For of celestial bodies first the sun A mighty sphere he fram'd, unlightsome first, where Milton seems to have read conserta, which is much more beautiful; and his reading seems to be proved by the word densis, which would be unnecessary, and even bad, with the word conferta. Richardson. 361. -made porous to receive And drink the liquid light, firm to retain Her gather'd beams,] Porous yet firm. Milton seems to have taken this thought from what is said of the Bologna stone, which being placed in the light will imbibe, and for some time retain it so as to enlighten a dark place. Richardson. 362. And drink the liquid light,] Dr. Bentley finds fault with the word light being re 355 360 peated so often, and in two places substitutes some other expression in the room of it; but when Milton was describing the creation of light, it was better (as Dr. Pearce judiciously observes) to keep strictly to the word, though frequently repeated, than to vary it by phrases and circumlocutions. 364. Hither as to their fountain other stars] So the sun is called by Lucretius, v. 282. the fountain of light, of liquid light. Largus item liquidi fons luminis, æthereus sol Irrigat assidue cœlum candore recenti: and by other stars are meant the ing particularly the morning planets, as appears by mentionplanet Venus, And hence the morning planet gilds her horns; In the first edition it was his horns, but the author in the second edition softened it into her horns, which is certainly properer for the planet Venus, Repairing, in their golden urns draw light, 365 370 There are perhaps two or three other instances in the poem: but the jingle of the rhyme is pretty well avoided by the pause in the verses, or by their running into one another. However it would have been more artificial, if the structure had been different. We know very well that there are parallel instances even in Homer and Vir gil; but though some may think them beauties in Greek and Latin, we think them none in an English poem professedly written in blank verse. In all such cases we must say with Horace, De Arte Poet. 351. Verum ubi plura nitent in carmine, non ego paucis Offendar maculis, quas aut incuria fudit, Aut humana parum cavit natura. His longitude through heav'n's high road;] Longitude signifies the sun's course from east to west in a straight and direct line: and we find Milton using the word after much the same manner in iii. 576. This passage alludes to Psalm xix. 5. where it is said of the sun, that he rejoiceth as a giant to run his course. Pearce. His longitude through heav'n's high road; the gray His mirror, with full face borrowing her light 373. -the gray Dawn, and the Pleiades before him danc'd Shedding sweet influence:] These are beautiful images, and very much resemble the famous picture of the morning by Guido, where the sun is represented in his chariot, with the Aurora flying before him, shedding flowers, and seven beautiful nymphlike figures dancing before and about his chariot, which are commonly taken for the Hours, but possibly may be the Pleiades, as they are seven in number, and it is not easy to assign a reason why the hours should be signified by that number particularly. The picture is on a ceiling at Rome; but there are copies of it in England, and an excellent print by Jac. Frey. The Pleiades are seven stars in the neck of the constellation Taurus, which rising about the time of the vernal equinox, are called by the Latins Vergilia. Our poet therefore in saying that the Pleiades danced before 375 380 the sun at his creation, intimates very plainly that the creation was in the spring according to the common opinion. Virg. Georg. ii. 338, &c. -Ver illud erat; ver magnus Orbis, et hibernis parcebant flatibus Cum primæ lucem pecudes hausere, And when he farther adds, shedding sweet influence, it is in allusion to Job xxxviii. 31. Canst thou bind the sweet influences of Pleiades? Spangling the hemisphere: then first adorn'd 385 With their bright luminaries that set and rose, And every bird of wing after his kind; 390 And saw that it was good, and bless'd them, saying, 395 387. And God said, &c.] This and eleven verses following are almost word for word from Genesis i. 20, 21, 22. And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven. And God created great whales, and every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly, after their kind, and every winged fowl after his kind: and God saw that it was good. And God blessed them, saying, Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let fowl multiply in the earth. This is the general account of the fifth day's creation, and the poet afterwards branches it out into the several particulars. 388. Reptile with spawn abundant, living soul:] By reptile is meant creeping thing; and according to the marginal reading of our English version, Gen. i. 20. (which follows the LXX version here,) creeping things are said to have been created on the fifth day. Le Clerc too with the generality of interpreters renders the Hebrew word by reptile. To this Dr. Bentley objects that creeping things were created on the sixth day, according to the account given us by Moses and by Milton himself. But by reptile or creeping thing here Milton means all such creatures as move in the waters, (see Le Clerc's note on Gen. i. 20.) and by creeping thing mentioned in the sixth day's creation he means creeping things of the earth; for so both in Milton's account, ver. 452. and in Gen. i. 24. the words of the earth are to be joined in construction to creeping thing. Hence the objection is answered by saying that they were not the same creeping things which Milton mentions in the two places. Pearce. Be fruitful, multiply, and in the seas And lakes and running streams the waters fill; 400 Of fish that with their fins and shining scales 400. With fry innumerable fish, of the Saxon sceole, an assembly. Hume. Shoals in sculls seems an odd expression; would not shoals and sculls be better? 404. —and through groves Of coral stray,] Coral is a production of the sea. The learned Kircher supposes entire forests of it to grow at the bottom of the sea, which may justify our author's expression of groves of coral. The ancients believed that it was soft under the water and hardened in the air. Ovid has expressed this notion very prettily in Met. iv. 750. Nunc quoque curaliis eadem natura remansit, Duritiem tacto capiant ut ab aëre; quodque Vimen in æquore erat, fiat super æquora saxum. The pliant sprays of coral yet de clare Their stiff'ning nature, when expos'd to air. Those sprays, which did like bending osiers move, Snatch'd from their element, ob durate prove, And shrubs beneath the waves, grow stones above. Eusden. 404. Coral is in reality pro |