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To future men, and in their dwellings peace:
Glory to him, whose just avenging ire
Had driven out th' ungodly from his sight
And th' habitations of the just; to him
Glory and praise, whose wisdom had ordain'd
Good out of evil to create, instead

Of Spi'rits malign a better race to bring
Into their vacant room, and thence diffuse

His good to worlds and

ages infinite.

So sang the Hierarchies: Mean while the Son

immediately following, and agrees better with the words of St. Luke, Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good

will towards men.

186. to him Glory and praise,] It may be worth remarking how he turns the words, ver. 184. Glory to him, &c. and here, to him glory and praise One would wonder how it could ever have been objected to Milton that there were no turns of the words in him, when there are more beautiful repetitions and turns of the words in him than in almost any poet. A bare repetition of the words often gives great force and beauty to the sentence, as in Iliad. xx. 371.

Του δ

εγω αντιος ειμι, και οι πυρι Xrigas coineY,

185

190

Ille, velut pelagi rupes immota, resistit ;

Ut pelagi rupes

But Milton seldom repeats the

words without the additional beauty of turning them too, as in this place; and in this book before,

-though fall'n on evil days, On evil days though fall'n and evil tongues;

and I know not whether the English verse has not in this respect the advantage of the Greek and Latin.

192. Mean while the Son, &c.] The Messiah, by whom, as we are told in Scripture, the worlds were made, comes forth. in the power of his Father, surrounded with an host of angels, and clothed with such a majesty as becomes his entering upon a

Ε. πυρί χειρας εοικε, μενος δ' αιθων work, which according to our

σιδηρο.

and Iliad. xii. 127.

Το σαριζέμεναι, ατε παρθενος ηίθεος τε,
Παρθένος ηίθεος, τ', οαρίζετον αλλη.

λοισιν.

and Virg. Æn. vii. 586.

conceptions appears the utmost exertion of Omnipotence. What a beautiful description has our author raised upon that hint in one of the prophets! And behold there came four chariots out from between two mountains, and the

On his great expedition now appear'd,
Girt with omnipotence, with radiance crown'd
Of majesty divine; sapience and love
Immense, and all his Father in him shone.
About his chariot numberless were pour'd

Cherub and Seraph, potentates and thrones,
And virtues, winged Spi'rits, and chariots wing'd
From th' armoury of God, where stand of old
Myriads between two brazen mountains lodg'd
Against a solemn day, harness'd at hand,
Celestial equipage; and now came forth
Spontaneous, for within them Spirit liv'd,
Attendant on their Lord: heav'n open'd wide
Her ever-during gates, harmonious sound

mountains were mountains of brass. (Zech. vi. 1.) I have before taken notice of these cha

riots of God, and of the gates of heaven; and shall here only add, that Homer gives us the same idea of the latter, as opening of themselves; though he afterwards takes off from it by telling us, that the hours first of all removed those prodigious heaps of clouds which lay as a barrier before them. Addison.

197. About his chariot num

berless were pour'd Cherub and Seraph,] Dr. Bentley calls cherub pour'd an awkward expression: but yet we read in ii. 997.

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195

200

205

-and saw what numbers numberless

The city gates out pour'd. And so in Virg. Æn. i. 214. Fusi per herbam, and vii. 812. agris effusa juventus, and frequently elsewhere. But the word poured has still more propriety here, as it shews the readiness and forwardness of the angels to attend the Messiah's expedition: they were so earnest as not to stay to form themselves into regular order, but were poured numberless about his chariot. Pearce.

206. Her ever-during gates,] So in Par. Reg. i. 281.

Heaven opened her eternal doors. As in Psal. xxiv. 7, 9. everlasting doors. Dunster.

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On golden hinges moving, to let forth
The King of Glory in his pow'rful Word

And Spirit coming to create new worlds.

On heav'nly ground they stood, and from the shore 210
They view'd the vast immeasurable abyss
Outrageous as a sea, dark, wasteful, wild,
Up from the bottom turn'd by furious winds
And surging waves, as mountains, to assault

So iii. 37. Thoughts move harmonious numbers. Horace expresses it in the same manner, Ep. ii. ii. 86.

Verba lyræ motura sonum conne

ctere digner?

The infernal doors had no such harmony; they grated harsh thunder that shook Erebus, ii. 881. Richardson.

210. On heav'nly ground they stood, &c.] I do not know any thing in the whole poem more sublime than the description which follows, where the Messiah is represented at the head of his angels, as looking down into the chaos, calming its confusion, riding into the midst of it, and drawing the first outline of the creation. Addison.

211. They view'd &c.] Milton's description of God the Son and his attendant angels viewing the vast unmeasurable abyss, &c. has a great resemblance to the following passage in Vida. Christ. lib. i.

Hic superum sator informem speculatus acervum,

Eternam noctemque, indigestumque profundum,

Prima videbatur moliri exordia re

rum

Ipse micans radiis, ac multâ luce

coruscus.

And that he had this in his eye is I think the more probable, because his account of the creation of light and its being afterwards transplanted into the sun's orb, which was not yet created, carries a strong allusion to the succeeding lines,

Jamque videbatur fulvâ de nube

creare

Stelligeri convexa poli, terrasque, fretumque,

Et lucem simul undivagam, mox unde micantes

Et solis radios, et cœli accenderet ignes.

Thyer.

214. And surging waves,] We have already given some instances where we thought that and and in have been misprinted the one for the other: and I question whether in this place we should not read In surging waves as mountains; for it seems better to say of the sea, Up from the bottom turned in surging waves, than Up from the bottom turned by surging waves.

Heav'n's highth, and with the centre mix the pole. 215 Silence, ye troubled waves, and thou deep, peace,

214. Spenser has the word surging. Faery Queen, b. ii. c. xii. 21.

Sudden they see, from midst of all
the main,

The surging waters like a mountain
rise.

giving the greater force and emphasis to both! And how nobly has he concluded the verse with a spondee or foot of two long syllables, which is not a common measure in this place, but when it is used, it necessarily occasions a slower pronun

And our author in Par. Reg. iv. ciation, and thereby fixes more

18. Dunster.

215.

-and with the centre

mix the pole.] It is certain that in chaos was neither centre nor pole; so neither were there any mountains as in the preceding line; the angel does not say there were: he tells Adam there was such confusion in chaos, as if on earth the sea in mountainous waves should rise from its very bottom to assault heaven, and mix the centre of the globe with the extremities of it. The aptest illustration he could possibly have thought of to have given Adam some idea of the thing. Richardson.

216. Silence, ye troubled waves, and thou deep, peace,] How much does the brevity of the command add to the sublimity and majesty of it! It is the same kind of beauty that Longinus admires in the Mosaic history of the creation. It is of the same strain with the same omnific. Word's calming the tempest in the Gospel, when he said to the raging sea, Peace, be still, Mark iv. 39. And how elegantly has he turned the commanding words silence and peace, making one the first and the other the last in the sentence, and thereby

the attention of the reader! It the spondee in the fifth place in is a beauty of the same kind as Greek or Latin verses, of which there are some memorable examples in Virgil, as when he speaks of low valleys, Georg. iii. 276.

Saxa per et scopulos et depressas convalles:

or when he would describe the majesty of the gods, Ecl. iv. 49. Cara Deûm soboles, magnum Jovis incrementum:

Æn. viii. 679.

-Penatibus, et magnis Diis: spection, Æn. ii. 68. or great caution and circum

Constitit, atque oculis Phrygia agmina circumspexit: or a great interval between two men running, Æn. v. 320.

Proximus huic, longo sed proximus intervallo.

The learned and ingenious Mr. Upton, in his Critical Observations, hath given us a parallel instance out of Shakespeare, and says that no poet did ever equal this beauty but Shakespeare. In Macbeth, act II.

What hath quench'd them hath giv'n me fire. Hark, peace.

Said then th' omnific Word, your discord end : Nor stay'd, but on the wings of Cherubim Uplifted, in paternal glory rode

Far into Chaos, and the world unborn;

220

For Chaos heard his voice: him all his train

Follow'd in bright procession to behold
Creation, and the wonders of his might.
Then stay'd the fervid wheels, and in his hand
He took the golden compasses, prepar'd

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Minerva's Ægis or buckler in the fifth book, with her spear which would overturn whole squadrons, and her helmet that was sufficient to cover an army drawn out of a hundred cities. The golden compasses in the above-mentioned

passage appear hand of him, whom Plato somea very natural instrument in the where calls the divine geometrician. As poetry delights in clothing abstracted ideas in allegories and sensible images, we find a magnificent description of the creation formed after the same manner in one of the prophets, wherein he describes the almighty Architect as measuring the waters in the hollow of his hand, meting out the heavens with his span, comprehending the dust of the earth in a measure, weighing the mountains in scales, and the hills in a balance. Another of them describing the Supreme Being in this great work of creation represents him as laying the foundations of the earth, and stretching a line upon it: and in another place as garnishing the heavens, stretching out the north

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