Let the reader compare this with the following passage in Milton, which begins with Adam's speech to Eve: — 1' For never did thy beauty, since the day So said he, and forbore not glance or toy Of Eve, whose eye darted contagious fire. Her hand he seized, and to a shady bank, Thick overhead with verdant roof embowered, He led her, nothing loth; flowers were the couch, And hyacinth-Earth's freshest, softest lap. 5 ΙΟ 15 As no poet seems ever to have studied Homer more, 20 or to have more 2 resembled him in the greatness of genius, than Milton, I think I should have given but a very imperfect account of his beauties if I had not observed the most remarkable passages which look like parallels in these two great authors. I might, in the course of 25 these criticisms, have taken notice of many particular lines and expressions which are translated from the Greek poet, but as I thought this would have appeared too minute and over-curious, I have purposely omitted them. The greater incidents, however, are not only set off by 30 being shown in the same light with several of the same nature in Homer, but by that means may be also guarded against the cavils of the tasteless or ignorant. 19. 1029-1045. 2 First edition omits 'more' (Arber). HE Tenth Book of Paradise Lost has a greater variety THE of persons in it than any other in the whole poem. The author, upon the winding up of his action, introduces all those who had any concern in it, and shows with great 5 beauty the influence which it had upon each of them. It is like the last act of a well-written tragedy, in which all who had a part in it are generally drawn up before the audience, and represented under those circumstances in which the determination of the action places them. 10 I shall, therefore, consider this book under four heads, in relation to the celestial, the infernal, the human, and the imaginary persons who have their respective parts allotted in it. To begin with the celestial persons. The guardian 15 angels of Paradise are described as returning to heaven upon the Fall of Man, in order to approve their vigilance. Their arrival, their manner of reception, with the sorrow which appeared in themselves and in those spirits who 1 Spectator, No. 357, April 19, 1712. 2 First edition, — 'Reddere personæ scit convenientia cuique.-HOR.' which is translated in a later edition as, 'He knows what best befits each character.' See above, p. 14 are said to rejoice at the conversion of a sinner, are very finely laid together in the following lines: 1 Up into Heaven from Paradise in haste The Angelic guards ascended, mute and sad With pity, violated not their bliss. About the new-arrived, in multitudes, The Ethereal people ran, to hear and know ΤΟ How all befell. They towards the throne supreme, And easily approved; when the Most High, 15 20 The same Divine Person who, in the foregoing parts of this poem, interceded for our first parents before their fall, overthrew the rebel angels, and created the world, is now represented as descending to Paradise, and pronouncing sentence upon the three offenders. The cool of the evening being a circumstance with which Holy 25 Writ introduces this great scene, it is poetically described by our author, who has also kept religiously to the form of words in which the three several sentences were passed upon Adam, Eve, and the serpent. He has rather chosen to neglect the numerousness of his verse than to deviate 30 from those speeches which are recorded on this great occasion. The guilt and confusion of our first parents, standing naked before their judge, is touched with great beauty. Upon the arrival of Sin and Death into the 1 10. 17-33. 5 ΙΟ 15 20 25 works of the creation, the Almighty is again introduced as speaking to His angels that surround Him: 1 See with what heat these dogs of Hell advance To waste and havoc yonder World, which I So fair and good created, etc. The following 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 : 2 He ended, and the Heavenly audience loud Sung Halleluiah, as the sound of seas, Through multitude that sung: -'Just are thy ways, - Who can extenuate thee?' Though the author, in the whole course of his poem, and particularly in the book we are now examining, has infinite allusions to places of Scripture, I have only taken notice in my remarks of such as are of a poetical nature, and which are woven with great beauty into the body of this fable. Of this kind is that passage in the present book where, describing Sin and Death as marching through the works of Nature, he adds: — 4 Behind her Death, Close following pace for pace, not mounted yet On his pale horse. Which alludes to that passage in Scripture so wonderfully poetical and terrifying to the imagination, ‘And I looked, and behold a pale horse, and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him and power was 30 given unto them over the fourth part of the earth, to kill with sword, and with hunger, and with sickness, and with 1 10. 616–618. 2 10. 641-645. 3 First edition, 'the' (Arber). 4 10. 588-590. Under the first head of celestial the beasts of the earth.' 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 5 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 10 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 15 peculiar to this great author: 1 Some say he bid his Angels turn askance The poles of Earth twice ten degrees and more 20 We are, in the second place, to consider the infernal agents under the view which Milton has given us of them in this book. It is observed, by those who would set forth the greatness of Virgil's plan, that he conducts his reader through all the parts of the earth which were discovered 25 in his time. Asia, Afric, and Europe, are the several scenes of his fable. The plan of Milton's poem is of an infinitely greater extent, and fills the mind with many more astonishing circumstances. Satan, having surrounded the earth seven times, departs at length from Paradise. 30 We then see him steering his course among the constellations; and, after having traversed the whole creation, 2 |