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In God's eternal store, to circumscribe

This universe, and all created things:
One foot he center'd, and the other turn'd
Round through the vast profundity obscure,
And said, Thus far extend, thus far thy bounds,
This be thy just circumference, O world.
Thus God the heav'n created, thus the earth,
Matter unform'd and void: darkness profound
Cover'd th' abyss: but on the wat❜ry calm
His brooding wings the Spirit of God outspread,
And vital virtue' infus'd, and vital warmth
Throughout the fluid mass, but downward purg'd
The black tartareous cold infernal dregs
Adverse to life: then founded, then conglob'd

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232. Thus God the heav'n created, &c.] The reader will naturally remark how exactly Milton copies Moses in his account of the creation. This seventh book of Paradise Lost may be called a larger sort of paraphrase upon the first chapter of Genesis. Milton not only observes the same series and order, but preserves the very words as much as he can, as we may see in this and other instances. In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth; and the earth was without form and void, and darkness was upon the face

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of the deep; and the Spirit of
God moved upon the face of the
waters. Gen. i. 1, 2.
The poet
says watery calm, as the Messiah
had before calmed the deep,
ver. 216. and says, outspread his
brooding wings instead of moved,
following the original rather
than our translation.

239. -then founded, then conglob'd &c.] Milton had said that Messiah first purged downward the infernal dregs which were adverse to life; and that then of things friendly to life he founded and conglobed like to like, that is he caused them to assemble and associate together: the rest, that is, such things as were not of the same nature and fit for composing the earth, went off to other places, perhaps to form the planets and fixed stars. This seems to be Milton's meaning. Pearce.

Like things to like, the rest to several place
Disparted, and between spun out the air,
And earth self-balanc'd on her centre hung.

Let there be light, said God, and forthwith light
Ethereal, first of things, quintessence pure

Here it will be of use to recur to the account in iii. 708. The earthy, watery, airy, and fiery particles, which before were blended promiscuously, were now combined and fixed as a foundation; for founded does either signify that from fundare, or to melt from fundere; this latter it cannot mean, it was already fluid. Thus Psalm lxxxix. 11. As for the world and the fulness thereof, thou hast founded them. So Prov. iii. 19. The Lord by wisdom hath founded the earth. The rest must be something different from the now elementary bodies, and that (iii. 716.) is determined to be the ethereal quintessence of which the heavenly luminous bodies were formed. Richardson.

Diffugere inde loci partes cœpere, paresque

Cum paribus jungi res &c.

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This is the passage that Longinus particularly admires; and no doubt its sublimity is greatly owing to its conciseness; but our poet enlarges upon it, endeavouring to give some account how light was created the first day, when the sun was not formed till the fourth day. He says, that it was sphered in a radiant cloud, and so journeyed round the earth in a cloudy tabernacle; and herein he is justified by the authority of some commentators; though others think this light was the light of the sun, which shone as yet very imperfectly, and did not appear in full lustre till the fourth day. It is most probable, that by light (as it was produced the first day) we must not understand the darting of rays from a luminous body, such as do now proceed from the sun, but those particles of matter which we call fire, (whose properties we know are light and heat,) which the Almighty produced, as a proper instrument for the preparation and digestion of other matter. So Bp. Patrick upon the text. However it be, Milton's account is certainly very poetical, though you may not allow it to be the most philosophical, and is agreeable to the description before quoted from Vida. See Mr. Thyer's note upon ver. 211.

Sprung from the deep, and from her native east
To journey through the aery gloom began,
Spher'd in a radiant cloud, for yet the sun
Was not; she in a cloudy tabernacle

Sojourn'd the while. God saw the light was good;
And light from darkness by the hemisphere
Divided: light the day, and darkness night

He nam'd. Thus was the first day ev'n and morn:
Nor past uncelebrated, nor unsung

By the celestial quires, when orient light
Exhaling first from darkness they beheld;
Birth-day of heav'n and earth; with joy and shout

247. Spher'd in a radiant cloud,] So Shakespeare, Troil. Cress. a. i. sc. 3.

-The glorious planet Sol
In noble eminence enthron'd, and
spher'd
Amidst the ether.

T. Warton.

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evening and the morning were the first day. Gen. i. 4, 5.

253. Nor past uncelebrated, &c.] The beauties of description lie so very thick, that it is almost impossible to enumerate them. The poet has employed on them the whole energy of our tongue. The several great scenes of the creation rise up to view one after another, in such a manner, that the reader seems present at this wonderful work, and to assist among the quires of angels, who are the spectators of it. How glorious is the conclusion of the first day! Addison.

256. -with joy and shout The hollow universal orb they filled,] Job xxxviii. 4, 7. Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth; when the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy? And with this joy and shout they great round (as it is called ver. filled the hollow universal orb, the 267.) of the universe.

The hollow universal orb they fill'd,

And touch'd their golden harps, and hymning prais'd God and his works, Creator him they sung,

Both when first evening was, and when first morn. 260 Again, God said, Let there be firmament

Amid the waters, and let it divide

The waters from the waters: and God made
The firmament, expanse of liquid, pure,
Transparent, elemental air, diffus'd

In circuit to the uttermost convex

Of this great round: partition firm and sure,
The waters underneath from those above

261. Again, God said, &c.] When he makes God speak, he adheres closely to the words of Scripture. And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters, Gen. i. 6. But when he says that God made the firmament, he explains what is meant by the firmament. The Hebrew word, which the Greeks render by GTEgwua, and our translators by firmament, signifies expansion: it is rendered expansion in the margin of our Bibles, and Milton rightly explains it by the expanse of elemental air.

264. —liquid air,] Virg. Æn. vi. 202. liquidumque per aëra.

267. —partition firm and sure,] For its certainty not solidity. St. Augustin upon Genesis. It is not called firmament as being a solid body, but because it is a bound or term between the upper and nether waters; a partition firm and immoveable, not upon

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firmness and intransgressibility.
Hume and Richardson.

268. The waters underneath
from those above
Dividing:]

They who understand the fir-
mament to be the vast air, ex-
panded and stretched out on all
sides to the starry heavens,
esteem the waters above it to
be those generated, in the mid-
dle region of the air, of vapours
exhaled and drawn up thither
from the steaming earth and
nether waters; which descend
again in such vast showers and
mighty floods of rain, that not
only rivers, but seas may be
imaginable above, as appeared
when the cataracts came down
in a deluge, and the flood-gates
of heaven were opened. Gen. vii.
11. Others, and those many,
by these waters above understand
the crystalline heaven, (by Gas-
sendus made double,) by our
author better named crystalline
ocean, by its clearness resem-

Dividing for as earth, so he the world
Built on circumfluous waters calm, in wide
Crystalline ocean, and the loud misrule

Of Chaos far remov'd, lest fierce extremes
Contiguous might distemper the whole frame:
And Heav'n he nam'd the firmament: So even
And morning chorus sung the second day.
The earth was form'd, but in the womb as yet
Of waters, embryon immature involv'd,
Appear'd not over all the face of earth
Main ocean flow'd, not idle, but with warm

beams of his chambers in the
waters, Psal. civ. 3. Praise him,
ye heavens of heavens, and ye
waters above the heavens, Psal.
cxlviii. 4. To this sense our
poet agrees, and thus infers,
that as God built the earth, and
founded it on waters, (stretched
out the earth above the waters,
Ps. cxxxvi. 6. By the word of
God the heavens were of old, and
the earth consisting out of the
water and in the water, 2 Pet.
iii. 5.) so also he established the
whole frame of the heavenly
orbs, in a calm crystalline sea
surrounding it, lest the neigh-
bourhood of the unruly Chaos
should disturb it. But all search
in works so wonderful, so distant
and undiscernable, as well as un-
demonstrable, is quite confounded.
Hume.

274. And Heav'n he named the firmament:] So Gen. i. 8. And God called the firmament Heaven. But it may seem strange if the firmament means the air and atmosphere, that the air should be called heaven: but so it is frequently in the language of the

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Hebrews and in the style of Scripture. In this very chapter, ver. 20. it is said, fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven. So in Ps. civ. 12. By them shall the fowls of the heaven have their habitation, which sing among the branches. And Matt. vi. 26, what we translate the fowls of the air is in the original the fowls of heaven, тa Tiruva spars. So again, Rev. xix. 17, the fowls that fly in the midst of heaven. And we read often in Scripture of the rain of heaven, and the clouds of heaven. The truth is, there were three heavens in the account of the Hebrews. Mention is made of the third heaven, 2 Cor. xii. 2. The first heaven is the air, as we have shewn, wherein the clouds move and the birds fly; the second is the starry heaven, and the third heaven is the habitation of the angels and the seat of God's glory. Milton is speaking here of the first heaven, as he mentions the others in other places.

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