Through his glazed optic tube yet never saw.
The place he found beyond expression bright,
Compared with aught on earth, metal or stone;
Not all parts like, but all alike inform'd
With radiant light, as glowing iron with fire:
If metal, part seem'd gold, part silver clear;
If stone, carbuncle most or chrysolite,
Ruby or topaz, to the twelve that shone
In Aaron's breastplate; and a stone besides
Imagined rather oft than elsewhere seen:
That stone, or like to that which here below
Philosophers in vain so long have sought;
In vain, though by their powerful art they bind
Volatil Hermes, and call up unbound
In various shapes old Proteus from the sea,
Drain'd through a limbeck to his native form.
What wonder then if fields and regions here
Breathe forth elixir pure, and rivers run

Potable gold; when with one virtuous touch,
The arch-chemic sun, so far from us remote,
Produces, with terrestrial humour mix'd,
Here in the dark so many precious things,
Of colour glorious and effect so rare ?
Here matter new to gaze the devil met
Undazzled; far and wide his eye commands:
For sight no obstacle found here, nor shade,
But all sunshine. As when his beams at noon
Culminate from the equator, as they now
Shot upward still direct, whence no way round
Shadow from body opaque can fall; and the air,
No where so clear, sharpen'd his visual ray
To objects distant far; whereby he soon
Saw within ken a glorious angel stand.
The same whom John' saw also in the sun :
His back was turn'd, but not his brightness hid;
Of beaming sunny rays a golden tiar

Circled his head; nor less his locks behind
Illustrious on his shoulders fledge with wings

Lay waving round: on some great charge employ'd
He seem'd, or fix'd in cogitation deep.

Glad was the spirit impure, as now in hope
To find who might direct his wandering flight
To Paradise, the happy seat of man,

e Through his glazed optic tube yet never saw.

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The spots in the sun are visible with a telescope: but astronomer perhaps never saw, through his glazed optic tube," such a spot as Satan, now he was in the sun's orb. The poet mentions this glass the oftener in honour of Galileo, whom he means here by the astronomer.-NEWTON.

See Rev. xix. 17:-" And I saw an angel standing in the sun."-NEWTON.

The same whom John.

G

His journey's end, and our beginning woe.
But first he casts to change his proper shape;
Which else might work him danger or delay:
And now a stripling cherub he appears,
Not of the prime, yet such as in his face
Youth smiled celestial, and to every limb
Suitable grace diffused, so well he feign'd;
Under a coronet his flowing hair

In curls on either cheek play'd; wings he wore
Of many a colour'd plume sprinkled with gold;
His habit fit for speed succinct; and held
Before his decent steps a silver wand.

He drew not nigh unheard; the angel bright,
Ere he drew nigh, his radiant visage turn'd,
Admonish'd by his ear; and straight was known
The archangel Uriel, one of the seven,

Who in God's presence nearest to his throne
Stand ready at command, and are his eyes

That run through all the heavens, or down to the earth
Bear his swift errands, over moist and dry,
O'er sea and land: him Satan thus accosts :-

Uriel, for thou of those seven spirits that stand
In sight of God's high throne, gloriously bright,
The first art wont his great authentic will
Interpreter through highest heaven to bring,
Where all his sons thy embassy attend;
And here art likeliest by supreme decree
Like honour to obtain, and as his eye
To visit oft this new creation round;
Unspeakable desire to see, and know

All these his wondrous works, but chiefly man,
His chief delight and favour, him for whom
All these his works so wondrous he ordain'd,
Hath brought me from the quires of cherubim
Alone thus wandering. Brightest seraph, tell
In which of all these shining orbs hath man
His fixed seat, or fixed seat hath none,
But all these shining orbs his choice to dwell;
That I may find him, and, with secret gaze

Or open admiration, him behold,

On whom the great Creator hath bestow'd

Worlds, and on whom hath all these graces pour'd:
That both in him and all things, as is meet,

The universal Maker we may praise ;

g Uriel.

His name is derived from two Hebrew words, which signify God is my light. He is mentioned as a good angel in the second book of Esdras; and the Jews, and some Christians, conceive him to be an angel of light according to his name, and therefore he has, properly, his station in the sun.-NEWTON.

should

Who justly hath driven out his rebel foes
To deepest hell; and, to repair that loss,
Created this new happy race of men

To serve him better: wise are all his ways.
So spake the false dissembler unperceived;
For neither man nor angel can discern
Hypocrisy, the only evil that walks
Invisible, except to God alone,

By his permissive will, through heaven and earth:
And oft, though wisdom wake', suspicion sleeps

At wisdom's gate, and to simplicity

Resigns her charge, while goodness thinks no ill
Where no ill seems; which now for once beguiled
Uriel, though regent of the sun, and held
The sharpest-sighted spirit of all in heaven:
Who to the fraudulent impostor foul,
In his uprightness, answer thus return'd :--
Fair angel, thy desire, which tends to know
The works of God, thereby to glorify
The great Work-master, leads to no excess
That reaches blame, but rather merits praise
The more it seems excess, that led thee hither
From thy empyreal mansion thus alone,
To witness with thine eyes what some perhaps,
Contented with report, hear only in heaven :
For wonderful indeed are all his works,
Pleasant to know, and worthiest to be all
Had in remembrance always with delight:
But what created mind can comprehend
Their number; or the wisdom infinite

That brought them forth, but hid their causes deep?

h Hypocrisy.

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What is said here of hypocrisy is censured as a digression; but it seems no more than is absolutely necessary; for otherwise it might be thought very strange, that the evil spirit pass undiscovered by the archangel Uriel, the regent of the sun, and the sharpestsighted spirit in heaven; and therefore the poet endeavours to account for it by saying, that hypocrisy cannot be discerned by man or angel; it is invisible to all but God, &c. yet the evil spirit did not pass wholly undiscovered; for, though Uriel was not aware of him now, yet he found reason to suspect him afterwards from his furious gestures on the

mount.-NEWTON.

But

The poet's recollection of his having been deluded by the matchless hypocrisy of Cromwell, might have inspired him with this admirable apology for Uriel.—HAYLEY.

And oft, though wisdom wake.

He must be very critically splenetic indeed who will not pardon this little digressional observation. There is not in my opinion a nobler sentiment, or one more poetically expressed, in the whole poem. What great art has the poet shown in taking off the dryness of a mere moral sentence, by throwing it into the form of a short and beautiful allegory!THYER

Pleasant to know.

This is one of those places where a negligence in metre is not only excusable, in taking away monotony, but carries with it a dignity which no smoothness of verse could give it, the words being in almost the same order as in Scripture.—Stillingfleet.

I saw, when at his word the formless mass,
This world's material mould, came to a heap;
Confusion heard his voice, and wild uproar
Stood ruled; stood vast infinitude confined;
Till at his second bidding darkness fled,
Light shone, and order from disorder sprung.
Swift to their several quarters hasted then
The cumbrous elements, earth, flood, air, fire;
And this ethereal quintessence of heaven
Flew upward, spirited with various forms,
That roll'd orbicular, and turn'd to stars
Numberless, as thou seest, and how they move ;
Each had his place appointed, each his course;
The rest in circuit walls this universe.
Look downward on that globe, whose hither side
With light from hence, though but reflected, shines ;
That place is earth, the seat of man; that light
His day, which else, as the other hemisphere,

Night would invade; but there the neighbouring moon,
So call that opposite fair star, her aid,
Timely interposes; and her monthly round

Still ending, still renewing, through mid heaven,

With borrow'd light her countenance triform
Hence fills and empties to enlighten the earth;
And in her pale dominion checks the night.
That spot to which I point is Paradise,
Adam's abode; those lofty shades his bower:
Thy way thou canst not miss, me mine requires.

Thus said, he turn'd; and Satan, bowing low,
As to superior spirits is wont in heaven,
Where honour due and reverence none neglects,

Took leave; and toward the coast of earth beneath,
Down from the ecliptic, sped with hoped success,
Throws his steep flight in many an aery wheel,
Nor stay'd, till on Niphates' top' he lights.

kAnd this ethereal quintessence.

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The four elements hasted to their quarters, but this fifth essence flew upward.-NEWTON.

1 On Niphates' top.

The poet lands Satan on this mountain, says Hume, because it borders on Mesopotamia, in which the most judicious describers of Paradise place it.-DUNSTER.

Satan after having long wandered upon the surface, or utmost wall of the universe, discovers at last a wide gap in it, which led into the creation, and is described as the opening through which the angels pass to and fro into the lower world, upon their errands to mankind. His sitting upon the brink of this passage, and taking a survey of the whole face of nature that appeared to him new and fresh in all its beauties, with the simile illustrating this circumstance, fills the mind of the reader with as surprising and glorious an idea as any that arises in the whole poem. He looks down into that vast hollow of the universe with the eye, or as Milton calls it in his first book, with the ken of an angel. He surveys all the wonders in this immense amphitheatre that lies between both the poles of heaven, and takes in at one view the whole round of the creation.

His flight between the several worlds that shined on every side of him, and the particular

description of the sun, are set forth in all the wantonness of a luxuriant imagination. His shape, speech, and behaviour, upon his transforming himself into an angel of light, are touched with exquisite beauty. The poet's thought of directing Satan to the sun, which in the vulgar opinion of mankind is the most conspicuous part of the creation; the placing in it an angel; is a circumstance very finely contrived, and the more adjusted to a poetical probability, as it was a received doctrine among the most famous philosophers, that every orb had its intelligence; and as an apostle in sacred writ is said to have seen such an angel in the sun. In the answer which this angel returns to the disguised evil spirit, there is such a becoming majesty as is altogether suitable to a superior being. The part of it in which he represents himself as present at the creation, is very noble in itself; and not only proper where it is introduced, but requisite to prepare the reader for what follows in the seventh

book:

I saw, when at his word the formless mass,
This world's material mould, came to a heap:
Confusion heard his voice, and wild uproar
Stood ruled; stood vast infinitude confined;
Till, at his second bidding, Darkness fled,
Light shone, and order from disorder sprung.

In the following part of the speech he points out the earth with such circumstances, that the reader can scarce forbear fancying himself employed on the same distant view of it.

ADDISON.