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And his adherents, that with so much ease

I suffer them to enter and possess

A place so heav'nly, and conniving seem

To gratify my scornful enemies,

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That laugh, as if transported with some fit
Of passion, I to them had quitted all,

At random yielded up to their misrule;

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And know not that I call'd and drew them thither
My hell-hounds, to lick up the draff and filth
Which man's polluting sin with taint hath shed
On what was pure, till cramm'd and gorg'd, nigh burst
With suck'd and glutted offal, at one sling

Of thy victorious arm, well-pleasing Son,

Both Sin, and Death, and yawning Grave at last 635
Through Chaos hurl'd, obstruct the mouth of Hell
For ever, and seal up his ravenous jaws.

Then Heav'n and Earth renew'd shall be made pure
To sanctity that shall receive no stain:

Till then the curse pronounc'd on both precedes. 640

635. Both Sin, and Death, and yawning Grave at last] Death and the Grave meaning the same is a pleonasm, an abounding fulness of expression, which adding force and energy, and calling forth the attention, is a beauty common in the best writers: but not for that reason only Milton has used this; the Scripture hath thus joined Death and the Grave, Hos. xiii. 14. 1 Cor. xv. 55. and Rev. xx. 13. where the word rendered Hell signifies also the Grave. Richardson.

640. Till then the curse pro

nounc'd on both precedes.] On both, that is, on heaven and earth, mentioned in ver. 638. the heaven and earth that were polluted, and shall be made pure to sanctity. But should we read precedes, or proceeds with Dr. Bentley? And is the meaning (as Mr. Richardson explains it) that the curse pronounced shall go before those ravagers Sin and Death, and shall direct and lead them on? Or the curse shall proceed, shall go on, shall continue till the consummation of all things, and heaven and earth shall be restored?

He ended, and the heav'nly audience loud
Sung Hallelujah, as the sound of seas,
Through multitude that sung: Just are thy ways,
Righteous are thy decrees on all thy works;
Who can extenuate thee? Next, to the Son,
Destin'd restorer of mankind, by whom
New heav'n and earth shall to the ages rise,
Or down from heav'n descend.

audience loud

645

Such was their song,

641. He ended, and the heav'nly 1 heard as it were the voice of a great multitude, and as the voice of many waters, saying, Hallelujah.

Sung Hallelujah,] Dr. Bentley reads, and to him the audience loud &c. without this (says he) it is not said to whom they sung; and the words Next, to the Son, ver. 645. shew that they sung before to him, to the Father. But this objection is founded upon the Doctor's not observing the force of the word Hallelujah, where Jah signifies to God, the Father; and therefore there was no need of to him. See vii. 634.

642. -as the sound of seas, Through multitude that sung] This passage is formed upon that glorious image in holy writ, which compares the voice of an innumerable host of angels, uttering Hallelujahs to the voice of mighty thunderings or of many waters. Addison.

643. Just are thy ways, Righteous are thy decrees] The same song that they are represented singing in the Revelation. Just 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 passage he alluded to Rev. xix. 6. And

647. New heav'n and earth shall to the ages rise,

Or down from heav'n descend.] Heaven and earth is the Jewish phrase to express our world; and the new heaven and earth must certainly be the same with that just mentioned before,

Then heav'n and earth renew'd shall be made pure

To sanctity that shall receive no stain:

to the Millennium, to the auræa And they shall to the ages rise, sæcula, as they are called, or to ages of endless date, as he elseexpresses it, xii. 549.

where

New heav'ns, new earth, ages of endless date,

Founded in righteousness, and peace, and love.

Shall rise, for sometimes he speaks of them as raised from the conflagrant mass, xii. 547. And springing from the ashes, iii. 354. Or down from heaven descend, for St. John describes the holy city, the new Jerusalem, Rev. xxi. 2. as coming down from God out of heaven.

While the Creator calling forth by name
His mighty angels gave them several charge
As sorted best with present things. The sun
Had first his precept so to move, so shine,
As might affect the earth with cold and heat
Scarce tolerable, and from the north to call
Decrepit winter, from the south to bring

650. -gave them several charge,] Under this head of celestial persons we must likewise take notice of the command which the angels received to produce the several changes in nature, and sully the beauty of the creation. Accordingly they are represented as infecting the stars and planets with malignant influences, weakening the light of the sun, bringing down the winter into the milder

regions of nature, planting winds and storms in several quarters of the sky; storing the clouds with thunder, and, in short, perverting the whole frame of the universe to the condition of its criminal inhabitants. As this is a noble incident in the poem, the following lines, in which we see the angels heaving up the earth, and placing it in a different posture to the sun from what it had before the fall of Man, is conceived with that sublime imagination which was so peculiar to this great author.

Some say he bid his angels turn askance &c.

Addison.

655. Decrepit winter,] Alluding perhaps to Spenser's description of winter under the figure of a decrepit old man,

650

655

Faery Queen, b. vii. cant. vii. st. 31.

In his right hand a tipped staff he held,

With which his feeble steps he stayed

still:

For he was faint with cold, and weak with eld,

That scarce his loosed limbs he able was to weld.

Thyer. The expression of decrepit win

ter

occurs in Beaumont and

Fletcher. A Wife for a Month,

act iv.

Decrepit winter hang upon my shoulders.

655. from the south to bring Solstitial summer's heat.] Have a care (says Dr. Bentley) of going too far south to bring summer's heat, the regions near the southern pole being as cold as those near the northern: he therefore reads,

-from the torrid zone Solstitial summer's heat. But the word solstitial seems sufficiently to determine, from how far south Milton meant that this summer's heat was brought, viz. so far from the south as the sun is, when he is in the summer's solstice, or about twenty-three degrees and a half southward. Pearce.

Solstitial summer's heat. To the blanc moon
Her office they prescrib'd, to th' other five
Their planetary motions and aspects
In sextile, square, and trine, and opposite
Of noxious efficacy, and when to join
In synod unbenign; and taught the fix'd
Their influence malignant when to shower,
Which of them rising with the sun, or falling,
Should prove tempestuous: To the winds they set

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659. In sextile, square, and trine, and opposite] If a planet, in one part of the zodiac, be distant from another by a sixth part of twelve, that is by two signs, their aspect is called sextile; if by a fourth, square; by a third, trine; and if by one half, opposite, which last is said to be of noxious efficacy, because the planets so opposed are thought to strive, debilitate, and overcome one another: deemed of evil consequence to those born under or subject to the influence of the distressed star. Hume.

If an unnecessary ostentation of learning be, as Mr. Addison observes, one of our author's faults, it certainly must be an aggravation of it, where he not only introduces, but countenances such enthusiastic unphilosophical notions as this jargon of the astrologers is made up of. Thyer.

Their corners, when with bluster to confound
Sea, air, and shore, the thunder when to roll
With terror through the dark aereal hall.
Some say he bid his angels turn askance
The poles of earth twice ten degrees and more

668. Some say 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 hypotheses. Some say it was occasioned by altering the position of the earth, by turning the poles of the earth above twenty degrees aside from the sun's orb, he bid his angels turn askance the poles of earth twice ten degrees and more from the sun's axle; and the poles of the earth are about twenty-three degrees and a half distant from those of the ecliptic; they with labour pushed oblique the centric globe, it was erect before, but is oblique now; the obliquity of a sphere is the proper astronomical term, when the pole is raised any number of degrees less than ninety; the centric globe fixed on its centre, and therefore moved with labour and difficulty, or rather centric, as being the centre of the world, according to the Ptolemaic system, which our author usually follows. Some say again this change was occasioned by altering the course of the sun, the sun was bid turn reins from the equinoctial road in which he had moved before, like distant breadth in both hemispheres, to Taurus with the seven Atlantic Sisters, the constellation Taurus with the seven stars in his neck, the

665

Pleiades daughters of Atlas, and the Spartan Twins, the sign Gemini, Castor and Pollux, twinbrothers, and sons of Tyndarus king of Sparta, up to the Tropic Crab, the tropic of Cancer, the sun's farthest stage northwards; thence down amain, Dr. Bentley reads as much, as much on one side of the equator as the other, but if any alteration were necessary it is easier to read thence down again, by Leo and the Virgin, the sign Virgo, and the Scales, the constellation Libra, as deep as Capricorn, the tropic of Capricorn which is the sun's farthest progress southwards. This motion of the sun in the ecliptic occasions the variety of seasons, else had the spring perpetual smiled on earth with vernant flowers, if the sun had continued to move in the equator. It is likewise Dr. Burnet's assertion, that the primitive earth enjoyed a perpetual spring, and for the same reason of the sun's moving in the equator. But though this notion of a perpetual spring may be very pleasing in poetry, yet it is very false in philosophy; and this position of the earth, so far from being the best, is one of the worst it could have, as Dr. Keill hath proved excellently well in the fourth chapter of his Examination of Dr. Burnet's Theory of the Earth.

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