From their Creator, and trangress his will
For one restraint, lords of the world besides?
Who first seduced them to that foul revolt?

Th' infernal Serpent: he it was whose guile,
Stirr'd with
up
and
envy revenge, deceived

The mother of mankind, what time his pride

Had cast him out from Heav'n, with all his host
Of rebel Angels; by whose aid aspiring

To set himself in glory 'bove his

peers,

He trusted to have equall'd the Most High,
If he opposed; and with ambitious aim
Against the throne and monarchy of God,
Raised impious war in Heav'n, and battle proud
With vain attempt. Him the Almighty Power
Hurl'd headlong flaming from th' ethereal sky,
With hideous ruin and combustion, down
To bottomless perdition; there to dwell
In adamantine chains and penal fire,

short, everything that is great in the whole circle of being, whether w.thin the range of nature or beyond it, finds a place in this admirable poem.-A. "The sublimest of all subjects (says Cowper) was reserved for Milton; and, bringing to the contemplation of that subject, not only a genius equal to the best of the ancients, but a heart also deeply impregnated with the divine truths which lay before him, it is no wonder that he has produced a compo sition, on the whole, superior, to any that we have received from former ages But he who addresses himself to the perusal of this work with a mind entirely unaccustomed to serious and spiritual contemplation, unacquainted with the word of God, or prejudiced against it, is ill qualified to appreciate the value of a poem built upon it, or to taste its beauties.

32. One restraint: one subject of restraint—the tree of knowledge of good and evil.

34. Serpent. Compare Gen. iii. 1 Tim ii. 14. John viii. 44.

38. Aspiring: 1 Tim. iii. 6.

This

39. In glory: a divine glory, such as God himself possessed. charge is brought against him, V. 725; it is also asserted in line 40; again in VI. 88, VII. 140.

46. Ruin is derived from ruo, and includes the idea of falling with violence and precipitation: combustion is more than flaming in the foregoing line; it is burning in a dreadful manner.-N.

48. Chains Compare with Epistle of Jude v. 8. Also, Eschvlus Prometh. 6.

Who durst defy th' Omnipotent to arms.

Nine times the space that measures day and night
To mortal men, he with his horrid crew

Lay vanquish'd, rolling in the fiery gulf,
Confounded though immortal: But his doom
Reserved him to more wrath; for now the thought
Both of lost happiness and lasting pain

Torments him; round he throws his baleful eyes,
That witness'd huge affliction and dismay,
Mix'd with obdurate pride and steadfast hate:
At once, as far as angels' ken, he views
The dismal situation waste and wild:

A dungeon horrible on all sides round,

6

As one great furnace flamed; yet from those flames
No light; but rather darkness visible

Served only to discover sights of woe,

Regions of sorrow, doleful shades, where peace
And rest can never dwell: hope never comes,
That comes to all: but torture without end
Still urges, and a fiery deluge, fed
With ever-burning sulphur unconsumed:
Such place eternal justice had prepared

6

70

50. Nine times the space, &c. Propriety sometimes requires the use of circumlocution, as in this case. To have said nine days and nights would not have been proper when talking of a period before the creation of the sun, and consequently before time was portioned out to any being in that manner.-CAMPBELL, Phil. Rhet.

52-3. The nine days' astonishment, in which the angels lay entranced after their dreadful overthrow and fall from heaven, before they could recover the use either of thought or speech, is a noble circumstance and very finely imagined. The division of hell into seas of fire, and into firm ground (227-8) impregnated with the same furious element, with that particular circumstance of the exclusion of hope from those infernal regions, are instances of the same great and fruitful invention.-A.

63. Darkness visible: gloom. Absolute darkness is, strictly speaking, invisible; but where there is a gloom only, there is so much light remaining as serves to show that there are objects, and yet those objects cannot be dis. anctly seen. Compare with the Penseroso, 79, 80:

"Where glowing embers through the room

Teach light to counterfeit a gloom."

R

For those rebellious; here their pris'n ordained
In utter darkness, and their portion set

As far removed from God and light of heaven,
As from the centre thrice to th' utmost pole.

O how unlike the place from whence they fell!
There the companions of his fall, o'erwhelmed
With floods and whirlwinds of tempestuous fire,
He soon discerns, and welt'ring by his side
One next himself in power, and next in crime,
Long after known in Palestine, and named
Beelzebub. To whom th' Arch-Enemy,

And thence in Heav'n call'd Satan, with bold words

72. Utter, has the same meaning as the word outer, which is applied to darkness in the Scriptures. Spenser uses utter in this sense.

74. Thrice as far as it is from the centre of the earth (which is the centre of the world, (universe,) according to Milton's system, IX. 103, and X. 671,) to the pole of the world; for it is the pole of the universe, far beyond the pole of the earth, which is here called the utmost pole. It is observable that Homer makes the seat of hell as far beneath the deepest pit of earth as the heaven is above the earth, Iliad viii. 16; Virgil makes it twice as far, Eneid vi. 577; and Milton thrice as far as if these three great poets had stretched their utmost genius, and vied with each other, in extending his idea of Hell farthest.-N.

75. The language of the inspired writings (says Dugald Stewart) is on this as on other occasions, beautifully accommodated to the irresistible impressions of nature; availing itself of such popular and familiar words as upwards and downwards, above and below, in condescension to the frailty of the human mind, governed so much by sense and imagination, and so little by the abstractions of philosophy. Hence the expression of fallen angels, which, by recalling to us the eminence from which they fell, communicates. in a single word, a character of sublimity to the bottomless abyss.-WORKS vol. iv. 288.

77 Fire. Compare with Mark ix. 45, 46.

81. Beelzebub.

Compare with Mat. xii. 24. 2 Kings i. 2. The word means god of flies. Here he is made second to Satan.

82. Satan. Many other names are assigned, to this arch enemy of God and man, in the sacred scriptures. He is called the Devil, the Dragon, the Evil One, the Angel of the Bottomless Pit, the Prince of this World, the Prince of the power of the air, the God of this World, Apollyon, Abaddon, Belial, Beelzebub.

Milton, it will be seen, applies some of these terms to other evil angels.

Breaking the horrid silence thus began:

If thou beest he; but O how fallen! how changed
From him who, in the happy realms of light
Cloth'd with transcendent brightness didst outshine.
Myriads though bright! If he whom mutual league,
United thoughts and counsels, equal hope

85

And hazard in the glorious enterprise,

Join'd with me once, now misery hath join'd

90

In equal ruin into what pit thou seest

From what height fall'n, so much the stronger proved

He with his thunder: and till then who knew

The force of those dire arms? yet not for those
Nor what the potent victor in his rage

95

The term Satan denotes adversary; the term Devil denotes an accuser, See Kitto's Bib. Cycl.

Upon the character of Satan as described by Milton, Hazlitt has penned an admirable criticism, which will be found at the end of Book I.

84. The confusion of mind felt by Satan is happily shown by the abrupt and halting manner in which he commences this speech. Fallen; see Isaiah xiv. 12. Changed: see Virg. Æn. ü. 274 :

"Hei mihi qualis erat! Quantum mutatus ab illo !"

93. He with his thunder. There is an uncommon beauty in this expresSatan disdains to utter the name of God, though he cannot but acknowledge his superiority. So again, line 257.-N.

sion.

94. Those: compare Esch. Prometh. 991.

95-116. Amidst those impieties which this enraged spirit utters in varıous parts of the poem, the author has taken care to introduce none that is not big with absurdity, and incapable of shocking a religious reader; his words, as the poet himself describes them, bearing only a "semblance of worth, not substance." He is likewise with great art described as owning his adversary to be Almighty. Whatever perverse interpretation he puts on the justice, mercy, and other attributes of the Supreme Being, he frequently confesses his omnipotence, that being the perfection he was forced to allow, and the only consideration which could support his pride under the shame of his defeat.-A.

Upon this important point Dr. Channing has made the following observations: "Some have doubted whether the moral effect of such delineations (as Milton has given) of the stormy and terrible workings of the soul is good; whether the interest felt in a spirit so transcendently evil as Satan favors our sympathies with virtue. But our interest fastens, in this and like cases, on what is not evil. We gaze on Satan with an awe not unmixed

Can else inflict, do I repent or change,

Though changed in outward lustre, that fix'd mind
And high disdain from sense of injured merit,
That with the Mightiest raised me to contend,
And to the fierce contention brought along
Innumerable force of Spirits arm'd,

100

That durst dislike his reign, and me preferring,

His utmost pow'r with adverse pow'r opposed

In dubious battle on the plains of Heav'n,

And shook his throne. What though the field be lost?

105

All is not lost; th' unconquerable will

And study of revenge, immortal hate,
And courage never to submit or yield:
And what is else not to be overcome ;..
That glory never shall his wrath or might
Extort from me. To bow and sue for grace
With suppliant knee, and deify his pow'r,

Who from the terror of this arm so late

110

Doubted his empire; that were low indeed!
That were an ignominy and shame beneath
This downfall since by fate the strength of Gods
And this empyreal substance cannot fail,

115

▾th mysterious pleasure, as on a miraculous manifestation of the power of mnd. What chains us, as with a resistless spell, in such a character, is spiritual might (might of soul), made visible by the racking pains which it overpowers. There is something kindling and ennobling in the consciousness however awakened, of the energy which resides in mind; and many a virtuous man has borrowed new strength from the force, constancy, and dauntless courage of evil agents."

109. And what, &c.: "And if there be any thing else (besides these par ticulars) which is not to be overcome. If, as some prefer, a point of interrogation be placed after overcome, Satan, with great energy, will then ask, What else, thou having this undaunted spirit, is to be unvanquished, though the field be lost? 110. That glory: The glory of an unconquerable will, &c. 114. Doubted his empire: That is, doubted the stability of it

116. Fate. Satan supposes the angels to subsist by necessity, and represents them of an empyreal, that is, fiery substance, as the Scripture does, Ps. civ. 4. Heb. i. 7. Satan disdains to submit, since the angels (as he says) are necessarily immortal and cannot be destroyed, and since too they are now improved in experience.