He circled, four times cross’d the car of night 65 70 In With darkness, &c.] It was about each other at right angles in the soon that Satan came to the earth, poles of the world, and incompasand having been discover'd by Uriel, fing the earth from north to south, he was driven out of Paradise the and from south to north again : and fame night, as we read in book the therefore as Satan was moving from fourth. From that time he was a pole to pole, at the same time the whole week in continual darkness car of night was moving from east for fear of another discovery. Thrice to welt, if he would keep fill in the equino&ial line he circled; he tra- the shade of night as he desir’d, he veld on with the night three times could not move in a strait line, but round the equator; he was three must move obliquely, and thereby days moving round from east to west cross the two colures. We have exas the sun does, but always on the press'd ourselves as plainly as we opposit side of the globe in dark can for the sake of those readers, ness. Four times cross'd the car of who are not acquainted with these night from pole to pole; did not move astronomical terms; and the fact in directly on with the night as before, short is that Satan was three days but crossed over from the northern to compassing the earth from east to the southern, and from the southern west , and four days from north to to the northern pole. Traversing each south, but ftill kept always in the colure. As the equinoctial line or shade of night, and after a whole equator is a great circle incompassing week's peregrination in this manner the earth from east to west and from on the eighth night return'd by weft to east again ; so the colures stealth into Paradise. are two great circles, intersecting 75. - in In with the river sunk, and with it rose 75 80 At Darien, thence to the land where flows Ganges and Indus: thus the orb he roam'd With narrow search, and with inspection deep Consider'd every creature, which of all Most opportune might serve his wiles, and found 85 The serpent subtlest beast of all the field, Him 75: involv'd in rising mist,] north is called up and the south Hom. Iliad. I. 359 downward; ant ar åtic south che conave du rapor ons er , nüt'olixanto the bear, the most conipicuous con trary to arctic north from 10x10 77. From Eden over Pontus, &c.] stellation near the north pole; but As we had before an astronomical, no particular place is mention'd near fo here we have a geographical, ac- the south pole, there being all sea count of Satan's peregrinations. He or land unknown. And in length, frarch'd both sea and land, north- as north is up and south is down, ward from Eden over Pontus, Pontus so in length is eat or welt; well Euxinus, the Euxine Sea, now the from Orontes, a river of Syria, weitBlack Sea, above Constantinople, ward of Eden, running into the and the pool Mæotis, Palus Mæotis Mediterranean, to the ocean barr’d above the Black Sea, up beyond the at Darien, the isthmus of Darien ia river Ob, Ob or Oby a great river the West Indies, a neck of land that of Mulcovy near the northern pole. joins North and South America toDownward as far antarEtic, as far gether, and hinders the ocean as it southward; the northern nemisphere were with a bar from Aowing bebeing elevated on our globes, the tween them; and the metaphor of ter 3 in XL. 627. must weep. Now alienated, distance and distaste, OF as we read in the preceding book, That brought into this world (a and the whole foregoing episode is world of woe) a conversation with the Angel, and Sin and her shadow Death, as this takes up so large a part of the poem, this is particularly de but I fancy the other will be found fcribd and infifted more agreeable to Milton's file and here. The upon Lord God and the Angel Michael manner. We have a similar instance boch indeed afterwards discourse with Adam in the following books, but The world ere long a world of tears those discourses are not familiar conversation as with a friend, they are But in these instances Milton was of a different strain, the one coming corrupted by the bad taste of the to judge, and the other to expel him times, and by reading the Italian from Paradise. poets, who abound with such verbal quaintnesses. - I now must change 12. and Mifery Those notes to tragic;] As the au Deatb's harbinger :) Dr. Bentley thor is now changing his subject, he profeffes likewise to change his file reads Malady; because, as there is agreeably to it. The reader there Misery after death, so there is Mifery, fore must not expect such lofty images invoke it in vain. But by Misery which does not usher in death, but i and descriptions, as before. What here, Milton means fickness, disease, follows is more of the tragic strain than of the epic . Which may serve and all sorts of mortal pains. So as an answer to those critics, who when in XI. Michael is going to censure the latter books of the Pa. name the several diseases in the lazarradise Loft as falling below the house represented to Adam in a vi fion, he says ver. 475. former. that thou may'ft know 11. That brought into this world a world of woe,] The pun or What misery th’inabstinence of Eve Pearce, what shall I call it in this line may Shall bring on men. be avoided, as a great man observed 13. Sad task, yet argument] to me, by distinguishing thus, The Paradise Lost, even in this latter part pretty 20 Of stern Achilles on his foe pursu'd 15 Thrice fugitive about Troy wall; or rage Of Turnus for Lavinia disespous’d, Or Neptune’s ire or Juno's, that so long Perplex'd the Greek and Cytherea's Son; If answerable stile I can obtain Of my celestial patroness, who deigns Her nightly visitation unimplor'd, And part of it, concerning God's anger he boasts of her nightly visitation, ag and Adam's distress, is a more heroic he was not unaccustom'd to study subject than the wrath of Achilles on and compose his verses by night; as his foe, Hector whom he pursued he intimates himself at the beginning three times round the walls of Troy of book the third, according to Homer, or than the but chief rage of Turnus for Lavinia dise pous’d, Thee, Sion, and the flow'ry brooks having been first betroth’d to him, beneath, and afterwards promis'd to Æneas That wash thy hallow'd feet, and according to Virgil, or Neptune's ire warbling flow, that so long perplex'd the Greek, Ulysses as we read in the Odyssey, or Juni's Nightly I vifit. ire that for so many years perplex'd And it is probable that in both these Cytherea's son, Æneas as we read at passages he alludes to the beginning large in the Æneid. The anger that of Hefiod's Theogony, where he he is about to fing is an argument mentions likewise the Muses walking more heroic not only than the an- by night, ver. 10. ger of men, of Achilles and Turnus, Eyruxiue serxo", a sexanned or but than that even of the Gods, of Neptune and Juno. The anger of the true God is a more noble subject 23. or inspires than of the false Gods. In this re- Easy my unpremeditated verfe :) spect he has the advantage of Homer Here is the same kind of beauty that and Virgil, his argument is more we observed before in III. 37. The heroic as he says, if he can but make verse flows so easy, that it seems to his ftile answerable. have been made without premedi21. - my celestial patrones,] His tation. beav'nly Muse, his Urania, whom he 26. — long choosing, and beginning had invok'd 1. 6. VII. 1, 31. And late ;] Our author intended Of creatures animate with gradual life I15 But perfection in God, as if he had Find peace or refuge: but it may be mended his hand by creation, and understood thus, but I in none of these as if all the works of God were find place to dwell in or refuge from not perfect in their kinds, and in divine vengeance. And this sense their degrees, and for the ends for seems to be confirm'd by what fol. which they were intended. lows. 113. Of growth, sense, reason, all But neither here seek I, no nor in fumm'd up in Man] The Heaven three kinds of life rising as it were To dwell. by steps, the vegetable, animal, and all good to me becomes rational; of all which Man partakes, Bane,–] When the pause is made and he only; he groas as plants, upon the first syllable of the verse, minerals, and all things inanimatę; it is commonly upon a verb to mark be lives as all other animated crea, the action more strongly. I think tures, but is over and above indued it is always so in Homer. But Milton with reason. Richardson. makes the pause as well upon a 119. Find place or refuge;] Dr. substantive, as here, and in VI. 837. Bentley believes that the author gave such as in their souls infix'd it Find plare of refuge: Another learned gentleman proposes to read Plagues ; and 122 |
