Thou therefore on these herbs, and fruits, and flowers His thoughts, his looks, words, actions all infect, This faid, they both betook them feveral ways, 610 Both to destroy, or unimmortal make All kinds, and for deftruction to mature was not tight-brac'd, and did not ook fleek and smooth, as when Features are fwoln and full; but ung loofe about him, and was apable of containing a great deal without being diftended. 616. See with what heat thefe dogs of bell advance &c.] Upon the rrival of Sin and Death into the works of the creation, the Almighty again introduced as fpeaking to is Angels that furrounded him. Addifon. We may be certain I think that Milton had his eye upon this pafage in Sophocles, Electra. 1385. Ιδεε οπι προνέμεται 615 Το Sung Halleluiah, as the found of feas, Through multitude that fung: Just are thy ways, Righteous are thy decrees on all thy works; Who can extenuate thee? Next, to the Son, 645 Deftin'd restorer of mankind, by whom New Heav'n and Earth fhall to the ages rife, and to him the audience loud &c; without this (fays he; it is not faid to whom they fung; and the words Next, to the Son, ver. 645. fhow that they fung before to him, to the Father. But this objection is founded upon the Doctor's not obferving the force of the word Halleluiah, where Jah fignifies to God, the Father; and therefore there was no need of to him. See VII. 634. Pearce. 642. -as the found of Seas, Through multitude that fung:] This paffage is formed upon that glorious image in holy Writ, which compares the voice of an innumerable host of Angels, uttering Halleluiahs, to the voice of mighty thunderings or of many waters. Addifon. 643. Juft are thy ways, Righteous are thy decrees] The fame fong that they are reprefented finging in the Revelation. Juft and true are thy ways, thou King of Saints, Rev. XV. 3. True and righteous are thy judgments, Rev. XVI. 7. As in the foregoing paffage he alluded to Rev. XIX. 6 And I heard as it were the voice of a great multitude, and as the voice of many waters, saying, Halleluiah. While 647. New Heav'n and Earth bal to the ages rife, Or down from Heav'n defcend Heaven and Earth is the Jewi phrafe to exprefs our world; and the new Heav'n and Earth mat certainly be the fame with that mestion'd juft before, Then Heav'n and Earth renew'd fhall be made pure To fanctity that shall receive no ftain : And they fball to the ages rife, to the Millennium, to the aurea fecula, a they are call'd, or to ages of endless date, as he elsewhere expreffes it, XII. 549. New Heav'ns, new Earth, age of endless date, Founded in righteousness,and peace, and love. Shall rife, for fometimes he fpeaka of them as rais'd from the conf grant mafs, XII. 547. And pringing from the afbes, III. 334. Or d from Heav'n defcend, for St. John defcribes the holy city, the new Jerufalem Rev. XXI. 2. as coming down from God out of Heaven. 650.-gave them feveral charge,] Under this head of celestial perions While the Creator calling forth by name His mighty Angels gave them feveral charge, 650 e must likewise take notice of the ommand which the Angels receiv'd, produce the feveral changes in ature, and fully the beauty of the reation. Accordingly they are reprefented as infecting the itars and planets with malignant influences, weakning the light of the fun, bringng down the winter into the milder regions of nature, planting winds and storms in feveral quarters of the ky, ftoring the clouds with thunder, and in fhort perverting the whole frame of the univerfe to the condition of its criminal inhabitants. As this is a noble incident in the poem, The following lines, in which we fee he Angels heaving up the earth, and placing it in a different pofture to the fun from what it had before the fall of Man, is conceiv'd with that fublime imagination which was so peculiar to this great author. 655 Solstitial With which his feeble steps he ftayed ftill: For he was faint with cold, and weak with eld, That scarce his loofed limbs he able was to weld. Thyer. The expreffion of decrepit winter occurs in Beaumont and Fletcher. A Wife for a Month. Act IV. Decrepit winter hang upon my fhoulders. 655. from the fouth to bring Solftitial fummer's beat.] Have a care (fays Dr. Bentley) of going too far fouth to bring fummer's beat, the regions near the fouthern pole being as cold as thofe near the northern he therefore reads from the torrid zone Solftitial fummer's heat. But the word Solftitial feem fufficiently to determin, from how far fouth Milton meant that this fumSome fay he bid his Angels turn mer's heat was brought, viz. fo far afcanfe &c. Addifon. from the fouth as the fun is, when 655. Decrepit winter,] Alluding he is in the fummer's folftice, or about perhaps to Spenfer's defcription of 23 degrees and a half fouthward. winter under the figure of a decrepit old man, Fairy Queen, B. 7. Cant. 7. St. 31. In his right hand a tipped ftaff he held, Pearce. The ancient poets represent the fouth as the region of heat. Statius. Thebaid. I. 160. $ 2 aut Solftitial fummer's heat. To the blanc moon Her office they prefcrib'd, to th' other five Lucan I. 54. very extravagantly, 656. To the blanc moon &c.] Of the French blanc, white, as Virgil calls her candida luna, Æn. VII. 8. and the Italian poets frequently bianca luna. And what is faid here of the moon, and of the ftars, Which of them rifing with the fun, or falling, Should prove tempestuous, was written probably not without an eye to Virgil Georg. I. 335. Hoc metuens cœli menfes et fidera ferva, Frigida Saturni sese quo ftella ceptet, re Quos ignis cœli Cyllenius erret in orbes. Ipfe pater ftatuit quid menftrua luna moneret, Quo figno caderent auftri. 660 When fouthern blafts fhould ceaf. Dryden 659. In fextile, fquare, and trin and oppofit] If a planet, it one part of the zodiac, be difant from another by a fixth part twelve, that is by two figns, ther afpect is called fextile; if by a fourth, Square; by a third, trine; and if by one half, oppofit, which laft is faid to be of noxious efficacy, because the planets fo opposed are thought to ftrive, debilitate, and overcome one another; deemed of evil confequence to those born under or fubject to the influence of the diftreffed ftar. Ha If an unneceffary oftentation of lear ing be, as Mr. Addison obferves, ose of our author's faults, it certainly he not only introduces, but counte must be an aggravation of it, where nances fuch enthufiaftic unphilofo phical notions as this jargon of the aftrologers is made up of. T. 664. To the winds they fet Thus the first editions, and I think all others before Dr. Bentley's pear'd Which of them rifing with the fun, or falling, Should prove tempeftuous: To the winds they fet The poles of earth twice ten degrees and more With terror through the wide aereal hall. Let us hear his reafons for altering the text. The winds (fays he) as diftinguish'd from one another, had their corners and quarters fet before the fall: but this affertion is directly contrary to what Milton tells us in ver. 695, &c. He asks what is meant by their corners, when with blufter to confound? But the fentence is to be thus fupply'd, fet their corners, and taught them when with blufter &c: and the fame ellipfis we have in ver. 660. Or if this fhould not be approv'd of, I had much rather read (as the Doctor proposes) fet their corners, whence with blufter to confound-the thunder whence to roll. It may be wonder'd at, how the Doctor came in the next verfe to change the thunder when to roll, into, To thunder, when to roll; fince roll is plainly an active verb here, and thunder is From the accufative cafe after it. As little reafon has he to change dark in the laft verfe into wide; for fince he allows that the areal hall or sky is darken'd by the clouds that attend and caufe thunder, the sky may as well be faid in poetry to be then dark, as darken'd. Pearce. 668. Some fay he bid his Angels &c.] It was eternal spring (IV. 268.) before the fall; and he is now accounting for the change of seasons after the fall, and mentions the two famous hypothefes. Some fay it was occafion'd by altering the pofition of the earth, by turning the poles of the earth above 20 degrees afide from the fun's orb, he bid his Angels turn afcanfe the poles of earth twice ten degrees and more from the fun's axle; and the poles of the earth are about 23 degrees and a half diftant from thofe of the ecliptic; they with labor pufb'd oblique the centric globe, it was erect before, but is oblique now; the obliquity of a sphere is the proper aftronomical term, when the pole is raised any number of degrees less than 90; the centric_globe fix'd on its center and therefore moved with labor and difficulty, or rather S 3 centric |
