmake,

For him, what for thy glory thou hast made?
So should thy goodness and thy greatness both
Be question'd and blasphemed without defence.
To whom the great Creator thus replied:-

O Son, in whom my soul hath chief delight,

Our author did not hold the doctrine of rigid predestination: he was of the sentiments of the more moderate Calvinists; and thought that some indeed were elected of peculiar grace; the rest might be saved, complying with the terms and conditions of the Gospel.-NEWTON.