So were I equall'd with them in renown, principally desires to resemble: and it seems as if he had intended at first to mention only these two, and then currente calamo had added the two others, Tiresias and Phineus, the one a Theban, the other a king of Arcadia, famous blind prophets and poets of antiquity, for the word prophet sometimes comprehends both characters as vates does in Latin. And Tiresias and Phineus prophets old. Dr. Bentley is totally for rejecting this verse, and objects to the bad accent of Tiresias: but as Dr. Pearce observes, the accent may be mended by supposing that the interlined copy intended this order of the words, And Phineus and Tiresias prophets old. And the verse appears to be genuine by Mr. Marvel's alluding to it in his verses prefixed to the second edition; Just heav'n thee, like Tiresias, to 36. Post rapta sagacem Lumina Tiresian, &c. Eleg. vi. 68. This enumeration of Tiresias in company with other celebrated bards of the highest antiquity would alone serve for a proof 35 that the suspected line is genuine. And Tiresias occurs again, De Idea Platonica, v. 26. T. Warton. 37. Then feed on thoughts,] Nothing could better express the musing thoughtfulness of a blind poet. The phrase was perhaps borrowed from the following line of Spenser's Tears of the Muses. I feed on sweet contentment of my thought. Thyer. 37. that voluntary move Harmonious numbers; &c.] And the reader will observe the flowing of the numbers here with all the ease and harmony of the finest voluntary. The words seem of themselves to have fallen naturally into verse almost without the poet's thinking of it. And this harmony appears to greater advantage for the roughness of some of the preceding verses, which is an artifice frequently practised by Milton, to be careless of his numbers in some places, the better to set off the musical flow of those which immediately follow. 39. -darkling,] It is said that this word was coined by our author, but I find it used several Tunes her nocturnal note. Thus with the year Seasons return, but not to me returns times in Shakespeare and the authors of that age. 41. Seasons return, but not to me returns] This beautiful turn of the words is copied from the beginning of the third act of Guarini's Pastor Fido. Mirtillo addresses the Spring, Tu torni ben, ma teco Tu torni ben, tu torni, Thou art return'd; but nought re- Save my last joys regretful memory. Fanshawe. 49. Of nature's works &c.] Dr. Bentley reads All nature's map &c. because (he says) a blank of works is an unphilosophical expression. If so, and if the sentence must terminate at blank, why may we not read? Presented with an universal blank; All nature's works to me expung'd and ras'd. Pearce. It is to be wished that some such emendation as this was 40 45 admitted. It clears the syntax, which at present is very much embarrassed. All nature's works being to me expunged and rased, and wisdom at one entrance quite shut out, is plain and intelligible; but otherwise it is not easy to say what the conjunction And copulates wisdom to; And wisdom at one entrance quite shut out. Probably the conjunction and was not designed to connect wisdom with any other word, but only to connect the whole clause with the two preceding clauses, as if all three had been taken absolutely; though strictly speaking only the words in the latter clause are taken absolutely; and wisdom at one entrance being from me quite shut out. E. 49.-ras'd,] Of the Latin radere; the Romans who wrote on waxen tables with iron stiles, when they struck out a word, did tabulam radere rase it out. Light and the blessings of it were never drawn in more lively colours and finer strokes; nor was the sad loss of it and them ever so passionately and so patiently lamented. They that will And wisdom at one entrance quite shut out. Shine inward, and the mind through all her powers Now had th' almighty Father from above, read the most excellent Homer, bemoaning the same misfortune, will find him far short of this. Herodotus in his life gives us some verses, in which he bewailed his blindness. Hume. 52. Shine inward,] He has the same kind of thought more than once in his Prose Works. See his Epist. to Emiric Bigot. Orbitatem certe luminis quidni leniter feram, quod non tam amissum quam revocatum intus atque retractum, ad acuendam potius mentis aciem quam ad hebetandam, sperem? Epist. Fam. 21. See also his Defensio Secunda, p. 325. edit. 1738. Sim ego debilissimus, dummodo in mea debilitate immortalis ille et melior vigor eò se efficacius exerat; dummodo in meis tenebris divini vultûs lumen eò clarius eluceat; tum enim infirmissimus ero simul et validissimus, cæcus eodem tempore et perspicacissimus; hac possim ego infirmitate consummari, hac perfici, possim in hac obscuritate sic ego irradiari. Et sane haud ultima Dei cura cæci sumus ;-nec tam oculorum hebetudine, quam cælestium alarum umbrâ has nobis fecisse tenebras videtur, factas illustrare rursus interiore ac longè præstabiliore lumine haud raro solet. 50 55 56. Now had th' almighty Father &c.] The survey of the whole creation, and of every thing that is transacted in it, is a prospect worthy of Omniscience; and as much above that, in which Virgil has drawn his Jupiter, as the Christian idea of the supreme Being is more rational and sublime than that of the heathens. The particular objects, on which he is described to have cast his eye, are represented in the most beautiful and lively manner. Addison. Tasso, cant. i. st. 7. From the pure empyréan where he sits High thron'd above all highth, bent down his eye, Stood thick as stars, and from his sight receiv'd 60 65 70 right hand of the majesty on high. Let the discerning linguist compare the preceding description of God with that by Tasso, cant. ix. stan. 55, 56, 57. Hume. 72. In the dun air] This is the aer bruno of the Italians, who almost constantly express a gloomy dusky air in these terms. Thyer. 75. Firm land imbosom'd, with The radiant image of his glory out firmament, &c.] The uni sat, His only Son;] According to St. Paul, Heb. i. 3. His Son who being the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person-sat down on the verse appeared to Satan to be a solid globe, encompassed on all sides, but uncertain whether with water or air, but without firmament, without any sphere or fixed stars over it, as over the earth. Firm land imbosom'd, without firmament, Uncertain which, in ocean or in air. Him God beholding from his prospect high, Wherein past, present, future he beholds, Thus to his only Son foreseeing spake. 79. Thus to his only Son foreseeing spake.] If Milton's majesty forsakes him any where, it is in those parts of his poem, where the divine Persons are introduced as speakers. One may, I think, observe, that the author proceeds with a kind of fear and trembling, whilst he describes the sentiments of the Almighty. He dares not give his imagination its full play, but chooses to confine himself to such thoughts as are drawn from the books of the most orthodox divines, and to such expressions as may be met with in Scripture. The beauties therefore, which we are to look for in these speeches, are not of a poetical nature, nor so proper to fill the 75 mind with sentiments of grandeur, as with thoughts of devotion. The passions, which they are designed to raise, are a divine love and religious fear. The particular beauty of the speeches in the third book consists in that shortness and perspicuity of style, in which the poet has couched the greatest mysteries of Christianity, and drawn together in a regular scheme the whole dispensation of Providence with respect to man. He has represented all the abstruse doctrines of predestination, free-will, and grace, as also the great points of incarnation and redemption, (which naturally grow up in a poem that treats of the fall of man,) with great energy of expression, and in a clearer and stronger light than I ever met with in any other writer. As these points are dry in themselves to the generality of readers, the concise and clear manner, in which he has treated them, is very much to be admired, as is likewise that particular art which he has made use of in the interspersing of all those graces of poetry, which the subject was capable of receiving. Satan's approach to the confines of the creation is finely imaged in the beginning of the speech, which immediately follows. Addison. |