BOOK XII.*

INTRODUCTORY REMARKS.

THE present twelfth book being only one half of the original and then concluding tenth, the revelations of the archangel Michael were to be continued from the flood, at which the eleventh book closes and indeed it was a fortunate circumstance, that Milton, previously to the division, had changed the medium of impression from vision to narration; because it bestows a feature of novelty and distinction upon his concluding book.

It is therefore with some surprise that we meet with any objection to this arrangement of the poet, and the wish that he had imparted all his disclosures in the way of picture and vision, in which they commenced but Mr. Dunster goes at once to the "heart of the mystery," and inquires Whether all the coming subjects were equally suited to the specular mount? The plagues of Egypt, as he observes, so represented, must have been tedious. How was the delivery of the law to have been represented, under all its sublime circumstances, in vision? How could the great miracle (related with concise sublimity) of the heavenly bodies standing still at the command of Joshua, be exhibited in vision? Could the nativity, the life and death of our blessed Lord, or his resurrection (each related in a few lines of exquisite beauty) have been so clearly or adequately displayed in picture? or could his ascension, and resumption of his heavenly seat, and his coming again to judge the world, have been adequately exhibited at all?

The pictures even of the eleventh book were of necessity accompanied by some verbal explanations. In the remainder of the history, as Mr. Dunster remarks, "the accruing materials come too thick to be represented in visions: the task would have been laborious to the artist, who would have fatigued and disgusted those whom he wished to inform and delight." Here, therefore, the poet judiciously reversed his plan,

But there is another topic of remark which the concluding book of Milton's divine poem suggests; it is his comparative affluence of invention. The sentence upon Adam might have been attended by immediate expulsion: but how gracious is the divine condescension, to allow some interval of reflection; and, previously to ejectment, to fortify the minds of the repentant pair with anticipated knowledge and distant consolation! Thus the interest of the poem is kept alive with the reader to the last line. The whole of the twelfth book closely relates to Adam and his posterity; and so delightfully are these soothing hopes of happiness administered by the archangel, that we, equally with Adam, forget that we are to quit Paradise; and are, like him, heart-struck by the sudden warning, that "the hour is come, the very minute of it ;" and attend the " hastening angel; to the gates of exclusion, with all the sad and lingering acquiescence of our first parents."

*The first edition was in ten books. In the second edition, the seventh and the tenth books, being greatly beyond the rest in the number of the verses, were divided each into two; so that the seventh became the eighth also; the eighth of the first edition then stood ninth; the ninth, tenth; and the tenth of the first edition became of course, when divided, the present eleventh and twelfth.

ARGUMENT.

THE angel Michael continues, from the Flood, to relate what shall succeed; then, in the mention of Abraham, comes by degrees to explain who that seed of the woman shall be which was promised Adam and Eve in the Fall; his incarnation, death, resurrection, and ascension; the state of the church till his second coming. Adam, greatly satisfied and recomforted by these relations and promises, descends the hill with Michael; wakens Eve, who all this while had slept, but with gentle dreams composed to quietness of mind and submission. Michael in either hand leads them out of Paradise; the fiery sword waving behind them, and the cherubim taking their stations to guard the place.

As one who on his journey bates at noon,

Though bent on speed; so here the archangel paused
Betwixt the world destroy'd and world restored,
If Adam aught perhaps might interpose;
Then, with transition sweet, new speech resumes:
Thus thou hast seen one world begin, and end;
And man, as from a second stock, proceed.
Much thou hast yet to see; but I perceive
Thy mortal sight to fail; objects divine
Must needs impair and weary human sense:
Henceforth what is to come I will relate;
Thou therefore give due audience, and attend.
This second source of men, while yet but few,
And while the dread of judgment past remains
Fresh in their minds, fearing the Deity,
With some regard a to what is just and right
Shall lead their lives, and multiply apace;
Labouring the soil, and reaping plenteous crop,
Corn, wine, and oil; and, from the herd or flock,
Oft sacrificing bullock, lamb, or kid,

b

With large wine-offerings pour'd, and sacred feast,
Shall spend their days in joy unblamed; and dwell
Long time in peace, by families and tribes,
Under paternal rule: till one shall rise
Of proud ambitious heart; who not content

With fair equality, fraternal state,

Will arrogate dominion undeserved

Over his brethren, and quite dispossess

a With some regard.

This answers to the silver age of the poets: the paradisiacal state is the golden one: of iron begins soon, v. 24.-RICHARDSON.

It is generally agreed that the first governments in the world were patriarchal, "by families and tribes;" and that Nimrod was the first who laid the foundation of kingly government among mankind. Milton, therefore, (who was no friend to kingly government at the best,) represents him in a very bad light, as a most wicked and insolent tyrant; but he has great authorities, both Jewish and Christian, to justify him for so doing.NEWTON.

Concord and law of nature from the earth;

Hunting, (and men not beasts shall be his game,)
With war, and hostile snare, such as refuse
Subjection to his empire tyrannous :

A mighty hunter thence he shall be styled
Before the Lord; as in despite of Heaven,
Or from Heaven, claiming second sovranty;
And from rebellion shall derive his name,
Though of rebellion others he accuse.
He with a crew, whom like ambition joins
With him or under him to tyrannise,
Marching from Eden towards the west, shall find
The plain, wherein a black bituminous gurge
Boils out from under ground, the mouth of hell :
Of brick, and of that stuff, they cast to build

A city and tower, whose top may reach to heaven,
And get themselves a name; lest, far dispersed
In foreign lands, their memory be lost;
Regardless whether good or evil fame.
But God, who oft descends to visit men
Unseen, and through their habitations walks
To mark their doings, them beholding soon,
Comes down to see their city', ere the tower
Obstruct heaven-towers; and in derision sets
Upon their tongues a various spirit, to rase
Quite out their native language; and, instead,
To sow a jangling noise of words unknown:
Forthwith a hideous gabble rises loud,
Among the builders; each to other calls,
Not understood; till hoarse, and all in rage,

As mock'd they storm: great laughter was in heaven,
And looking down, to see the hubbub strange,
And hear the din: thus was the building left
Ridiculous, and the work Confusion nameds.
Whereto thus Adam, fatherly displeased:
O execrable son! so to aspire

d Though of rebellion.

This was added by our author, probably not without a view to his own time; when himself and those of his own party were stigmatised as the worst of rebels.-NEWTON.

e Marching from Eden.

See Gen. xi. 2, &c. : "And it came to pass as they journeyed in the east, that they found a plain on the land of Shinar; and they had brick for stone, and slime had they for mortar. And they said, Go to, let us build us a city and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven; and let us make us a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth."-NEWTON.

See their city.

See Gen. xi. 5, &c. The Scripture speaks after the manner of men: so the heathen gods are often represented as coming down to observe human actions, as in the stories of Lycaon, Baucis and Philemon, &c.

& Confusion named. Babel in Hebrew signifies confusion-NEWTON.

1

Above his brethren; to himself assuming
Authority usurp'd, from God not given :
He gave us only over beast, fish, fowl,
Dominion absolute; that right we hold
By his dominion; but man over men
He made not lord; such title to himself
Reserving, human left from human free".
But this usurper his encroachment proud
Stays not on man; to God his tower intends
Siege and defiance: wretched man! what food
Will he convey up thither, to sustain
Himself and his rash army; where thin air
Above the clouds will pine his entrails gross,
And famish him of breath, if not of bread?

To whom thus Michael: Justly thou abhorr'st
That son, who on the quiet state of men
Such trouble brought, affecting to subdue
Rational liberty; yet know withal,
Since thy original lapse, true liberty

i

Is lost, which always with right reason dwells
Twinn'd, and from her hath no dividual being :
Reason in man obscured, or not obey'd,

Immediately inordinate desires

And upstart passions catch the government
From reason; and to servitude reduce

Man, till then free. Therefore, since he permits
Within himself unworthy powers to reign
Over free reason, God, in judgment just,
Subjects him from without to violent lords;
Who oft as undeservedly enthral

His outward freedom: tyranny must be;
Though to the tyrant thereby no excuse.
Yet sometimes nations will decline so low
From virtue, which is reason, that no wrong,
But justice, and some fatal curse annex'd,
Deprives them of their outward liberty;

Their inward lost: witness the irreverent son
Of him who built the ark; who for the shame
Done to his father, heard this heavy curse,
Servant of servants, on his vicious race.
Thus will this latter, as the former world,
Still tend from bad to worse; till God at last,
Wearied with their iniquities, withdraw

h From human free.

Left mankind in full and free possession of their liberty.-HUME.

i True liberty.

So Milton in his sonnet :

liberty;

For who loves that must first be wise and good.

His presence from among them, and avert
His holy eyes; resolving from thenceforth
To leave them to their own polluted ways;
And one peculiar nation to select

From all the rest, of whom to be invoked,
A nation from one faithful man to spring :
Him on this side Euphrates yet residing,
Bred up in idol-worship': O, that men

(Canst thou believe?) should be so stupid grown,
While yet the patriarch lived who 'scaped the flood,
As to forsake the living God, and fall

To worship their own work in wood and stone

For gods! Yet him God the Most High vouchsafes
To call by vision, from his father's house,

His kindred, and false gods, into a land

Which he will show him; and from him will raise
A mighty nation, and upon him shower

His benediction so, that in his seed

All nations shall be blest: he straight obeys';
Not knowing to what land, yet firm believes :

I see him ", but thou canst not, with what faith
He leaves his gods, his friends, and native soil,
Ur of Chaldæa", passing now the ford

To Haran; after him a cumbrous train°

Bred up in idol worship.

We read in Josh. xxiv. 2: "Your fathers dwelt on the other side of the flood in old time, even Terah the father of Abraham, and the father of Nachor: and they served other gods. Now as Terah, Abraham's father, was an idolater, I think we may be cer tain that Abraham was bred up in the religion of his father, though he renounced it afterwards, and in all probability converted his father likewise; for Terah removed with Abraham to Haran, and there died. See Gen. xi. 31, 32.-NEWTON.

k While yet the patriarch lived.

It appears from the computations given by Moses, Gen. xi. that Terah, the father of Abraham, was born two hundred and twenty-two years after the flood, but Noah lived after the flood three hundred and fifty years, Gen. ix. 28; and we have proved from Joshua, that Terah, and the ancestors of Abraham, "served other gods ;" and from the Jewish traditions we learn farther, that Terah, and Nachor his father, and Serug his grandfather, were statuaries and carvers of idols and therefore idolatry was set up in the world, while yet the patriarch lived who 'scaped the flood.-NEWTON.

See Heb. xi. 8.

1 He straight obeys.

m I see him.

Milton, sensible that this long historical description might grow irksome, has varied the manner of representing it as much as possible; beginning first with supposing Adam to have a prospect of it before his eyes; next, by making the angel the relater of it; and, lastly, by uniting the two former methods, and making Michael see it as in vision, and give a rapturous enlivened account of it to Adam. This gives great case to the languishing

attention of the reader.-THYER.

n Ur of Chaldæa.

See Gen. xi. 31. Chaldæn, a province of Asia, lying cast of the Euphrates, and west of the Tigris: Ur, a city of Chaldæa, the country of Abraham and Terah.-NEWTON.

• A cumbrous train.

The poet here has an opportunity of introducing the picturesque description of Abraham,