And level pavement: from the arched roof,
Pendent by subtle magic, many a row
Of starry lamps and blazing cressets, fed
With naphtha and asphaltus, yielded light
As from a sky. The hasty multitude
Admiring enter'd, and the work some praise,
And some the architect: his hand was known
In heaven by many a tower'd structure high,
Where sceptred angels held their residence,
And sat as princes; whom the supreme King
Exalted to such power, and gave to rule,
Each in his hierarchy, the orders bright.
Nor was his name unheard or unadored
In ancient Greece; and in Ausonian land

Men called him Mulciber; and how he fell

X

From heaven they fabled, thrown by angry Jove
Sheer o'er the crystal battlements: from morn

To noon he fell, from noon to dewy eve,

A summer's day; and with the setting sun
Dropp'd from the zenith like a falling star,
On Lemnos, the gean isle; thus they relate,
Erring; for he with this rebellious rout

Fell long before; nor aught avail'd him now

To have built in heaven high towers; nor did he 'scape

By all his engines; but was headlong sent

730

735

710

745

750

With his industrious crew to build in hell.

Meanwhile the winged haralds, by command

Of sovran power, with awful ceremony

And trumpet's sound, throughout the host proclaim
A solemn council forthwith to be held

At Pandæmonium, the high capital

Of Satan and his peers: their summons call'd

755

From every band and squared regiment
By place or choice the worthiest; they anon
With hundreds and with thousands trooping came
Attended: all access was throng'd; the gates
And porches wide, but chief the spacious hall,
(Though like a cover'd field, where champions bold
Wont ride in arm'd, and at the soldan's chair
Defied the best of Panim chivalry

To mortal combat, or career with lance )

From heaven, &c.

And how he fell

760

765

Alluding to Homer, Il. i. 590, &c. It is worth observing how Milton lengthens out the time of Vulcan's fall. He not only says with Homer, that it was all day long; but we are led through the parts of the day, from morn to noon, from noon to evening, and this a summer's day. See also Odyss. vii. 288.-NEWTON.

To mortal combat, or career with lance.

Milton has carefully distinguished the two different methods of combat in the champ

elor-CALLANDER.

Thick swarm'd, both on the ground and in the air,
Brush'd with the hiss of rusling wings. As bees 2
In spring time, when the sun with Taurus rides,
Pour forth their populous youth about the hive
In clusters: they among fresh dews and flowers a
Fly to and fro, or on the smoothed plank,
The suburb of their straw-built citadel,
New rubb'd with balm, expatiate and confer
Their state affairs: so thick the aery crowd
Swarm'd and were straiten'd; till, the signal given,
Behold a wonder! they, but now who seem'd
In bigness to surpass earth's giant sons,
Now less than smallest dwarfs b, in narrow room
Throng numberless, like that Pygmëan race
Beyond the Indian mount; or faery elves,
Whose midnight revels, by a forest side,
Or fountain, some belated peasant sees,

Or dreams he sees, while over-head the moon
Sits arbitress, and nearer to the earth'

z As bees.

770

775

780

785

An imitation of Homer, who compares the Grecians crowding to a swarm of bees, Il. ii. 87. There are such similes also in Virg. Æn. i. 430, vi. 707. But Milton carries the similitude farther than either of his great masters; and mentions the bees "conferring their state affairs," as he is going to give an account of the consultations of the devils. -NEWTON.

If we look into the conduct of Homer, Virgil, and Milton; as the great fable is the soul of each poem, so, to give their works an agreeable variety, their episodes are as so many short fables, and their similes so many short episodes; to which you may add, if you please, that their metaphors are so many short similes. If the reader considers the comparisons in the first book of Milton,-of the sun in an eclipse,-of the sleeping leviathan, -of the bees swarming about their hive,—of the fairy dance,-in the view wherein I have here placed them, he will easily discover the great beauties that are in each of those passages.-ADDISON.

They among fresh dews and flowers.

It is not necessary to enlarge upon the poetry of this beautiful passage.

b Now less than smallest dwarfs.

As soon as the infernal palace is finished, we are told, the multitude and rabble of spirits immediately shrunk themselves into a small compass, that there might be room for such a numberless assembly in this capacious hall: but it is the poet's refinement upon this thought which I most admire, and which is indeed very noble in itself; for he tells us, that notwithstanding the vulgar, among the fallen spirits, contracted their forms, those of the first rank and dignity still preserved their natural dimensions.-ADDISON.

e Whose midnight revels.

Olaus Magnus, treating of the night-dances of the fairies and ghosts, relates that travellers in the night, and such as watch the flocks and herds, are wont to be compassed about with many strange apparitions of this kind See b. 111. ch. x. Engl ed. fol. 1658.-TODD.

Or dreams he sees.

d Sees,

From Apollonius Rhodius, one of his favourite authors, Argonaut. iv. 1479.—TODD.

e Sits arbitress.

Witness, spectatress. So Horace, Epod. v. 49 :—

O, rebus meis

Non infideles arbitræ

Nox et Diana.-HEYLIN.

Wheels her pale course: they, on their mirth and dance
Intent, with jocund music charm his ear :

At once with joy and fear his heart rebounds.
Thus incorporeal spirits to smallest forms

Reduced their shapes immense, and were at large,
Though without number still, amidst the hall
Of that infernal court. But far within,
And in their own dimensions, like themselves,
The great scraphic lords and cherubim
In close recess and secret conclave sat ";
A thousand demi-gods on golden seats,
Frequent and full. After short silence then,

And summons read, the great consult began.

Nearer to the earth.

790

795

This is said in allusion to the superstitious notion of witches and faeries having great power over the moon. Virg. Eclog. viii. 69 :—

Carmina vel cœlo possunt deducere lunam.-NEWTON.

Intent.

They, on their mirth and dance

One of those picturesque pastoral pasages, with which Milton's early poetry so abounds.

h Secret conclave sat.

An evident allusion to the conclaves of the cardinals on the death of a pope.

BOOK II.

INTRODUCTORY REMARKS.

IN tracing the progress of this poem by deliberate and minute steps, our wonder and admiration increase. The inexhaustible invention continues to grow upon us; each page, each line, is pregnant with something new, picturesque, and great the condensity of the matter is without any parallel: the imagination often contained in a single passage is more than equal to all that secondary poets have produced: the fable of the voyage through Chaos is alone a sublime poem. Milton's descriptions of materiality have always touches of the spiritual, the lofty, and the empyreal.

Milton has too much condensation to be fluent: a line or two often conveys a world of images and ideas: he expatiates over all time, all space, all possibilities: he unites earth with heaven, with hell, with all intermediate existences, animate and inanimate ; and his illustrations are drawn from all learning, historical, natural, and speculative. In him, almost always, "more is meant than meets the ear.' An image, an epithet, conveys a rich picture.

What is the subject of observation may be told without genius; but the wonder and the greatness lie in invention, if the invention be noble, and according to the principles of possibility.

Who could have conceived,-or, if conceived, who could have expressed,-the voyage of Satan through Chaos, but Milton? Who could have invented so many distinct and grand obstacles in his way? and all picturesque, all poetical, and all the topies of intellectual meditation and reflection, or of spiritual sentiment ?

All the faculties of the mind are exercised, stretched, and elevated at once by . every page of "Paradise Lost."

Invention is the first and most indispensable essential of true poetry; but not the only one the invention must have certain high, moral, sound, wise qualities; and, in addition to these, such as are picturesque or spiritual. It is easy to invent what is improbable or unnatural. Nothing will do which cannot command our belief.

Inventions either of character, imagery, or sentiment, taken separately in small fragments, may still have force and merit: but when they form an integral and appropriate part of a long whole, how infinitely their power, depth, and bearings, are increased!

In poetry, we must consider both the original conceptions and the illustrations: each derives interest and strength from the other: a mere copy of an image drawn from nature may have some beauty; but the invention and the essential poetry lie in their complex use, when applied as an embodiment to something intellectual. Imagery is almost always so used by Milton; and so it was used by Homer and Virgil. This gives a new light to the mind of the reader, and creates combinations which perhaps did not before exist: the poet thus spiritualises matter, and materialises spirit. When what is presented is merely such scenery of nature as the painter can give by lines and colours, it falls far short of the poet's power and charm. Poetry, purely descriptive, is not of the first order.

There are lines in the "Paradise Lost," which would seem to be mere abstract opinions; but they are not so: inset as they are into the course of a sublime, dense-wove narrative, they derive colour and character from the position which they occupy. So placed, their plainness is their strength and their spell ornamented language would have weakened them. Of all styles, the uniformly florid is the most fatiguing.

That Milton could bring so much learning, as well as so much imaginative invention, to bear on every part of his infinitely-extended, yet thick-compacted fable, is truly miraculous. Were the learning superficial and loosely applied, the wonder

I would not be great, or not nearly so great; but it is always profound, solid, conscientious; and in its combinations original.

Bishop Atterbury has said, in opposition to the general opinion, that the allegory of Sin and Death is one of the finest inventions of the poem. I agree with him most sincerely. The portress of the gates of hell sits there in a character, and with a tremendous figure and attributes, which no imagination less gigantic than Milton's could have drawn. Is it to be objected that Sin and Death are imaginary persons, when all the persons of the poem, except Adam and Eve, are imaginary in the strict sense, do not make the most essential parts of poetry.

Realities,

ARGUMENT.

THE Consultation begun, Satan debates whether another battle be to be hazarded for the recovery of heaven: some advise it, others dissuade. A third proposal is preferred, mentioned before by Satan, to search the truth of that prophecy or tradition in heaven concerning another world, and another kind of creature, equal, or not much inferiour, to themselves, about this time to be created: their doubt who shall be sent on this difficult search: Satan their chief undertakes alone the voyage, is honoured and applauded. The council thus ended, the rest betake them several ways, and to several employments, as their inclinations lead them, to entertain the time till Satan return. He passes on his journey to hell gates; finds them shut, and who sat there to guard them; by whom at length they are opened, and discover to him the great gulf between hell and heaven: with what difficulty he passes through, directed by Chaos, the Power of that place, to the sight of this new world which he sought.

HIGH on a throne of royal state, which far
Outshone the wealth of Ormus and of Ind,
Or where the gorgeous east with richest hand
Showers on her kings Barbaric pearl and gold,
Satan exalted sat, by merit raised

To that bad eminence: and, from despair
Thus high uplifted beyond hope, aspires
Beyond thus high; insatiate to pursue

Vain war with heaven, and, by success untaught,
His proud imaginations thus display'd

Powers and Dominions, Deities of heaven,

For since no deep within her gulf can hold

The wealth of the East, and pomp of Persian kings.-NEWTON.

e Showers on her kings Barbaric pearl and gold,

5

10

It was the eastern ceremony, at the coronation of their kings, to powder them with gold-dust and seed-pearl. In the "Life of Timur-bec, or Tamerlane," written by a Persian contemporary author, are the following words, as translated by Mons. Petit de la Croix, in the account there given of his coronation, b. 11. e. i. :—“ Les princes du sangroyal et les émirs répandirent à pleines mains," with liberal hand, "sur sa tête quantité d'or et de pierreries selon la coutume."-WARBURTON.

See Virgil, Æn. ii. 504 :—

Barbarico postes auro spoliisque superbi.