May I express thee unblam'd? fince God is light, Dwelt from eternity, dwelt then in thee, 5 blame call thee, the coeternal beam of the Eternal God? The ancients were very cautious and curious by what names they addreffed their deities, and Milton in imitation of them questions whether he should addrefs the Light as the first-born of Heaven, or as the coeternal beam of the Eternal Father, or as a pure ethereal ftream whofe fountain is unknown: But as the fecond appellation feems to afcribe a proper aternity to Light, Milton very justly doubts whether he might ufe that without blame. NEWTON. In his Sumfon Agonistes, he gives to Light the first of these appellations, "O firft created beam!" TODD. Ver. 3. fince God is light, &c.] From I. John i. 5. "God is light." And I. Tim. vi. 16. "Who only hath immortality, dwelling in the light, which no man can ap proach unto." NEWTON. Ver. 6. Bright effluence of bright effence increate.] What the Wifdom of Solomon fays of Wisdom, Milton applies to Light. See ch. vii. 25, 26. "She is a pure influence flowing from the glory of the Almighty: She is the brightness of the everlasting light." NEWTON. Ver. 7. Or hear'st thou rather.] Or doft thou rather hear this addrefs, doft thou delight rather to be called, pure ethereal ftream? An excellent Latinifm, as Dr. Bentley obferves, Hor. Sat. II. vi. 20. "Matutine pater feu Jane libentius audis?” And we have an expreffion of the fame kind in Spenfer, as Dr. Newton remarks, Faery Queen, i. v. 23. "If old Aveugle's fons fo evil hear.”. See alfo Milton's Areopagitica; "For which Britain hears ill abroad." And the note on ver. 25, Ad Salfilum.. TODD. 10 Whofe fountain who fhall tell? Before the fun, 19. Ver. 8. Whofe fountain who fhall tell?] As in Job xxxviii. "Where is the way where light dwelleth?" HUME. The rifing world, &c.] See note, B. 1. 207. But Milton, perhaps, had the following paffage of Job in view, xxxviii. 9. "I made the cloud the garment thereof and thick darkness a fwaddling-band for it." TODD. Ver. 11. The rifing world of waters dark and deep,] For the world was only in a state of fluidity, when the light was created. See Gen. i. 2, 3. The verfe is plainly formed upon this of Spenfer, Faer. Qu. i. i. 39. “And through the world of waters wide and deep." NEWTON. But Milton's exact combination occurs, as Mr. Dunster alfo notices, in Drayton's Polyolb. S. ix. "The hanging rocks, and vallies dark and deep." TODD. Ver. 12. Won from the void and formless infinite.] Void must not here be understood as emptiness, for Chaos is defcribed full of matter; but void, as destitute of any formed being, void as the earth was when first created. What Mofes fays of that, is here applied to Chaos; without form and void. A fhort but noble defcription of Chaos, which is faid to be infinite, as it extended underneath, as Heaven above, infinitely. RICHARDSON. Ver. 16. Through utter and through middle darkness,] Through Hell, which is often called utter darkness; and through the great gulf between Hell and Heaven, the middle darknefs. NEWTON. 20 With other notes than to the Orphéan lyre, Ver. 17. With other notes, &c.] Orpheus made a hymn to Night, which is ftill extant; he alfo wrote of the creation out of Chaos. See Apoll. Rhodius, i. 493. Orpheus was infpired by his mother Calliope only, Milton by the heavenly Mufe; therefore he boasts that he fung with other notes than Orpheus, though the subjects were the fame. RICHARDSON. Ibid. the Orphéan lyre,] Mr. Warton fays that the epithet is perfectly Grecian, and the combination literally from Apollonius Rhodius: See his note, Eleg. vi. 37. But the Orphean lyre" had appeared before in English poetry, as I find in Harrington's Polindor and Floftella, 1651, p. 57. "the Orphean lyre out-mated." TODD. Ver. 20. and up to re-afcend,] So Chapman, fpeaking alfo of Chaos and eternal night, Revenge of Buffy D'Ambois, 4to. 1613. "Up from the chaos of eternal night "Once more I afcend." TODD. Ver. 25. So thick a drop ferene hath quench'd their orbs, Or dim fuffufion veil'd.] Drop ferene or Gutta ferena. It was formerly thought, that that fort of blindnefs was an incurable extinction or quenching of fight by a tranfparent, watery, cold humour diftilling upon the optick nerve, though making very little change in the eye to appearance, if any; it is now known to be most commonly an obftruction in the capillary veffels of that nerve, and curable in fome cafes. A cataract for many ages, Or dim fuffufion veil'd. Yet not the more Ceafe I to wander, where the Mufes haunt Clear spring, or fhady grove, or funny hill, Smit with the love of facred fong; but chief 26 until about thirty years ago, was thought to be a film externally growing over the eye, intercepting or veiling the fight, beginning with dimnefs, and fo encreafing till vifion was totally obstructed: but the disease is in the cryftalline humour lying between the outmoft coat of the eye and the pupilla. The dimnefs, which is at the beginning, is called a fuffufion; and, when the fight is loft, it is a cataract; and cured by couching, which is with a needle paffing through the external coat and driving down the difeafed crystalline, the lofs of which is fomewhat fupplied by the use of a large convex glafs. When Milton was first blind, he wrote to his friend Leonard Philara, an Athenian then at Paris, for him to confult Dr. Thevenot; he fent his cafe (it is in the 15th of his familiar letters): what anfwer he had is not known; but it feems by this paffage that he was not certain what his difeafe was: or perhaps he had a mind to defcribe both the great caufes of blindness according to what was known at that time, as his whole poem is interfperfed with great variety of learning. RICHARDSON. Ver. 26. Yet not the more Cease I to wander,] Yet do not I forbear to follow the Mufes wherefoever they meet. HUME. This is the fenfe of the paffage, which Bentley and Pearce proposed to alter, but which Dr. Newton allows. TODD. Ver. 27. where the Mufes haunt Clear fpring, or fhady grove,] So, in Sandys's Ovid, 1656, p. 6. "Our Demi-gods, Nymphs, Sylvans, Satyrs, Faunes, And, in bishop Hall's Defiance to Envy: "Come, Nymphs and Fauns, that haunt those fhady groves." TODD. Ver. 29. Smit with the love of facred fong;] So Virgil, Georg. ii. 475. Thee, Sion, and the flowery brooks beneath, 30 That wash thy hallow'd feet, and warbling flow, Nightly I vifit: nor fometimes forget Those other two equall'd with me in fate, "Dulces ante omnia Mufæ, "Quarum facra fero ingenti percuffus amore." NEWTON. Ver. 30. the flowery brooks beneath,] Kedron and Siloah. He ftill was pleased to study the beauties of the ancient poets, but his highest delight was in the fongs of Sion, in the holy Scriptures; and in thefe he meditated day and night. This is the sense of the paffage, ftript of its poetical ornaments. NEWTON. Ver. 32. nor fometimes forget] It is the fame as and fometimes not forget. Nec and neque in Latin are frequently the fame as et non. PEARCE. Ver. 33. Thofe other two, &c.] It has been imagined that Milton dictated Thofe other too, which though different in fenfe, yet is not diftinguishable in found; fo that they might easily be miftaken the one for the other. In ftrictnefs of fpeech perhaps we should read others inftead of other, Thofe others too: but thofe other may be admitted as well as these other in B. iv. 783.these other wheel the north: but then it must be acknowledged that too is a forry botch at best. The moft probable explanation of this paffage I conceive to be this. Though he mentions four, yet there are but two whom he particularly defires to refemble, and thofe he distinguishes both with the epithet blind to make the likenefs the more striking: "Blind Thamyris, and blind Mæonides." Mæonides is Homer, fo called from the name of his father Mæon: and no wonder our poet defires to equal him in renown, whofe writings he fo much ftudied, admired, and imitated. The character of Thamyris is not fo well known and established: but Homer mentions him in the Iliad, ii. 595; and Euftathius ranks him with Orpheus and Mufæus, the most celebrated poets and muficians. Plato mentions his hymns with honour in the beginning of his eighth book of Laws, and towards the conclufion |