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bly every way conformable to his character. Such are fis apprehensions of a second battle, his horrors of annihilation, his preferring to be miserable rather than "not to be." I need not observe, that the contrast of thought in this speech, and that which precedes it, gives an agreeable variety to the debate.

Mammon's character is so fully drawn in the first book, that the poet adds nothing to it in the second. We were before told, that he was the first who taught mankind to ransack the earth for gold and silver, and that he was the architect of Pandæmonium, or the infernal palace, where the evil spirits were to meet in council. His speech in this book is everywhere suitable to so depraved a character. How proper is that reflection, of their being unable to taste the happiness of heaven were they actually there, in the mouth of one, who while he was in heaven is said to have had his mind dazzled with the outward pomps and glories of the place, and to have been more intent on the riches of the pavement than on the beatific vision. I shall also leave the reader to judge how agreeable the following sentiments are to the same character.

This deep world

Of darkness do we dread? how oft amidst

Thick cloud and dark doth heaven's all-ruling sire
Choose to reside, his glory unobscured,

And with the majesty of darkness round

Covers his throne, from whence deep thunders roar
Mustering their rage, and heaven resembles hell!
As he our darkness, cannot we his light

Imitate when we please? This desert soil
Wants not her hidden lustre, gems and gold:
Nor want we skill, or art, from whence to raise
Magnificence; and what can heaven show more?

There

Beelzebub, who is reckoned the second in dignity that fell, and is in the first book the second that awakens out of the trance, and confers with Satan upon the situation of their affairs, maintains his rank in the book now before us. is a wonderful majesty described in his rising up to speak. He acts as a kind of moderator between the two opposite parties, and proposes a third undertaking, which the whole assembly gives in to. The motion he makes of detaching one of their body in search of a new world is grounded upon a

project devised by Satan, and cursorily proposed by him in the following lines of the first book.

Space may produce new worlds, whereof so rife
There went a fame in heaven, that he ere long
Intended to create, and therein plant

A generation, whom his choice regard
Should favour equal to the sons of heaven:
Thither, if but to pry, shall be perhaps
Our first eruption, thither er elsewhere:
For this infernal pit shall never hold
Celestial spirits in bondage, nor the abyss
Long under darkness cover. But these thoughts

Full counsel must mature :

It is on this project that Beelzebub grounds his proposal.

-What if we find

Some easier enterprise ? There is a place

(If ancient and prophetic fame in heaven
Err not) another world, the happy seat

Of some new race called MAN, about this time

To be created like to us, though less

In power and excellence, but favoured more

Of him who rules above; so was his will

Pronounced among the gods, and by an oath,

That shook heaven's whole circumference, confirmed.

The reader may observe how just it was, not to omit in the first book the project upon which the whole poem turns: as also that the prince of the fallen angels was the only proper person to give it birth, and that he next to him in dignity was the fittest to support it.

There is besides, I think, something wonderfully beautiful, and very apt to affect the reader's imagination, in this ancient prophecy or report in heaven, concerning the creation of man. Nothing could show more the dignity of the species, than this tradition which ran of them before their existence. They are represented to have been the talk of heaven, before they were created. Virgil, in compliment to the Roman common-wealth, makes the heroes of it appear in their state of pre-existence; but Milton does a far greater honour to mankind in general, as he gives us a glimpse of them even before they are in being.

The rising of this great assembly is described in a very sublime and poetical manner.

Their rising all at once was as the sound

Of thunder heard remote

The diversions of the fallen angels, with the particular account of their place of habitation, are described with great pregnancy of thought, and copiousness of invention. The diversions are every way suitable to beings who had nothing left them but strength and knowledge misapplied. Such are their contentions at the race, and in feats of arms, with their entertainment in the following lines.

Others with vast Typhean rage more fell

Rend up both rocks and hills, and ride the air
In whirlwind; hell scarce holds the wild uproar.

Their music is employed in celebrating their own criminal exploits, and their discourse in sounding the unfathomable depths of fate, free-will, and fore-knowledge.

The several circumstances in the description of hell are finely imagined; as the four rivers which disgorge themselves into the sea of fire, the extremes of cold and heat, and the river of oblivion. The monstrous animals produced in that infernal world are represented by a single line, which gives us a more horrid idea of them, than a much longer description would have done.

-Nature breeds

Perverse, all monstrous, all prodigious things,
Abominable, inutterable, and worse

Than fables yet have feigned or fear conceived,
Gorgons, and hydras, and chimeras dire.

This episode of the fallen spirits, and their place of habitation, comes in very happily to unbend the mind of the reader from its attention to the debate. An ordinary poet would indeed have spun out so many circumstances to a great length, and by that means have weakened, instead of illustrated,' the principal fable.

The flight of Satan to the gates of hell is finely imagined. I have already declared my opinion of the allegory concerning Sin and Death, which is, however, a very finished piece in its kind, when it is not considered as a part of an epic poem. The genealogy of the several persons is contrived with great delicacy. Sin is the daughter of Satan, and Death the offspring of Sin. The incestuous mixture between Sin and Death produces those monsters and hellhounds which from time to time enter into their mother,

Illustrated.] It shild have been—instead of illustrating,—or, and not have illustrated.

project devised by Satan, and cursorily proposed by him in the following lines of the first book.

Space may produce new worlds, whereof so rife
There went a fame in heaven, that he ere long
Intended to create, and therein plant
A generation, whom his choice regard
Should favour equal to the sons of heaven:
Thither, if but to pry, shall be perhaps
Our first eruption, thither cr elsewhere:
For this infernal pit shall never hold
Celestial spirits in bondage, nor the abyss
Long under darkness cover. But these thoughts
Full counsel must mature:-

It is on this project that Beelzebub grounds his proposal.

-What if we find

Some easier enterprise? There is a place
(If ancient and prophetic fame in heaven
Err not) another world, the happy seat

Of some new race called MAN, about this time

To be created like to us, though less

In power and excellence, but favoured more
Of him who rules above; so was his will

Pronounced among the gods, and by an oath,

That shook heaven's whole circumference, confirmed.

The reader may observe how just it was, not to omit in the first book the project upon which the whole poem turns: as also that the prince of the fallen angels was the only proper person to give it birth, and that he next to him in dignity was the fittest to support it.

There is besides, I think, something wonderfully beautiful, and very apt to affect the reader's imagination, in this ancient prophecy or report in heaven, concerning the creation of man. Nothing could show more the dignity of the species, than this tradition which ran of them before their existence. They are represented to have been the talk of heaven, before they were created. Virgil, in compliment to the Roman common-wealth, makes the heroes of it appear in their state of pre-existence; but Milton does a far greater honour to mankind in general, as he gives us a glimpse of them even before they are in being.

The rising of this great assembly is described in a very sublime and poetical manner.

Their rising all at once was as the sound

Of thunder heard remote

The diversions of the fallen angels, with the particular account of their place of habitation, are described with great pregnancy of thought, and copiousness of invention. The diversions are every way suitable to beings who had nothing left them but strength and knowledge misapplied. Such are their contentions at the race, and in feats of arins, with their entertainment in the following lines.

Others with vast Typhean rage more fell

Rend up both rocks and hills, and ride the air

In whirlwind; hell scarce holds the wild uproar.

Their music is employed in celebrating their own criminal exploits, and their discourse in sounding the unfathomable depths of fate, free-will, and fore-knowledge.

The several circumstances in the description of hell are finely imagined; as the four rivers which disgorge themselves - into the sea of fire, the extremes of cold and heat, and the river of oblivion. The monstrous animals produced in that infernal world are represented by a single line, which gives us a more horrid idea of them, than a much longer description would have done.

-Nature breeds

Perverse, all monstrous, all prodigious things,
Abominable, inutterable, and worse

Than fables yet have feigned or fear conceived,
Gorgons, and hydras, and chimeras dire.

This episode of the fallen spirits, and their place of habitation, comes in very happily to unbend the mind of the reader from its attention to the debate. An ordinary poet would indeed have spun out so many circumstances to a great length, and by that means have weakened, instead of illustrated,' the principal fable.

The flight of Satan to the gates of hell is finely imagined. I have already declared my opinion of the allegory concerning Sin and Death, which is, however, a very finished piece in its kind, when it is not considered as a part of an epic poem. The genealogy of the several persons is contrived with great delicacy. Sin is the daughter of Satan, and Death the offspring of Sin. The incestuous mixture between Sin and Death produces those monsters and hellhounds which from time to time enter into their mother,

Illustrated.] It shild have been-instead of illustrating,—or, and not have illustrated.

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